Welcome to Submittal.com! If you’ve had a chance to look though our website, you can see we have a very straight-forward mission: To make software that’s as simple-to-use and standards-compliant as possible, so you can spend less time doing administrative tasks and more time building things.
Submittal.com is infused with industry knowledge. This would not have happened without the help of a large field of experts – people who worked with us as our co-designers. We would like to acknowledge their contributions and express our gratitude to each and every one of them.
First and foremost, we want to recognize Paul Stout of Power Summit, Claire Koenig of AGC California, and Bev Garnant of ASCC – the American Society of Concrete Contractors.
Paul set the stage for Submittal.com with notes and slides from his Project Engineer’s Boot Camp and the Construction Project Manager Certificate Course at AGC San Diego. He tested our prototypes and shared his wealth of practical knowledge. And, he introduced us to GC’s and subs who tested our work further. We wouldn’t be where we are without him.
Claire, a former executive at a mid-sized GC, tested our prototype in addition to introducing us to active NorCal AGC members. These introductions, to highly accomplished and technically savvy builders, added much to our understanding of process and workflows.
Bev graciously arranged a focus group for us at the ASCC annual meeting in Fall 2014. We talked with a dozen leading concrete contractors about submittals – what was working, and what was not. This is when we began to think that a new, lightweight approach to submittal authoring and review just might find an audience.
Thank You Designers
In the design community, we want to thank the wonderful Suzan Swabacker of Barcelon+Jang, Carlton Smith of MWA Architects, Lowell Hawkins of Dahlin Group, Jonathan Bensick of HKS, Morten Jensen and Andrew Moeggenberg of JRDV, Devan Porter and Brent Van Gunden of Gensler, and John McCaffrey, our specification consultant. Their insights into how designers view submittals and do submittal reviews were extremely useful. And we’re grateful for their perspective on what they’d ideally like to see from subs and GCs on projects.
Thank You GCs
A number of project engineers, project managers, VD&C managers, IT managers, and CTO’s helped us understand more deeply how submittals work in the world of the GC. We continue to be amazed at how they capably manage the paper flow to and from dozens of subs, plus owners, designers, and consultants, while scheduling concrete deliveries, keeping inspectors happy, tracking safety info, taking meeting notes, and more.
Our GC prototype testers, critics, consultants, and co-designers include Patricia Ceballos from Hazard Construction, Branden Laptalo from Hensel Phelps, Peter Razavi from Skanska, Chris Kekicheff from Suffolk, John Ylinen from Sundt, Jef Farrell, Glenna Kelly, and Matt Berriatua from Swinerton, Lincoln Wood from Turner, Janel Peralez and Noe Leon from W.E. O’Neil, and Mark Edwards and Brendan Bloom from West Builders. We couldn’t have asked for a more incisive, thoughtful group of professional builders.
Thank You Subs!
A number of first-class specialty subcontractors shed light on how they create and revise submittals. We especially want to express our gratitude to Tommy Pace, Crystal, Baez, and Art Gardner at Alcal, Stacy Withers of BT Mancini, Eric Blacklock of Casey-Fogli, Steve Reardon of Enterprise Roofing, John Landavazo of Landavazo Bros., Chris Forster of Largo Concrete, Kevin Pearson of Banksia Landscaping, Alexa Anderson of McKinstry, JoAnn Cruz and her co-workers at Rosendin Electric, Tommy and Peter Ruttura of Ruttura and Sons, John Grego of SCS Carpentry, Tim Manherz and Kelly Icenhower of TAS Concrete, and Matt Faith of Webcor.
And, Thank You BuildSite Customers!
We want to thank our distributor customers who bring their own special wisdom to specifications and submittals, especially Steve Miller of L&W Supply, Vicky Strand of Stetsons, and our friends Angie and Maria, Angela Salazar and Maria Lopez of White Cap.
While we’re proud of this initial launch of Submittal.com, we’re not done yet. In fact, Submittal.com is really just getting started. So, we invite each and every one of you mentioned here, builders and designers, to keep working with us as co-designers. If anyone else would like to join in to add your perspectives or thoughts, please let us know. We’ll be waiting by our inbox.
Once again, thank you all!
Ned Trainor
Founder & President, BuildSite LLC