Dive Brief:

• The National Institute of Building Sciences has announced the leaders who will serve on its BIM Program Steering Committee.
• Included on the list are executives from two major construction firms: Hannu Lindberg, director of virtual design and construction at DPR Construction and Jagannath Mallela, senior vice president and director of research and innovation solutions for WSP. The pair will work with other committee members including leaders of private companies and government agencies such as Amazon, Kaiser Permanente and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to create a national BIM program.
• Salla Eckhardt, director of transformation services with Microsoft, was appointed to chair the committee last month.

Dive Insight:

The National BIM Program kicked off in early February with a BIM Executive Roundtable of 40 business leaders, who discussed how a national program would help the industry by accelerating the effectiveness of the supply chain, providing predictable processes, improving project outcomes, driving efficiency and fostering innovation, according to the announcement.

The other steering committee members are:

• Sandra Benson, worldwide head of engineering, construction and real estate for Amazon Web Services.
• Angel A. Dizon III, managing director for program development, coordination and support, Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations at the U.S. Department of State.
• Jason Fairchild, CAD/BIM community of practice leader for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
• Michael Kennerly, design bureau director of the Iowa Department of Transportation.
• Paul Audsley, chief information officer of architecture firm NBBJ.
• Luciana Burdi, director of capital programs and environmental affairs for the Massachusetts Port Authority.
• Will Sharp, senior vice president and director of highways for HDR.
• Katherine Petros, team leader, Infrastructure Analysis and Construction Team for the Federal Highway Administration.
• Charles G. Hardy, acting chief architect of the U.S. General Services Administration Public Building Service.
• Russ Manning, executive director of the National Facility Operations and Maintenance Center of Excellence, Kaiser Permanente.

NIBS CEO Lakisha A. Woods said it is important to establish a structure that broadly engages diverse stakeholders.

"We need a coordinated program to improve performance, advance collaboration and foster innovation in the building industry," Woods said in the release. "The first step was to engage our partners. The goal is a solution to enable digital processes that will streamline industry practices and procedures on a national scale."

In related news, President Joe Biden recently nominated three AEC practitioners to join the NIBS board of directors. The appointees are:

• design professional Evelyn M. Fujimoto.
• Lori Peek, director of the Natural Hazards Center and sociology professor at the University of Colorado Boulder.
• Kimberly L. Jones, associate dean at Howard University. 

In her role as design director at Gensler, Fujimoto has designed more than 9 million square feet of building interiors throughout North American, Asia, Europe and the Middle East. 

Peek studies marginalized populations in disaster and helped develop school safety guidance for the country, which resulted in the publication of FEMA P-1000, Safer, Stronger, Smarter: A Guide to Improving School Natural Hazard Safety.

Jones' research interests include water and wastewater quality, environmental policy, membrane separations, global water treatment, environmental justice, risk evaluation and environmental nanotechnology, according to the White House.

If confirmed by the Senate, the board terms would begin Oct. 1.