Alex Belkofer
39, Senior VDC Director
McCarthy Building Cos.
St. Louis

Armed with a dual degree Bachelor of Science in Architecture and Construction Systems Management from Ohio State University, Alex Belkofer could have chosen a career in either architecture or building. He chose the latter.

“While I have a knack for technology and eye for design, I always felt more aligned and rooted in being a builder,” he says. “I have a deep appreciation for making things with my hands.”

His first job in 2005 was as a field engineer for a small construction firm, P|C|S in Cleveland, which challenged him to figure out the emerging technology platform BIM. Belkofer learned by attending conferences and talking with other budding technologists. 

Witnessing a presentation by Autodesk was pivotal for Belkofer. “I started to think about how we can use visual technology and use more cloud-connected technologies,” he says. While excited about technology, he also thought “I need to do my job really well as a young guy out of school. I’ve got to learn more about hands-on construction management …. but I also need to find all these other tools and things that can add value.” 

After rising to project manager and working with owners, designers and contractors, Belkofer realized “I have a pretty good handle on how to use this technology to streamline project delivery.” In 2014, he took a virtual design and-construction role at Messer Construction that led to his current job leading VDC at McCarthy.

Today, Belkofer is considered a technology pioneer and evangelist who’s striving to remain at the forefront of construction’s digital transformation.

An ongoing industry challenge is data exchange between the architect and builder, as well as between the builder and trade partners, and between the owner and contractor.

“Data exchange, to me, is still where the industry needs to take that big leap forward,” he says. “How are you going to be able to exchange information without loss of data, without loss of expectations and just being able to use tools in a seamless way?”

Despite room for improvement, Belkofer says data exchange is getting better “because we’re picking better tools to integrate into our projects that are easier to use. But we don’t have the Holy Grail yet.”

Since moving to McCarthy in 2017, Belkofer has grown its VDC group to 16 people and successfully led planning and execution of VDC initiatives on numerous large-scale projects in a variety of sectors.

He says active listening is key to adding new technology.

“I’ve learned you’ve got to meet people where they are at,” Belkofer says. “It’s really difficult in the construction industry to push one agenda and expect everyone to get aligned. There’s a lot of legacy knowledge and [those] who have been doing things in certain ways for a long period of time and think, ‘if it’s not broken, don’t fix it.’”

Belkofer shares his expertise broadly, serving as board secretary for the National Building Information Management Council of the National Institute of Building Sciences and overseeing the U.S. National BIM Program’s stakeholder engagement workstream.

A core team member of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers BIM Consortia and national chair of the Design-Build Institute of America VDC committee, he also is a member of the North American Construction Technology Consortium, an emerging group of large national general contractors that aims to use its collective voice to raise overall quality and consistency of the industry’s technology resources and infrastructure.