Josh Chittick is a Director in the Global Construction Group of Ankura Consulting and is based in New York, NY.  He has over four years of experience working as a claims consultant in the construction industry.  Josh’s work has centered around assisting clients in analyzing construction schedule delays, cost overruns, losses of productivity, and other project issues in support of disputes and litigation on large-scale capital projects.  His industry experience, coupled with an educational background in civil engineering and engineering project management, allows him to provide key support on client engagements quantifying both delays and damages.  Josh’s roles have included leading and supporting the quantification of damages, such as forensic schedule analyses to evaluate project delays, loss of productivity analyses, trade/craft specific efficiency analyses, indirect/daily rate evaluations, and time-phased financial analyses.

Josh was born in Santa Barbara, California, and attended the University of California, Berkeley, for undergraduate and graduate studies.  At UC Berkeley, Josh earned a B.S. in civil and environmental engineering and an M.S. in engineering project management.  While an undergraduate student, Josh explored multiple disciplines within construction through internships and coursework.  Josh first interned at San Francisco International Airport as a civil engineering intern in the design and construction group, an experience that provided him with the opportunity to get hands-on experience in design work.  He next interned for McCarthy Building Companies in the preconstruction group, which represented his first exposure to project controls outside of the classroom.

Josh’s involvement in the world of project controls, and, more specifically, claims consulting, continued through his work as an undergraduate research assistant under Dr. William Ibbs.  Josh’s research focused on losses of labor productivity in construction and evaluating methods to quantify resultant damages arising from such losses of productivity.  Josh collaborated with Dr. Ibbs to develop recommended guidelines for applying the Measured Mile technique to evaluate loss of labor productivity, and ultimately published a technical paper on the outcome of their research in ASCE’s Journal of Legal Affairs and Dispute Resolution in Engineering and Construction.

Josh’s work with Dr. Ibbs inspired him to pursue a master’s degree in engineering project management.  As a graduate student at UC Berkeley, Josh worked as a teaching assistant for a project management class, a role that involved developing and teaching lectures on engineering economics, project finance, and project controls.

Josh’s coursework and research led him to pursue a career in construction litigation.  After finishing his graduate studies in 2018, Josh accepted a job as an associate working for Ankura Consulting (known as Navigant Consulting at the time).  In his capacity as a consultant at Ankura, Josh has worked on a range of projects ranging from heavy civil, to power and gas, to commercial buildings, among others.

With encouragement from Ankura colleagues and AACE members, Josh joined the San Francisco Bay Area Section of AACE to network with professionals in project controls and other construction engineering-related industries.  After joining, he regularly attended monthly meetings and presentations hosted by AACE throughout the Bay Area.  Josh attended his first AACE International Conference & Expo in New Orleans in 2019, during which he presented a technical white paper he co-authored on the topic of concurrent delays in construction, titled “Concurrency and Pacing – Does Intent Matter?”

Josh values his experience at the 2019 AACE conference for many reasons, including that it was the last in-person AACE conference prior to Covid-19.  He highly recommends young professionals try to attend an annual AACE conference, as it is an excellent opportunity for both learning and networking.  In 2019, Josh was able to network with AACE colleagues and met other young project controls professionals through the Young Professionals Committee.

After returning from the 2019 AACE conference, Josh went on to serve on the board of the San Francisco Bay Area Section of AACE as the treasurer for the 2020 and 2021 calendar years.  In his capacity as treasurer, Josh helped to guide the transition from in-person monthly events to virtual events, along with managing the budget for his section. 

Josh’s advice to the next generation of young professionals working in engineering and project control roles is to embrace the value of networking, both within their own company and the industry more broadly.  For networking within one’s own company, Josh recommends making a concerted effort to develop a relationship with colleagues, such as through coffee chats or lunches, while for industry-wide networking, he recommends joining AACE (or other professional organization) and trying to be as involved as possible.  Finally, Josh believes that young professionals should focus on developing and further improving skills to become a well-rounded professional.  While he acknowledges that the development of technical skills is important in the construction industry, Josh believes that it is also critical to develop leadership skills, including writing and communicating, which are often overlooked in the project controls industry.