About the practice
Built by someone who has actually run project controls at scale.
12+ years in project management, 4+ years specialized in project controls across engineering portfolios in the United States and Australia. This is the practice and the person behind it.
Five Stones Strategy is a project controls and financial visibility practice for the firms that need it most. Small to mid sized engineering, design, MEP, environmental, and consulting firms running real portfolios without a dedicated controls function.
I have 12+ years of project management experience and 4+ years specialized in project controls. Most recently as Project Controls Lead for Stantec's US Mountain Region.
I trained the Stantec Australia branch (post-Cardno acquisition) on software, PM, and project controls practices. I worked with the Global Delivery Center in India to expand offshore project controls support.
Five Stones is a practice built on what I learned doing the work, not what looks good on a slide.
4+ years. One Company. Steady growth into the role.
Apr 2026
Jun 2025
Dec 2022
Five engagements that show the breadth of the work.
A small sample from hundreds of projects. A representative cross section across municipal water, federal infrastructure, and utility generation. Project values reflect total construction value, not design fees.
Morris Forman WQTC Biosolids Processing
North Secondary Upgrades, Robert W. Hite Treatment Facility (PAR 1411)
Mallard Creek Basin Wastewater Improvements (Phases 1 and 2)
Broward County Water Preserve Area: C-11 Impoundment
Winyah and Cross Generating Station FGD Wastewater Treatment Plants
Signature achievements
01 · The Power BI rollout
A reporting cycle from days of work to a half hour.
I built a Power BI template that reduced KPI tracking time from 40-60 hours per project to 30 minutes. It was rolled out company wide to standardize how the regional teams track project performance, and now runs across hundreds of projects.
The point of project controls is not bigger dashboards. It is faster, cleaner signal in the hands of the people who can do something about it.
02 · The C-11 turnaround
Earning a second chance and turning it into a marquee program.
The first iteration of Broward County's C-11 Impoundment program had run into trouble and the client's confidence in our team was on the line. They gave us a second chance. I joined alongside a senior project manager to repackage the work and lead the team's recovery.
I built a Power BI dashboard that gave discipline leads a weekly view of spend against budget, and against the forecast as it diverged. I ran monthly forecasting meetings that surfaced variances early and kept the risk register honest. I caught an invoicing error early enough to recover money the team would have left on the table.
We booked the project at a near break even gross margin. By the time federal funding ended, we had moved gross margin 8 percentage points above the booked rate, the client had awarded 3 large change orders growing the design value from roughly $500K USD to over $5.3M USD, and 2 more change orders were in flight that would have pushed the program above $7M USD in design value.
The team's loudest opponent of the new reporting rhythm became its loudest advocate, eventually carrying the same Power BI dashboard to his supervisors as a candidate for business center wide adoption.
The Five Stones principle
I don't rely on luck, I come prepared. Five Stones means I walk in ready for anything, but deliver the one solution that actually works.
Five steps, in this order. Always.
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01
Identify where money or control is slipping
Before we agree on what to fix, we ground the diagnosis in real ERP and reporting data, not anecdote.
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02
Clean and structure the data
One source of truth, normalized. Forecast and actuals in the same shape.
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03
Build clear, usable reporting
Reports leaders can read early in the week and PMs can act on the same week. Nothing fancier than it needs to be.
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04
Implement forecasting discipline
Based in earned value, weekly cadence, owned at the PM level. Forecasting is a habit, not a quarterly exercise.
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05
Support decision making, not just reporting
The dashboard is a starting point. The recommended action is the deliverable.
Working style
My default delivery pairs a written report with a 5-10 minute recorded walkthrough so you can review my work on your own schedule and bring focused questions to the next live call. Live calls exist when the work is genuinely interactive, they are not the default.
This works because clients in different time zones, with full schedules and competing priorities, are better served by clear deliverables than by another standing meeting.
AI and data security
I am an enthusiastic, hands on user of AI for project controls work. I use it to accelerate dashboard structure, schema design, pattern checks, and rapid iteration on what to look for. Your private company information and your project specifics are never uploaded to AI tools.
If a deliverable requires hosted infrastructure (a Power BI workspace, a hosted dashboard, an integration), I will tell you upfront where the data sits, who can see it, and how it is secured before a single byte moves. You stay in control of the boundary.
If this sounds like what your firm needs, the next step is a call.
30 minutes is enough to confirm whether project controls is the right next move for your firm and what to look at first. No prep on your end. No pressure. If we're a fit, we'll talk scope. If I can't help, I'll tell you straight and point you toward who can.
Schedule a 30 minute callNot ready for a call? Send a message and I'll reply within 2 business days.