From left to right, faculty adviser Thomas Skibinski, Lance Bowman, Angelo Sperandio, Jonathan Smith, Matt Geib, Jared Kemmerer, James Rainey and industry adviser Kaden McGregor pose with their $1,500 prize for winning the Student Estimating Competition. Credit: Provided by Thomas Skibinski
Civil engineering team wins cost estimation competition for third year in a row
March 6, 2025
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — A team of Penn State civil engineering students won the Constructors Association of Western Pennsylvania’s (CAWP) ninth-annual student estimating competition for the third year in a row on Feb. 20-22. The team outperformed 11 teams from seven different universities to take home a $1,500 cash prize.
Created in 1934, CAWP is a trade association for union-affiliated contractors in the heavy machinery, highway, railroad and utility construction industry in western Pennsylvania. The association hosts the Student Estimating Competition annually to help civil engineering students gain real world experience by developing a bid and schedule for a highway construction project.
Prior to the competition kick-off, teams were provided pre-job documents and a briefing. They used the first full day to develop their schedule and cost estimate for the requested project and ended the competition on Saturday, Feb. 22 with a 25-minute presentation, where they explained the process and reasoning behind their bids. Students then had the opportunity to attend a career fair and hear presentations from industry experts, prior to the winners’ announcement.
The winning team, “Beam Team Inc.,” is composed of six fourth-year undergraduate civil engineering students: Lance Bowman, Matt Geib, Jared Kemmerer, James Rainey, Jonathan Smith and Angelo Sperandio.
Two advisers assisted the Beam Team this year: Thomas Skibinski, associate teaching professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Kaden McGregor, an industry adviser from Penn State’s CAWP industry sponsor, Brayman Construction. Skibinski and McGregor also served as advisers for Penn State University Park’s additional team that participated in the competition, “You Can’t CE Me.”
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