AECOM Heads Group Dedicated to Improving Georgia School District

By Eric Althoff

ATLANTA—Infrastructure consultant AECOM will be leading a program management contract for the DeKalb County School District in Georgia as part of its Education Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (E-SPLOST) VI Capital Improvement Program. AECOM will be working with Corporate Environmental Risk Management (CERM), a certified minority-owned engineering and program management firm. The two companies have performed previous joint work for the district for over a decade.

Aspects of the work entail renovations, additions as well as ground-up work for the district. The companies will also be updating the technology throughout the district buildings as well as improving equipment. Together, CERM and AECOM will be undertaking scheduling, design standards review, contract administration and risk management.

“We’ve been honored to serve as DeKalb County School District’s program manager for 10 years and look forward to continuing to perform to a high level of technical excellence in this role,” Bane Gaiser, chief executive of AECOM’s U.S. East and Latin America region, said in a recent statement. “We’re especially proud to partner with CERM, capitalizing on the success and momentum from our previous work together—and leveraging our existing experience, knowledge of district processes, and alignment with various public and project stakeholders throughout the Atlanta region to together deliver equity, quality, and value across this program.”

Added Chris McDermott, senior vice president and lead of AECOM’s U.S. East and Latin America Program and project management business: “Through our efforts managing assignments for hundreds of K-12 school programs across the country, we’ve developed proven approaches focused on collaboration, communication, and cost-consciousness. These best practices help guide our outcome-driven solutions that prioritize our clients’ overall program goals while optimizing capital investments.

“We’re pleased to bring this depth of experience to support the DeKalb County School District’s vision of inspiring a community of learners to achieve educational excellence.”

The DeKalb County School District, the third-largest in all of Georgia, services 93,000 students. In addition to physical construction work, its Capital Improvement Program prioritizes such modern concepts as diversity and inclusion, facility equity, and sustainable innovations.

AECOM, a Fortune 500 firm, reports revenue of $13.3 billion in fiscal year 2021 alone.