Beacon News

Guido Morfesi joined Beacon's Construction Consulting team in the fall of 2022. Since that time, Guido has been providing project management and construction consulting services for Beacon's clients at multiple projects around the country. Although he is based in Florida, Guido also played a key role working onsite at a school construction project in Cincinnati, OH, through last year. We caught up with Guido this week to learn more about his background.

Question: When did you start working as a Construction Consultant with Beacon?

Guido: It will be 2 years in the Fall. The first project I worked on was located in Cincinnati, OH. That project involved the construction of a 144,000-sf school building. I was consulting on that project for 1.5 years before moving on to other Beacon projects.

Question: How long have you been working in the Construction Industry?

Guido: It's been 45 years now. Early in my career I worked as a welder. I then went back to school and earned a degree in metallurgy, but I ended up working in the construction industry and eventually worked my way up to be the General Superintendent on some very large and complex construction projects.

Question: What is the biggest or most interesting project you have been involved with?

Guido: I find something interesting about every project. However, the largest project I worked on was the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center (located just outside Washington, D.C.). I was the General Superintendent on that project, which involved building a $1.2-billion hotel and convention center.

The complex is massive (3.5-million square feet) and includes a 2500-room hotel, plus a large convention center. At the time, it was the largest project being built on the East Coast of the U.S. Our teams worked on the project 7 days per week, 24 hours per day for about 2 years. We ran 3 shifts (working around the clock) and poured more than 360,000 yards of concrete. The facility also includes 95 event rooms, 537,430 sf of meeting space, seven restaurants, and a 20,000-sf spa.

Another high-profile project which was interesting to work on was the Panarama Tower located in Miami, FL. This is an 85-story skyscraper, the tallest building in Florida, and also the tallest building on the east coast south of NYC. It was a $900-million project and was completed in 2017. It's mostly a residential building, but also includes a hotel, retail space, and office space.

Question: Any helpful suggestions for new construction project managers and other consultants related to keeping a project on track and moving forward according to the planned schedule?

Guido: Besides having a good overall team, you must understand the scope of work clearly and have very good, thorough pre-construction meetings to carefully review and discuss the project plan. Good communication is also critically important for keeping things on schedule.

Question: Did you always live in Florida? What do you like about living there?

Guido: No, I grew up in the Pennsylvania and other states in the Northeast. I have lived and worked in different states on the east coast and in the midwest. We have been living the Tampa, FL area for 6 years now. The weather and quality of life make Florida a great place to live.

Question: What do you like to do in your free time?

Guido: My favorite thing to do when not working is to spend time with my family.