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The air train station at Phoenix Sky Harbor airport was one of the projects that was a part of the ASLPM Prime Program Manager contract with Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport from 2013-2018.
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Service, Integrity, Collaboration
ASLPM finds success in carefully calculated partnerships By Sarah Magargee
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aad Ilyas’ career took an unexpected turn after he graduated from the New School of Architecture in San Diego in 1999. “I had planned to become an architect, but started running out of money to pay rent while I was looking for a job,” Ilyas said. “I knew I had to do something to keep food on my table.” Determined to remain self-sufficient, Ilyas accepted a three-month internship with ASLPM, a then-fledgling project management company providing services at the San Diego International Airport. The work, he explained, was humbling. “I am going to be honest, I had to swallow a lot of pride. My job as an intern was basically to be a ’go-fer’ fetching coffee, being introduced to very basic management concepts and rolling up drawings… but I was eager to learn, and the owner took note.”
Ilyas and ASLPM owner Gus Abadjis “clicked,” and his internship turned into a permanent position. When Ilyas’ student visa was about to expire, Abadjis agreed to sponsor him for a work visa, and Ilyas never looked back. Over the next 20 years, Ilyas learned the project management business from the ground up, absorbing every aspect of an industry that, at the time, was still developing. Ilyas explained that project management was not taught as part of the standard architecture curriculum in the 1990s, meaning he was faced with learning an entirely new career on the job. He said: “When I joined ASLPM, my peers in the field often asked questions that I was woefully unprepared for. That said, my architecture background proved an asset because it made it easy to interact with the architects and designers we were working with.”
