CII Selects Dr. Dan Halpin for Carroll H. Dunn Award of Excellence

San Diego, CA – The Construction Industry Institute has selected Dr. Dan Halpin, professor emeritus and recently retired Head of the Division of Construction Engineering and Management at Purdue University, as the recipient of its highest honor, the Carroll H. Dunn Award of Excellence. CII formally recognized Halpin during its Annual Conference, which was held here July 26-27. The award recognizes outstanding contributions to the improvement of the engineering and construction industry.

Halpin is a native of Covington, Kentucky. He developed the CYCLONE simulation system used worldwide by engineering and construction researchers and is recognized as a leading authority on simulation of construction processes. He also is the author of Construction Management, which is a dominant text in engineering schools. His academic "family tree" includes over 1,000 undergraduates, 400 masters graduates, and 70 PhD recipients. Many of his former students are now professors, some involved in CII funded studies. He earned his bachelor's degree at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and master's and doctoral degrees from the University of Illinois. Hired by Georgia Tech in 1973, Halpin established and ran the construction program in civil engineering there over the next 12 years. After a brief two-year stint with the University of Maryland, he accepted the position of Head of the Division of Construction Engineering and Management at Purdue University. He retired this past January.

In 1983, he was among the first professors to join with major owner and contractor firms in creating CII. He was the principal investigator on early CII research efforts in cost/schedule controls, international construction, and emerging technologies, and later created the CII Emerging Technologies website.

CII is a research center at The University of Texas at Austin. Currently 97 leading owner and contractor organizations are members of CII, which has funded research at more than 40 U.S. universities. The Award of Excellence is named in honor of the late Carroll H. Dunn, who had distinguished careers in the U.S. military and in the public and private sectors of the engineering and construction industry. He headed a 1977-1982 study of the industry by The Business Roundtable. That study, known as the Construction Industry Cost Effectiveness Project, recommended over 200 ways the industry could be improved, including one suggestion to establish a research institute for engineering and construction. This led to the creation of CII in 1983.