Alexander Liz, Urban Planning and Design ’21
Hometown: Hackensack, NJ
Estimator, Montana Construction, Lodi, NJ
Alexander Liz didn’t set out to major in urban planning, but the experience he gained has fully set the tone for his career.
“My original major in engineering offered depth of knowledge but not much breadth,” he says. “Or at least that’s how it seemed to me at the time. Urban planning requires technical knowledge while still asking its students and practitioners to have a vision for what could be, and how to work with others to achieve it.”
“Urban planning is never any one thing you can pin down.”
As part of his undergraduate program, Alexander worked as a new construction intern at Bright Power, an energy consulting company. In this role, he helped architects and developers achieve compliance with certain green building programs like LEED, EGC, and more typically for affordable housing units.
Since graduating, Alexander has worked as an estimator for Montana Construction, a firm specializing in civil and heavy civil infrastructure construction. This has required him to focus on deepening his technical knowledge in the architecture and building side of the industry as well as construction.
“As an estimator I am responsible for producing detailed “take-offs”—counting, measuring, and calculating—everything necessary to construct a job. From there I will build out the job, determining the size of crews, productions, subcontractor requirements, and more.”
He credits much of his success to skills he learned during his undergraduate urban planning years. “The ability to think in three dimensions and represent information visually are the skillsets that have been invaluable to me,” he noted. “In addition, the understanding of how municipalities function and how to work with others has been critical to my success.”
He weighed in on the importance of developing good relationships with urban planning faculty. “Annoy your professors (politely)!” he said. “The industry knowledge and experience they bring to the classroom is worth its weight in gold.”
“It’s very easy to think you know everything if you read about it or present in class,” he continued. “Pick their brains about how things work in practice, what their experience has been with the concepts they present in class, and anything else you are curious about.”
Two professors come to mind that were vital to helping shape his path. “The ones I recall most often—daily wouldn’t be an exaggeration!—were my courses with Professors Tony Nelessen and Juan Ayala. Both brought a sense of optimism for the future and courage to bring bold ideas to the table while being so firmly grounded in reality that you couldn’t help but be excited to pick their brains.”
“Also, try hard on your assignments and your presentations. When you first enter the job market, this is how you will convey to employers what you can do and what you know.”
Between work demands, Alexander likes to keep his downtime simple. “On the weekends you will often find me dialing in espresso shots while I watch Formula 1 or some other form of racing,” he said. He also enjoys hanging out with friends, vinyl record shopping, and playing guitar.