Friday, November 19, 2010
PRINCESS ANNE, MD-(Nov. 12, 2010)Louis Henry Gilford may not be a household name on the Eastern Shore, but some of the high-profile locations of some of his company’s design/build projects should be very familiar.
Gilford, founder and chief executive of Gilford Corp., a minority-owned general contracting company in Beltsville, Md., will be the speaker for the fourth annual Roger R. Blunt Lecture Series on current topics in construction management. The event will be Tuesday, Nov. 30, at 11 a.m. in the Student Services Center at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore. Gilford will speak on “Preparing for Careers in the Construction Business.”
“Mr. Gilford is a very accomplished entrepreneur whose construction company has survived many challenges during very difficult economic times. He wants to share his successful formula with others in the construction business, particularly students pursuing careers in the field,” said Dr. Leon Copeland, chair of the Department of Technology at UMES.
Gilford Corporation’s experiences range from modest remodeling projects to new construction valued at $56 million. The company is part of a joint venture building the Washington, D.C., Martin Luther King, Jr., National Memorial scheduled for completion in the summer 2011. Other notable projects are renovations to the Washington Monument and the construction of the 350-acre Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in Oxon Hill, Md., the largest economic development project in Prince George’s County history.
Gilford’s International Division renovated the U.S. embassies in Paris and Rome.
Prior to founding the company, Gilford oversaw construction cost estimates for Dillingham Corp., a California-based heavy construction firm. The work involved earth and rock excavation for tunnels, waste water treatment plants, subways, and locks and dams. As a manufacturing mechanical engineer with the International Business Machines Corp., in Gaithersburg, Md., Gilford designed the tools and equipment used to assemble NASA’s Saturn V rocket instrument unit control center.
Gilford earned a Bachelor of Science in construction engineering from Alabama A&M University. He is certified as a civil engineer in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Wisconsin. His expertise is in heavy and building construction; municipal and highway engineering; and construction cost estimating, management and safety.
The Blunt lecture series at UMES was created by its namesake, Roger R. Blunt, CEO of Essex Construction LLC of Rockville, Md., and a benefactor of the university’s Construction Management Technology (CMT) program. The program is the only four-year degree program of its kind in Maryland and the surrounding region. An upper division of the program is offered at The Universities at Shady Grove to serve graduates of associate degree programs in the Washington, D.C., area. UMES’ CMT program is accredited by the American Council of Construction Education.
The event is free and open to the public. For more information, call 410-651-6465.
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Gail Stephens, assistant director, UMES Office of Public Relations, 410-651-7580, gcstephens@umes.edu.
Bill Robinson, director, UMES Office of Public Relations, 410-621-2355,x
