Dr. Weidner is focused on articulating and increasing the awareness of facilities as they contribute to the mission of the organization/ industry they are intended to support. This is accomplished by review of empirical information and identification of linkages and correlation with primary objectives of the organization demonstrating the value of facility maintenance and operational decisions.

He has made a career of developing and leveraging tools that improve communication between the Owner and the design/construction team. These tools have been developed over 30 years of capital construction projects where the majority of occupants had no prior capital construction experience. The tools focused on deriving from occupants the functionality of the end result and on how it would be used, operated, and maintained. The tools were used in pre-design phase, well in advance of engaging the design/construction team with the output used throughout the delivery process to maintain alignment.

The vertical and horizontal infrastructure constructed in the US over the last 100+ years propelled the US to be an economic leader. However, as the infrastructure ages and society demands more efficient and effective use of resources, it is essential that engineers be equipment with the tools to identify and recommend effective infrastructure renovation and recapitalization projects. Such projects are more sustainable than prior build/use/eliminate strategies of the past, not just environmentally sustainable but economically and strategically sustainable.

Contributions to date have focused on quantifying measures of economic benefit, more work is needed to ensure the measures are both necessary and sufficient for future analysis. Succeeding efforts will be focused on organizing data sources and creating linkages.