Former OTL project manager brings years of field experience, as well as practical knowledge of construction data analytics and financial management, to the Atlanta-based startup
ATLANTA (5/11/21)–ProNovos has hired Kevin Bright—who managed dozens of complex and high-profile projects in his 7-year career at data-driven construction firm Outside The Lines, Inc. (OTL)—as Solutions Engineer.
ProNovos creates both project-management and data-warehousing/analytics solutions for general and specialty contractors. In his new role, Bright serves as a liaison between customers and the Atlanta-based startup’s technical and data specialists.
“One of the fascinating things about Kevin is that he was with OTL before they rolled out our platform,” noted Bruce Orr, ProNovos’ founder and Chief Data Scientist. “In other words, Kevin has seen firsthand how contractors benefit by using ProNovos to take full advantage of their data, in the office and the field. It’s part of what makes him so suited to this role.”
Bright is currently pursuing a financial-management MBA at The Paul Merage School of Business at UC Irvine. “So Kevin is bilingual,” Orr said. “While he can talk all day about cost projections, change orders, RFIs, submittals and other project-management fundamentals, he also knows his way around a balance sheet. Kevin can help our prospects and customers better understand how ProNovos financial KPIs can supercharge their organizations.”
A native of Connecticut, Bright earned a degree in mechanical engineering from Washington University in Saint Louis. He was a technical service analyst at a software firm before joining OTL as a project engineer in 2014. “I found OTL’s focus on themed environments to be extremely interesting,” said Bright, who lives in Costa Mesa, California.
One of his first projects for the company involved a 100-foot-tall statue of the winged horse Pegasus (reportedly the third-tallest statue in the United States) fighting a dragon. It was part of a racetrack in Hallandale Beach, Florida. “OTL was building a show fountain around it and also installing the dragon fire effects,” Bright said.
OTL promoted Bright to PM in 2017. From startup to closeout, he managed all aspects of the projects in his portfolio, including change orders, purchasing, subcontracts and financial projections, and worked under tight deadline pressure. “Every project we did was usually the centerpiece of that new development, so it always had the client’s utmost attention,” Bright recalled. “Quality was the name of the game.”
More recently, in Arlington, Texas, Bright managed OTL’s construction of the fountain at the Texas Live! Development—a $250 million dining, entertainment and hospitality district between the Texas Rangers’ Globe Life Park and the Dallas Cowboys’ AT&T Stadium. As noted by OTL, the fountain boasts “57 fast-paced chaser jets over 25 feet in height, six vertical air cannons over 60 feet tall, six OTL custom-developed burst-effect air cannons, over 200 color-changing lights, and six dancing flame nozzles that captivate visitors.”
Having access to ProNovos’ cloud-based tools is part of what enabled Bright to tie together diverse aspects of the Texas project—mechanical, concrete, electrical, control systems, finishes and more—in a faster-than-usual 15 weeks. But tried-and-true approaches to quality-control were part of the equation as well: “I was on the jobsite with our crew until 3 in the morning before the grand opening, making sure everything was working to the client’s expectations.”
About ProNovos
ProNovos provides cloud-based business intelligence solutions and services that empower contractors to find new opportunities, make better decisions, save money and reduce risk. Founded in 2014, the Atlanta-based operations-management and data-analytics firm focuses exclusively on the specific needs of the construction industry. This actionable intelligence is accessible anywhere, anytime by superintendents, project managers, accountants, estimators, c-suite executives and other decision-makers. For more on ProNovos, visit ProNovos.com.
