Omō Strategic Preconstruction Leadership

06/23/2026

I didn't start in preconstruction. I got there by accident—through interior design, architecture firms, construction companies, and a lot of projects where I watched teams struggle to communicate across disciplines.

My undergraduate degree was interior design. My master's was construction management. I worked at architectural firms (JHBR Architects, University of Central Oklahoma's Architectural and Engineering Services) before moving to construction companies (Manhattan Construction, Gumerson Blake Design Build, Willowbrook, and ultimately QUAD Construction as Preconstruction Director).

What became clear across those years: the best projects weren't about individual expertise. They were about how teams worked together—and most teams didn't work together well.

Architects think spatially. Contractors think sequentially. Owners think financially. Those aren't competing priorities—they're complementary ones. But without someone translating between disciplines early, those perspectives stay siloed until they collide in the field.

That cross-disciplinary foundation—understanding how designers think, how spaces function, and how contractors build—is what Omō brings to every project. Not just preconstruction expertise, but the ability to speak multiple languages and align stakeholders before positions harden.

Strategic preconstruction isn't about managing costs. It's about creating the conditions for teams to do their best work together.

https://www.workwithomo.com/

06/16/2026

For 10 years, Drew Upchurch ran lean—and kept turning down projects because he was the bottleneck.

At Modus's 10-year anniversary, Drew decided it was time to grow. That meant hiring a Project Manager and Superintendent—real team expansion.

But before hiring, we had to build the foundation:

✓ Complete office buildout
✓ Logo redesign + website rebuild
✓ Safety program (22+ files → 2 documents)
✓ First employee handbook
✓ 14 PM templates
✓ Onboarding systems

Over 6 months, Omō handled the transformation while Drew stayed focused on clients.

The result: In the final week of the engagement, Modus hired two new team members—the first real expansion in 10 years.

Drew finally had capacity to stop turning down work. The infrastructure existed to support a team that could function independently.

What this proves: You can't scale without building the foundation first. Drew tried to grow for a decade—not because he lacked talent or relationships, but because the systems for delegation didn't exist.

Strategic preconstruction isn't just about projects. Sometimes it's about building the entire company infrastructure so firms can finally scale.

06/09/2026

Build the building in the office before building it in the field.

That is the core philosophy behind Post 2 of The Preconstruction Standard.
Constructability is not a final checklist. It is not something to save until the documents are almost finished. It is the discipline of asking hard questions early - while the answers are still inexpensive.

What is missing? What conflicts? What does the design require from the budget, schedule, site, trades, owner, and end users? What will become a change order if we wait?

The standard: three structured reviews - Design Development, 75% documents, 95% documents. Each one deeper than the last. Each one before the cost of change becomes prohibitive.

When preconstruction is done well, construction becomes ex*****on. When it is not, construction becomes problem-solving under pressure.

The field should not be where unresolved decisions are discovered.

06/02/2026

Twenty-three years ago, I went to interior design school dreaming of historic Southern properties.

Layered rooms. Old buildings. Places with memory.

That dream evolved into commercial interiors, healthcare, education, construction, preconstruction, and owner’s representation.

But the design foundation never left.

The Inn at Carnall Hall brings all of it back together.

A 49-room historic boutique hotel on the University of Arkansas campus. Named for Ella Howison Carnall, one of the university’s first female graduates and later a professor of English and modern languages.

Her name has been on the building for more than a century.

Now her story gets to shape what comes next.

Omō is serving as owner’s representative, design direction lead, and FF&E procurement manager.

This is where design, story, scope, budget, schedule, procurement, and preconstruction finally meet.

Preconstruction is not just for construction. It is a posture — the discipline of answering the hard questions before money moves.

For me, this is the full circle.

Follow along. This one is special.

05/28/2026

Most people assume preconstruction is about numbers. For me, it starts with people.

My graduate research at the University of Oklahoma tested what actually makes architects, owners, project managers, and superintendents want to share information with each other. I studied 53 professionals across ten factors — and presented the findings at the Associated Schools of Construction international conference in Liverpool.

The results surprised me: intrinsic motivation — the personal desire to succeed — mattered most. Competence trust came second. Contract trust? Further down. Monetary compensation? Last.

That finding didn't just inform my practice. It explained a decade of experiences I hadn't been able to fully articulate. The misalignments that hardened into conflict. The moments where everyone was technically doing their job and the project was still falling apart.

It's why Omō works at the front end — before contracts harden positions, before silos form, when alignment is still possible based on competence and shared goals rather than legal obligation.

This isn't consulting based on gut instinct. It's a practice built on published research.

Link in bio to learn more.

Pictured: presenting this research at the Associated Schools of Construction conference in Liverpool.

05/19/2026

A few weeks out from the CREW Network Founders Council meeting in Denver, and I'm still processing what made it different.

17 women who founded their own commercial real estate firms. Owner's reps, developers, capital advisors, project managers. Selected from 150+ applicants for a year-long peer advisory program.

The application asked one question: What's your biggest problem as a founder?
Mine: whether to scale Omō into a team-based consultancy or maintain high-touch strategic work where I'm directly involved in every project.

Sitting in a room with founders at similar inflection points - growth vs. focus, systems vs. relationships, revenue vs. impact - didn't give me an answer. But it made the path forward clearer through conversation, not advice.

The value isn't the highlight reel. It's the middle. The messy, honest conversations about what it actually takes to build something that matters while figuring out what version of "growth" serves the work you're trying to do.

Grateful for this group and the year ahead.

05/14/2026

In 2021, I walked into a construction management firm with no systems, no process, and no preconstruction department to speak of. So I decided to build one from scratch.

What started as an internal operating standard I wrote — and watched get shelved — eventually became the foundation of Omō.

At the Advancing Preconstruction Summit in Phoenix, Gareth McGlynn of the Preconstruction Podcast told me to publish it. Dr. Doyle T. Phillips — Construction Science professor at OU, Fellow of the Construction Specifications Institute, and former preconstruction leader at Nabholz — called it the most comprehensive approach he'd seen.

So I'm going to.

Section by section over the coming months — the philosophy, the process, and the gaps most firms never address. The full document will eventually live at workwithomo.com.

It doesn't include AI yet. That's intentional. You can't layer technology onto a broken process and call it progress. The foundation comes first.

This series is for owners who've been burned by a project that wasn't set up right. For CM firms trying to build a preconstruction department that actually functions. For anyone who suspects the problem started before construction did.
It starts next month.

05/12/2026

05/08/2026

Two days in Phoenix at the Advancing Preconstruction Summit.
Preconstruction is having a moment — and it's about time.

AI, procurement-led design, smarter risk frameworks, technology that's actually built for how projects work. The people pushing this forward are thoughtful, experienced, and genuinely excited about what's coming.

What I'll carry home isn't just the sessions or the frameworks. It's the reminder that the best work happens when the right people are aligned early — before contracts harden positions, before budgets are locked, before the pressure of construction sets in.

That's the work I love. And this week reminded me why.

03/28/2026

Grand opening day for City & Stars Midtown is officially wrapped, and I couldn’t be more proud of what Michelle Chan brought to life in the historic Plaza Court Building.

This is a major move for the brand—relocating from the original West Village location to this larger, more refined Midtown flagship with better walkability and synergy with the surrounding district. The 1,100 SF triangular footprint with two different structural systems presented a unique challenge: custom arched dressing rooms, ash wood details throughout, coastal finishes that adapt the design prototype we created for their Austin location last year to this historic OKC space.

Omō led owner’s representation and coordinated the design-build approach with Gardner Studio to bring Michelle’s vision to life—refining what worked in Austin and translating it to Midtown.
Watching this go from feasibility to today’s opening has been incredibly rewarding. Congratulations Michelle—this space is everything it should be. 🤍

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