A New Era for Industry How the Hybrid Model Is the Future of Work by greg abazorius
The hotel at the corner of Arlington and Newbury streets in
In a town filled with historic buildings, this hotel has become a
Boston—overlooking the waterways and verdant landscape
mainstay, an opulent high-rise in one of Boston’s most trafficked areas.
of the Public Garden—has a rich history. Opening in 1927 as
Sharon Jozokos was aware of the building’s importance when new
the first Ritz-Carlton in the country, it has long presented an
owners took it over and rechristened it The Newbury Boston, contracting
element of luxury to tourists venturing off the Freedom Trail
her company, Columbia, to completely renovate the building.
and passersby clasping shopping bags collected from the chic boutiques freckling adjacent Newbury Street.
As Columbia’s vice president of healthcare, Jozokos, AET ’92, CMC ’93, oversaw work on the Oligo Synthesis and Ballroom project at MassBiologics and the Lahey Hospital & Medical Center COVID-19 testing lab in 2020. She was also privy to The Newbury Boston project undertaken by her colleagues, which called for a gut renovation, including infrastructure upgrades to bring all life-safety systems up to code, new construction of a glass enclosure for a rooftop restaurant, and significant interior expansion to create larger rooms and open spaces. Work began in late 2019. And then the COVID-19 pandemic struck. The team had to manage numerous protocol requirements, prioritizing worker safety and well-being while overseeing as many as 150 tradespeople on site daily. The current economy has also slowed supply chains, making it more difficult to obtain certain materials, impacting projects across the country. “The planning and execution of a project like this requires an enormous amount of collaboration and planning to minimize surprises that can affect time and cost,” shared the Columbia team, “while maintaining the highest level of quality a historical building such as this deserves.” — Roughly 450 miles away, Matthew Consigli was also refurbishing a landmark—the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.—while contending with the parameters of the pandemic. Consigli, president of Consigli Construction, and his CEO brother, Anthony Consigli, have long hired Wentworth co-ops and graduates, some of whom were working on this project. “When we work with Wentworth graduates,” Matthew Consigli notes, “we get highly intelligent people that are not only skilled in the latest technologies but are focused with a strong work ethic.” That skill set
Jenna Acord BSA ’21, MArch ’22 during a class held in the Center for Engineering, Innovation and Sciences PHOTO BY IAN LAPP
proved helpful in 2020—including with the recent completion of a new athletic center for Colby College—when his teams had to be extra creative. Consigli notes that his company and others are using 3-D visualization and digital project management tools, which have helped enhance and
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