Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) and Ohio Contractors Association (OCA) leaders are hoping partnering among project teams is habit forming. Why? Because success seems to follow.
That theme – that partnering breeds success – was encapsulated by OCA’s President Chris Runyan and Public Agency Advocacy Director Chris Engle and ODOT’s Assistant Director for Transportation Policy Dave Slatzer and Deputy Director, Division of Construction Management, Josh Bowman during the May 27 recognition at OCA of the 2025 Don Conaway Partnering Awards’ winning teams and individuals.
Presented since 2013, the Don Conaway Partnering Awards are given to the teams of project owners and contractors demonstrating proactive approaches in accomplishing project-specific goals, utilizing dispute resolution processes to solve issues so projects can proceed and more. The selection of overall winners – as chosen by the ODOT/OCA Partnering Steering Committee – is also based on the project teams providing original minutes from partnering meetings and stakeholder correspondence letters complimenting the partnering process. This year’s winners, who were announced at February’s Conaway Conference, were based on the work completed in 2024.
Prior to recognizing the winners in the Under $5 Million, $5 Million to $20 Million, More than $20 Million and Local Public Agency (LPA) project categories and the OCA and ODOT Individual Partnering Award winners, Slatzer said the power of partnering becomes apparent when projects go awry. “When plans change is when partnering becomes really critical,” he said. “… When times are tough, we work through it. If we can see past (the issues) we can really recognize the people that we are dealing with; we know those folks – we want to work together and be successful.”
Speaking just steps away from where the 2001 ODOT-OCA partnering agreement is displayed in the OCA office, Bowman also centered his comments on the importance of relationships. “One of the things I think makes Ohio a leader when it comes to partnering is the relationship we have with OCA … Whether it is working on a legislative piece, spec book changes or the interaction we have at meetings, I think that is a good place to start; and that really cascades across the state with what you are doing on projects.”
As evidenced by the geographic range of this year’s winning projects and individual award winners – from Districts 2 and 8 to Butler County and Districts 3 and 4 – the concept of partnering has become a steadfast practice throughout the state. According to Engle, this was the intention when former ODOT and OCA leaders first spoke of “partnering” in 1991. In the 13 years the Don Conaway Partnering Awards have been awarded, 25 contractors and all 12 ODOT Districts have been honored. In 2025, Sunesis Construction Company, Rack & Ballauer Excavating Co. Inc., ODOT District 2 and the Butler County Engineer’s Office were awarded their first Don Conaway Partnering Awards.
In his remarks to the award winners, Runyan said he hopes their partnering efforts will continue on future projects as well as serve as examples for fellow contractors and ODOT personnel to follow. “You are the teams that produced remarkable results by implementing the concepts of partnering,” he said. “Hopefully, after the positive experience you had on these projects, you will become the ambassadors that get the work done through the collaborative practices that partnering promotes – not always seeing eye-to-eye as we start to discuss matters of interest, but working out issues at the project level and having the strength of relationship to work through other issues on another day.”
“It’s a simple concept,” Slatzer said of partnering. “It’s really about professionals in the industry working together to advance the stated practices … That’s what the process, at least in my mind, is all about. And that’s what today is all about.”
CATEGORY 1
Projects Under $5 Million
Vernon Nagel Inc./ODOT District 2
Wood County S.R. 65 Culvert Replacement
CATEGORY 2
Projects $5 Million-$20 Million
Miller Bros. Construction Co./ODOT D-2
Ottawa County S.R. 53 Intersection Improvements
CATEGORY 3
Projects More Than $20 Million
Sunesis Construction Co./ODOT D-8
Hamilton County I-75 Reconstruction
CATEGORY 4
Local Public Agency
Rack & Ballauer Excavating Co. Inc./Butler County Engineer’s Office
Millikin & Morris Roads Roundabout
INDIVIDUAL PARTNERING AWARDS
ODOT – Ray Fridley, D-4
OCA – Joe Fockler, The Great Lakes Construction Co.
For more information about this year’s Partnering Award projects, check out the 2025 March/April issue of Ohio Contractor (pages 29-31).