One of the most challenging projects that UNT Facilities Construction Manager Cheryl Smith has faced in her career recently ended with a positive outcome when the university received the 2016 Harry H. Mellon Award of Excellence in Job Order Contracting.

“We learned there had been a fire years ago, before UNT owned the building,” Smith recalled of the property that now houses UNT’s Child Development Lab. “Over the years, people kept adding to the exterior facades to the point where we found windows in the walls.”

In accepting the award from Gordian, a construction data and software company, Associate Vice President of Facilities David Reynolds, thanked Smith and her team for sticking with the project which was on land that once housed horse stables, a gym with a pool and had plumbing that was disintegrating.

The Harry H. Mellon Award of Excellence has been given out for 10 years and is judged by peers in the construction industry. Next year, Smith will be among the judges for the following year’s projects.

“The fact that it was judged by my peers makes me excited and proud to receive this award,” Smith said of the project that took just under a year to plan and construct. “This was a project that was a challenge to our team because every time we turned a corner there was another issue. But, we worked together to finish it.”

Pictured from left, Helen Bailey, Director of Facilities Planning and Design Construction, Cheryl Smith, Construction Manager, and David Reynolds, Associate Vice President of Facilities, were among those from UNT in attendance when Gordian representatives presented Smith with an award for work done constructing the Child Development Lab.