Jill McKibbin, owner of McKibbin Consulting and founder of Commercial Industrial Service Trades (CIST) – a category specific construction networking group – has spent most of her career in the construction field. With a vast amount of contacts, some have referred to Jill as the matchmaker for the construction industry.
What benefit does that bring to the clients she works with? There are a number of the mega projects–like Shell or the combined-cycle power plants–that have garnered headlines and make up big chunks of the dollars spent, but there has also been a steady stream of smaller, regionally-focused projects started.
When federal monies are involved, often larger companies are looking to partner for specialty contracts with minority companies. This partnership allows for smaller companies to grow and larger companies to compete for work with a diverse group of contractors.
The CIST groups were founded by Jill McKibbin in 2005 and have continued to grow over the past 10 years. The group is only open to clients of McKibbin Consulting. The organization has three Pittsburgh Chapters providing professional services for commercial buildings from the ground up, including but not limited to: construction, architects, engineering, interior design, landscaping, elevator services, IT services, staffing, office furniture, interior plant service, marketing, and commercial cleaning.
Each chapter has one unique participant per trade to prevent competitors from learning of construction contacts shared by others in the group. In addition to monthly meetings, there are open quarterly networking events for all trades and business professionals wanting to interface with the construction industry.
According to an article published by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in May of 2018, “28 projects worth $1 billion under construction and more on the way: Downtown in midst of building boom.” That refers only to downtown. Do you know what’s happening in some of the surrounding counties?
With the rapid pace of change in Pittsburgh’s economy, is your company wanting to stay abreast of the growth in the region? Are you looking to connect with decision makers? Are you wanting to add support to your sales team in terms of leads? These are all things that McKibbin Consulting delivers.
To learn more about services, call 412-498-3572 or email [email protected].