Omō Strategic Preconstruction Leadership

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Omō Strategic Preconstruction Leadership

Omō means “insight.” We bring the foresight to anticipate challenges, align vision and budget, and keep projects on track. Clarity from day one.

07/30/2026

What is all that orange?

It is the part guests may never see—and one of the most important parts of the bathroom renovations at .

In May 2025, I was invited to ’s Montréal facility for technical training. We moved from classroom instruction to hands-on installation, learning how the waterproofing system works as a complete assembly.

That experience became especially relevant when we opened the existing shower walls at Carnall Hall and found wet gypsum board behind the tile—with no dedicated waterproofing layer. The rebuild needed to improve more than the finishes.

We are now using a Schluter shower waterproofing assembly, with DITRA across the bathroom floors, to create a stronger foundation before the new tile is installed.

The most important design decisions are often the ones that disappear behind the finished room.

What hidden building system would you like me to explain next?

07/20/2026

WEEK ONE ON SITE | INN AT CARNALL HALL

Phased construction inside an operating historic hotel on the University of Arkansas campus rarely moves in a straight line.

This week, several workstreams moved at once: first-floor bathroom demolition and plumbing rough-in; delivery of domestically fabricated vanities; ceiling, lighting and picture-molding coordination in the banquet spaces; structural reinforcement after concealed subfloor damage was uncovered; tile preparation; and the start of plumbing removal in 10 flood-damaged rooms.

The visible work is only part of the story. The real work is coordinating trades, procurement, design decisions and the hotel’s event schedule in real time.

This is the first construction chapter in our From Story to Scope series. What would you like us to unpack next—procurement, hidden conditions or construction sequencing?

07/08/2026

When I walked into the Inn at Carnall Hall there was no shortage of work already done.

Months of FF&E selections. Samples. Vendor conversations. Multiple designers across multiple attempts to get the guest rooms finished.

What was missing wasn't effort. It was an anchor.

The first thing I did was not open a single sample book. I went back to Ella.
I researched her life, her academic world, the portrait that had been hanging in that building for twenty years. I read about the Victorian Aesthetic Movement she would have inhabited. I studied the building's history until I understood what story it had always been trying to tell.

Then I wrote it down.

That document became the Vision Study — a formal deliverable presented to the owner, the hotel operator, and the university before a single new selection was confirmed. Not a mood board. A governing narrative that every decision could trace back to.

The portrait became the design document. Palette, material warmth, texture, literary references — all extracted from what had been on that wall for decades.
Then came the work most people don't see. Hospitality FF&E at this scale means casting a wide net nationally and internationally. Major casegoods fabricated overseas. Lead times measured in months. Vendors built from scratch. Every aesthetic decision pressure-tested against what can actually be sourced, at what cost, in what timeline.

Design and procurement decided together. Not design-first-then-figure-out-how-to-buy-it. Together.

That's what preconstruction leadership looks like in a hospitality context. And that's what this work actually looks like from the inside.

Active procurement is underway. More to come.

07/01/2026

Preservation gets framed as a binary choice more often than it should.

Keep everything original or replace everything to meet modern standards. Honor the historic fabric or deliver a building that actually performs.

That framing is wrong. And it is expensive.

The Jim Thorpe Memorial Building is a nearly 100-year-old OKC landmark — $60M design-build renovation, strict historic preservation requirements, full MEP and systems upgrades required.

When I was Preconstruction Director at QUAD Construction, this project became one of the most instructive of my career.

Historic window frames were sound — retrofit inserts specified, character preserved, energy performance met. Limestone panels didn't need full replacement — localized stabilization protected the historic fabric. Field verification eliminated basement waterproofing entirely. Wall insulation resolved a mechanical capacity constraint while improving energy performance. A fire staircase variance eliminated a costly third staircase through demonstrated code compliance.

The project is currently tracking $15M under its original $60M budget. Not because scope was cut. Because preconstruction asked the right questions before construction inherited the wrong answers.

Preservation doesn't mean starting over. It means understanding what you have before deciding what to change.

Ribbon cutting this October.
https://www.workwithomo.com/jim-thorpe-memorial-building-renovation

06/23/2026

I didn't start in preconstruction. I got there by accident—through interior design, architecture firms, construction companies, and a lot of projects where I watched teams struggle to communicate across disciplines.

My undergraduate degree was interior design. My master's was construction management. I worked at architectural firms (JHBR Architects, University of Central Oklahoma's Architectural and Engineering Services) before moving to construction companies (Manhattan Construction, Gumerson Blake Design Build, Willowbrook, and ultimately QUAD Construction as Preconstruction Director).

What became clear across those years: the best projects weren't about individual expertise. They were about how teams worked together—and most teams didn't work together well.

Architects think spatially. Contractors think sequentially. Owners think financially. Those aren't competing priorities—they're complementary ones. But without someone translating between disciplines early, those perspectives stay siloed until they collide in the field.

That cross-disciplinary foundation—understanding how designers think, how spaces function, and how contractors build—is what Omō brings to every project. Not just preconstruction expertise, but the ability to speak multiple languages and align stakeholders before positions harden.

Strategic preconstruction isn't about managing costs. It's about creating the conditions for teams to do their best work together.

https://www.workwithomo.com/

06/16/2026

For 10 years, Drew Upchurch ran lean—and kept turning down projects because he was the bottleneck.

At Modus's 10-year anniversary, Drew decided it was time to grow. That meant hiring a Project Manager and Superintendent—real team expansion.

But before hiring, we had to build the foundation:

✓ Complete office buildout
✓ Logo redesign + website rebuild
✓ Safety program (22+ files → 2 documents)
✓ First employee handbook
✓ 14 PM templates
✓ Onboarding systems

Over 6 months, Omō handled the transformation while Drew stayed focused on clients.

The result: In the final week of the engagement, Modus hired two new team members—the first real expansion in 10 years.

Drew finally had capacity to stop turning down work. The infrastructure existed to support a team that could function independently.

What this proves: You can't scale without building the foundation first. Drew tried to grow for a decade—not because he lacked talent or relationships, but because the systems for delegation didn't exist.

Strategic preconstruction isn't just about projects. Sometimes it's about building the entire company infrastructure so firms can finally scale.

06/09/2026

Build the building in the office before building it in the field.

That is the core philosophy behind Post 2 of The Preconstruction Standard.
Constructability is not a final checklist. It is not something to save until the documents are almost finished. It is the discipline of asking hard questions early - while the answers are still inexpensive.

What is missing? What conflicts? What does the design require from the budget, schedule, site, trades, owner, and end users? What will become a change order if we wait?

The standard: three structured reviews - Design Development, 75% documents, 95% documents. Each one deeper than the last. Each one before the cost of change becomes prohibitive.

When preconstruction is done well, construction becomes ex*****on. When it is not, construction becomes problem-solving under pressure.

The field should not be where unresolved decisions are discovered.

06/02/2026

Twenty-three years ago, I went to interior design school dreaming of historic Southern properties.

Layered rooms. Old buildings. Places with memory.

That dream evolved into commercial interiors, healthcare, education, construction, preconstruction, and owner’s representation.

But the design foundation never left.

The Inn at Carnall Hall brings all of it back together.

A 49-room historic boutique hotel on the University of Arkansas campus. Named for Ella Howison Carnall, one of the university’s first female graduates and later a professor of English and modern languages.

Her name has been on the building for more than a century.

Now her story gets to shape what comes next.

Omō is serving as owner’s representative, design direction lead, and FF&E procurement manager.

This is where design, story, scope, budget, schedule, procurement, and preconstruction finally meet.

Preconstruction is not just for construction. It is a posture — the discipline of answering the hard questions before money moves.

For me, this is the full circle.

Follow along. This one is special.

05/28/2026

Most people assume preconstruction is about numbers. For me, it starts with people.

My graduate research at the University of Oklahoma tested what actually makes architects, owners, project managers, and superintendents want to share information with each other. I studied 53 professionals across ten factors — and presented the findings at the Associated Schools of Construction international conference in Liverpool.

The results surprised me: intrinsic motivation — the personal desire to succeed — mattered most. Competence trust came second. Contract trust? Further down. Monetary compensation? Last.

That finding didn't just inform my practice. It explained a decade of experiences I hadn't been able to fully articulate. The misalignments that hardened into conflict. The moments where everyone was technically doing their job and the project was still falling apart.

It's why Omō works at the front end — before contracts harden positions, before silos form, when alignment is still possible based on competence and shared goals rather than legal obligation.

This isn't consulting based on gut instinct. It's a practice built on published research.

Link in bio to learn more.

Pictured: presenting this research at the Associated Schools of Construction conference in Liverpool.

05/19/2026

A few weeks out from the CREW Network Founders Council meeting in Denver, and I'm still processing what made it different.

17 women who founded their own commercial real estate firms. Owner's reps, developers, capital advisors, project managers. Selected from 150+ applicants for a year-long peer advisory program.

The application asked one question: What's your biggest problem as a founder?
Mine: whether to scale Omō into a team-based consultancy or maintain high-touch strategic work where I'm directly involved in every project.

Sitting in a room with founders at similar inflection points - growth vs. focus, systems vs. relationships, revenue vs. impact - didn't give me an answer. But it made the path forward clearer through conversation, not advice.

The value isn't the highlight reel. It's the middle. The messy, honest conversations about what it actually takes to build something that matters while figuring out what version of "growth" serves the work you're trying to do.

Grateful for this group and the year ahead.

Address

PO Box 7564
Edmond, OK
73083

Telephone

+14052032664

Website

http://www.workwithomo.com/

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