Preconstruction estimating
Conceptual through bid-level cost estimates for civil and site development scopes: earthwork, utilities, stormwater, paving, and erosion and sediment control, built to be defended, not just presented.
Civil and Sitework Cost Estimating
Complex infrastructure.
Non-standard conditions.
Estimates that hold.
I estimate civil and sitework costs for the scopes where the ground, the design, and the market collide.
20+ yearsCivil and heavy civil estimating
CPE, CPESCCertified Professional Estimator and Certified Professional in Erosion and Sediment Control
6 organizationsNational and regional speaking, ASPE to StormCon
Since 2016Published in trade and industry press
About
I turn ground conditions into numbers that hold up.
Sitework is where budgets break. It is the scope with the most unknowns, the least design definition at the moment decisions get made, and the fewest people watching the total picture. I have spent more than twenty years watching it, as an estimator on heavy civil and site development projects and as the founder of a national sitework estimating consultancy.
My work covers the full arc of preconstruction: conceptual budgets, earthwork balance and import export exposure, erosion and sediment control, utilities, stormwater management, and the bid-level detail that decides whether a number survives contact with a real site. I hold the CPE and CPESC credentials, and I serve as Vice President of ASPE's New Jersey chapter.
Alongside the project work, I write and speak. My essays and articles have run in Estimating Today, Design Cost Data, and I present nationally on earthwork cost risk, stormwater economics, and what estimating actually is. The through-line in all of it is the same: someone has to own the whole picture, and on most projects, no one does.
What I Do
The scopes that decide whether a budget survives.
Earthwork and site analysis
Cut and fill balance, import and export exposure, unsuitable materials, dewatering, and the geotechnical realities that quietly decide project cost long before anyone prices a pipe.
Cost risk and VE review
Independent review of value engineering and design decisions against site conditions and market pricing, because a savings on paper can be an import bill in the field.
Writing
A decade of arguing, in print, about what estimating is.
Essays and articles in Estimating Today and Design Cost Data - plus a forthcoming peer-reviewed paper on estimating excavation costs on the Moon.
Featured
Erosion Control, or Environmental Contradiction
On the gap between what erosion and sediment control is supposed to do and what the industry's practices actually accomplish, written from twenty years inside the numbers.
Design Cost Data · 2026
Read article“Sitework cost is not a property of the design. It is what happens when the design meets the site and the site meets the market.”
2026Estimating the Cost of Excavation on the Moon: A Protocol-Based ApproachForthcomingPeer-reviewed collaboration2019The Developing Trend of Hiring Independent Consulting EstimatorsEstimating Today2019The Role of an EstimatorDesign Cost Data2018The Critical Components of a Construction Cost EstimateDesign Cost Data2017The Problem with Today's Construction Specification BooksDesign Cost Data2016Let's Level the Playing FieldDesign Cost DataEssaysThe Spec Book V. The Children's Cookbook · We Came In Under Budget, Said No One EverSelected essays
Speaking
National stages, one subject: where site cost actually comes from.
Presentations for estimators, engineers, and owners on earthwork cost risk, stormwater economics, and erosion and sediment control.
ASPE
IECA
StormCon
NYSSPE
CERT
HalfMoon Education
New
Upcoming · October 2026
Earthwork Cost Risk
NYSSPE. Why earthwork is the scope most likely to break a budget, and what owners and engineers can actually do about it before the bid.
NJ ASPE · 2024
Stormwater Detention Value Engineering
Four functionally equivalent detention systems, a nearly three-to-one cost spread, and the site conditions that flip which one wins.