L. Keeley + SIUE

By: Claire Sauer

Keeley Companies is invested in continuous education and we even have our own cultural pillar, KeeleyU, dedicated to the professional learning and development of our Keeley’ns. However, we have many Keeley’ns who are passionate about educating the future generations of Keeley’ns in the various industries we serve. The L. Keeley Building Group exemplifies this passion and we are so grateful for their commitment to growing our partnerships and helping others.

L. Keeley Building has built a strong partnership with SIUE and many of our Keeley'ns are actively involved in their Construction Management program. Devin Gates and Kevin Nesselhauf, Project Managers for the Building Group, are actively involved with this program in many ways. Both received their BS in Construction Management from SIUE and continue to support the students. Kevin also received his MBA from SIUE in 2013. Both Devin and Kevin have participated with the SIUE Career Development Center, conducting mock interviews for students that were looking to improve their interviewing skills before starting their job searches. Devin and Kevin were also invited by the Chair of the Construction Management Department to teach classes during the Fall 2019 semester. Devin taught Estimating while Kevin taught Planning & Scheduling. Both were able to teach in-person for eight weeks, but then had to move to remote teaching for the last sessions of the semester due to COVID-19. Both Devin and Kevin have loved teaching and Kevin likes to say that teaching is in his blood. Devin and Kevin are both excited to return to in-person teaching as soon as they are able!

When they are able to return to the classroom, Devin intends to find his class a volunteer opportunity where they can visit a site and use what they have learned to create an estimate for that site. His teaching philosophy is to focus less on memorizing what is in the book and provide his students with real-world experience combined with guest speakers, bid reviews, and discussing common mistakes in the field and how to implement innovative solutions. Along with teaching, Kevin has served on numerous boards and committees including the SIUE Alumni Association Board of Directors, academic search committees, and the Construction Management Department Leadership Board.

Ryan Perryman, Vice President of the Building Group, is also a graduate of SIUE having received his degree from the School of Engineering. To this day, Ryan remains dedicated to SIUE and is involved in various programs and committees. For the SIUE Alumni Association, Ryan serves as Board Director and a Mentorship Committee Member. He is an Advisory Board Member for the School of Engineering and has served as a Guest Speaker on many occasions for the Construction Management Department. Ryan’s passion for developing the next generation of Keeley’ns is evident through his involvement with the Career Development Center. For the Career Development Center, Ryan is a Students Today Alumni Tomorrow (STAT) Mentor, Career Connections Volunteer, Mock Interview Day Volunteer, Speed Networking Volunteer, and a Teachers STEM Panel Speaker.

During the summer of 2019, the Building Group hosted Dr. Abdelaty, an SIUE faculty member, for a summer co-op opportunity. Dr. Abdelaty worked with the Building Group to analyze their processes for areas of improvement and efficiency. This co-op served the dual purpose of providing him with real world experience and scenarios for his classroom work while helping team members evaluate the effectiveness on our projects. Specifically, Dr. Abdelaty created a program to evaluate punch lists for consistent areas of improvement, created an internal customer survey process and an external subcontractor survey to review our effectiveness, and he shadowed jobsites to better understand the daily processes of our superintendents.

Finally, many Keeley’ns across L. Keeley have graduated from SIUE – April Lopinot, Shane Spears, Peter Moeller, Jared Kraus, Ryan Downey, Nick Timmerman, and Brian Cox. With so many alumni, L. Keeley has taken an active role in recruiting interns from SIUE in hopes that they become future Keeley’ns. Over the past four years, 16% of our interns have hailed from SIUE.

We are so grateful for this amazing partnership with SIUE and can’t wait to continue to strengthen our relationship in the coming years.

Learn more about the L. Keeley Building Group here.