Tackling the Data Deficit in Construction | Work Done Right With Eveart Foster

This week’s guest on the Work Done Right podcast is Eveart Foster, who joins us to discuss the innovative new ways that data is being used in construction, how to overcome fragmented datasets, and opportunities in the project data lifecycle.

About Eveart

Eveart Foster recently joined the Autodesk team as an Integrations Subject Matter Expert, where he leverages his extensive background in enterprise technology implementation to advance the digital transformation for the construction industry.

 

In his free time, Eveart also serves as associate board President at Working in the Schools, a literacy nonprofit in Chicago that provides mentorship to public school students, as well as professional development to teachers.

 

Eveart has been recognized as one of Building Design + Construction Magazine’s 40 under 40, and Chicago Crain’s Business Magazines 20 in their 20’s.

Top 3 Episode Takeaways

  1. One of the largest barriers to digitalization faced by the construction industry is that data is extremely siloed. Pre-con, project management, and administrative tasks are often all managed on separate platforms, and field roles often still rely on paper-based processes. This creates a major disconnect. 

  2. Robotics are gaining a lot of momentum in the industry. Examples include the Hilti Jaibot, which is a robot that can go on a job site and do overhead installations. 

  3. Work isn’t the only place you can do professional and personal development. Through his volunteer work at WITS Chicago, Eveart has created immense value for his community while pushing himself to go out of his comfort zone and learn a new skill – fundraising. 

Episode Transcript

 

Wes Edmiston:  

 

That’s quite a background that you have. You’ve definitely had a diverse experience with some of the companies you’ve worked with in the past. Whenever you and I first met, you were working within Built Worlds, a whole construction technologies and construction industry company focused on connecting the different inputs of the industry.  

 

Can you tell us a little bit about how it is that you got into the construction industry and some of the experiences you’ve had along the way?   

 

Eveart Foster:  

 

Yes, certainly. And thank you guys for having me on this.  

 

I’m very humbled and happy to be here, so I appreciate the time. How I got into construction industry. So my background was that I went to school for Mechanical engineering at Indiana State University that was really focused on 3D engineering, 3D modeling, and components modeling.  

 

And when I graduated, I went into a manufacturing design engineer role in Indiana. For a semi trailer and drive freight trailer manufacturing company called Great Dane, where I leverage a lot of 3D modeling skills, engineering practices, and project management to roll out a ton of semi trailers.  

 

I had a roommate in college who was a construction management major who actually ended up getting a job pepper Construction several months before I did. And we made maintain a strong relationship and he would periodically send me information about what he was up to.  

 

It looked really appealing to me. And then one day he sent me a short two minute video that kind of summarized what Vdc was at the time personal design construction. And it looked really interesting.  

 

So, long story short, I applied and Pepper took a chance on me and they hired me as a virtual construction engineer at the time. And I ended up starting, I think it was December, November 2015, and in their role as a hybrid between a 3D modeling engineer and someone who could come in and step up for managing highperformance sustainability documentation, I ended up doing technical structure modeling, a little bit of precon estimating, and then I ultimately went into reality capture.  

 

And that blew my mind because I didn’t know it existed. And there wasn’t a lot of expertise internally at Pepper who could really scale it. So I had a great opportunity, a blue ocean opportunity to kind of own that area of Pepper’s Crunch delivery technology.  

 

And then within that, I naturally got exposed to more of the opportunities for technology to make an impact for construction by kind of meeting and networking internally at Pepper to see what people are up to and to see how I could potentially assist them in their operations.  

 

So that’s how I got into the construction industry. And then every chance I got, I was continuously learning as an outsider. Without construction management degree or without traditional project management experience, what problems were facing the industry that could be met with technology.  

 

So that’s where organically I started to transition into different roles that allowed me to be into construction technology implementation. So within my time at Pepper at the Reality capture scanned the BIM a little bit of MEP coordination and a little lot of discovery on how to enhance reality Capture and progress documentation.  

 

So I was an early adopter with the Pharaoh Scanners at that time. One of the co founders of Structure Site before Structuring Site existed, Phil Lorenzo would help me out with analyzing point cloud data with his plugin called Rhythm.  

 

That’s where me and him establish a really good relationship. And then ultimately when they launched structured Site on one of the early adopters. So we got to pilot test Structure Site and its infancy and additionally pilot tests all the other competitors at that time, which really got to expose me to the construction tech ecosystem.  

 

Long story short, left Pepper, went into software customer success management, product management, and then I built world a high level understanding 30,000 foot view of understanding the ENR 400 technology stack and what they needed from it.  

 

And then now here at Autodesk leveraging that several years of experience with different technology and pain point understandings to integrate all the solutions I’ve ever seen. That’s the goal. But that’s a high level how I got to the construction industry.  

 

Wes Edmiston:  

 

That’s quite the story. Honestly. Just again, the level of diversity that you have in your background with the experiences for what you’ve done, honestly, it’s encouraging to hear that Autodesk is bringing in people like yourself that have that one that actual field level practical experience, but also just the.  

 

To work with software implementation and the body of knowledge that you have from your experience is excellent to hear. I know that one of the things that you are most passionate about is data, largely because of what it is that you’ve seen with BDC and software implementation and development.  

 

Are there any areas in the construction industry where you think that we could be doing a better job of preparing data to be utilized through digitalizations and innovation?  

 

Eveart Foster:  

 

Right. So obviously there’s a digital transformation naming convention that almost every stakeholder and construction project delivery value chain identifies with.  

 

And where we could do better is planning out data after the project is completed and understanding the value that data holds long term across all of your projects. What I mean by that is, from the general contractor standpoint, we obviously have historical information on estimates, bids, anything to do with your supply chain, anything to do with your material pricing, your labor pricing, all that so on and so forth.  

 

We have new data available about what’s happening on the job site from reality capture, progress, documentation and so on and so forth. But we don’t have historical data about how it correlates with itself.  

 

Meaning you have your Pre-Con department, you have your project management execution, your superintendent’s, construction administration, then you have close out. Historically, that data has never had relationship to any of itself.  

 

It’s just always existed in silo. And that is ultimately what every single general contractor and technology solution provider is aiming to bridge the gap on for lack of better work is connecting information that has never talked to itself to itself through either an API or through a custom integration to allow long term data sets to teach you about what to recognize for your future projects.  

 

To teach you about how to improve your current projects and then ultimately to show you where there’s gaps that have not yet been filled from your project execution efficiency. What I mean by that is if you start to integrate all this data, you will start to see trends, you will start to see correlations, and then you’ll start to predict what can happen next just by introducing data system for existence.  

 

The type of data we have in construction is a lot. As you know, there’s easy data like Csv files and spreadsheets and anything that can be kind of uploaded to a cloud-based system. And then you have the hard data, the messy data that’s hard to get as far as information that maybe is shared in an email or information that’s shared on a phone call or information that’s just discussed in a meeting that has a monumental impact on the project success.  

 

That’s data two, that turns into either an RFI decision or a cost impact or change order. Those decision processes, those need to be cataloged too, because that’s the secret sauce of a successful project that is hard to train someone fresh out of college or fresh to the industry how to do again.  

 

That’s where you have a lot of information that I think is going to be a differentiator between a GC who makes a profit and a GC who exists another 50 years from other gcs who do not. As far as specialty trades and other stakeholders on the construction project lifecycle, they have similar data sets that could correlate upwards and downwards from their contract.  

 

And then that’s a whole other conversation about contract data downstream, meaning how many of your subcontracts have allowed your project to meet success from a percentage of profit? Than how many of your upstream or your parent contracts have been successful in making your company money at the project level.  

 

So all that data historically has not had the opportunity to exist in a very efficient way alongside itself. And that’s one of the reasons why I’ve stepped into this role at Autodesk is to start to integrate some of that data.  

 

We won’t get all of it, at least not in the immediate future, some of that data to start to make impacts at the industry level and not just at an individual project level. I’d be interested to see correlations between, we’ll say, the profitability of a project or its likelihood in order to end up on schedule versus the number of those change orders and emails, those discussions that occur basically midstream in project or earlier on in the project to see how that ends up affecting project lifecycle and decision.  

 

Wes Edmiston:  

 

The ultimate results, I imagine, is that something that you guys are probably not in the next year or so, but is that something that you’re wanting to target in the long term as a way of just utilizing this data to better analyze and build projects?  

 

Eveart Foster: 

 

Oh, definitely, for sure. Because it’s interesting how I got this role just to kind of segue into where I’m at now. I was at build roles for the last 18 months from a 30,000 foot view, looking at the industry and what’s possible.  

 

So I was meeting with tech adoption leaders and really having intimate conversation with them around what the pain points are at their organization. So I’ve had a tremendous amount of knowledge and information given to me from the people in charge of writing checks to buy technology to fill gaps.  

 

And ultimately, they have similar roles. Tech adoption leaders, innovation managers, CTOs, CIOs and what they’re all trying to accomplish is not necessarily more technology, but more understanding of their operations.  

 

Through technology and innovation. And their goal is to fill in gaps where you need an expert to come in. We all know that there’s a labor shortage in construction from a manual labor standpoint, but there’s actually a skilled management shortage approaching as well, with more people retiring, superintendents leaving.  

 

And that skilled management is so reliant upon understanding what to do in scenarios. So if you can start to understand why you made decisions in past scenarios and let that be augmented by technology, that is where their mindset is.  

 

That’s where the industry is going as to how do we offset some of these 30, 40 year brains into a system that can kind of augment those reactions and augment that project management? Where I think the opportunity I have now with Autodesk and what we’re trying to do is we’re trying to connect all these endpoints from preconstruction to close out.  

 

So then you can have a database or a bank of knowledge about what happened on your past projects, current projects, and what could happen. At least start to get it stored. That’s step one is store it into a centralized database for one project.  

 

And then once you have that one project from end to end on a centralized database, do it multiple times for multiple projects and then do it with multiple stakeholders. So that’s step two is have your stakeholders on the same data set as you, so they don’t have to do double data entry, because what’s happening is a general contractor will hire administrative assistant, a project manager, or a two year project engineer to do data entry.  

 

When the data comes to them from an email or from a cloud-based solution, they actually still have the task of either downloading the data or copying the data to their system of record and then storing it there in their language and their file naming convention of record.  

 

So that’s just one office, one company. When you think about a construction project, there’s maybe 30 offices doing the exact same thing just to cover themselves, for lack of better words. Right? When you move to a cloud-based system, you allow multiple stakeholders to stop having to duplicate the same job that you’re doing and charging the client the same overhead that you’re charging the client.  

 

So that’s the goal is if you can centralize the data into one cloud area for multiple project stakeholders, you reduce the overhead of construction administration that multiple stakeholders are charging back to the client.  

 

So long term, once we get that as your step one, step two is we can learn from that information. I don’t think that’s going to happen in 2023 within my role, but I think maybe by this decade, with the availability of different AI systems and machine learning, you can start to predict what would happen.  

 

As long as you have historical database that’s been centralized and can query itself, for lack of better words, to understand what’s going to happen next. But that takes a lot of clean information to come in.  

 

That requires your data lake to be data streams and that requires a code of conduct, for lack of better words, on how data is managed, cleaned and deleted too.   

 

Wes Edmiston:  

 

Hey, real quick, this is Wes. I just wanted to let you know that if you have an idea for an episode topic or a great guest suggestion, we would love to hear from you.  

 

Just send us an email at WorkDoneRight@cumulusds.com. Now, back to the show.  

 

We are in a position where it is that those senior level managers, or even middle-level managers, it’s not just craft that are getting to the age where they’re leaving the industry.  

 

There’s a lot of knowledge within managing projects that is just, that is just leaving. And even a lot of people that I know, that I’ve worked with in the past are actually getting to positions where. 

 

They’re actually leaving managing projects. They’re either going on to some of these other tech adoption leaders, which is great, but also getting into some of them into consulting, but just leaving the industry at large.  

 

So it’s great to see that you guys are working toward building up not just the ability in order to deploy some of these other technologies and better utilize data there, but also building up a knowledge bank to help to better manage projects.  

 

That’s really exciting to hear. I can’t wait to see what you guys end up doing there.  

 

Eveart Foster:  

 

Yeah, and it’s one of the reasons why Autodesk is so appealing to me is over the last 18 months, I’ve been researching the ENR 400 tech stack for Pre-Con close out, and there’s only a handful of solutions that can operate on that scale.  

 

ProCore, Trimble, AutoDesk, I put as the top three. And then you have your ERP systems in your accounting and project finance systems that have to integrate with those construction administration platforms.  

 

But that’s one of the reasons I joined. And I think one of the reasons why it really resonated in the interview process was that part of the interview process was for me to present on issues challenging the construction industry right now.  

 

And I presented a graphic that I created that kind of illustrates the disconnection of construction technologies information cycle. So you have Pre-Con, let’s say there’s estimated scheduling, bid management, and then project modeling, right, those four or five different areas of Preconstruction.  

 

Then you go into project management, you have documentation and collaboration. You have RFI submittals, file sharing. And then you go into field technology, which you’ve have tools, robotics and equipment systems that grab data from your tools in the field.  

 

And you have your whole entire suite of how do you manage the field. That’s another technology stack. All these different technology stacks historically are different companies. Once you start to centralize that data into maybe one cloud platform.  

 

You have the ability to start to connect those different areas of technology’s, data into one platform. So that’s your first step. But what I presented was, where we’re at right now is there’s only a certain amount of connectivity between preconstruction project management and field technology that can go to another company with easy access, right?  

 

Not everything that you do inside your company for that one project can be easily accessed or control accessibility to an external stakeholder, either up or downstream. So that’s why I presented the construction industry’s main pain point right now, which is requiring us to keep so many people involved in the data management, I would say, for the construction lifecycle, even.  

 

Afterwards, we always have these lessons learned at the end of the project or at the end of whatever phase of construction it is. And we always end up having this debrief, this download, but it even remains siloed, and we don’t ever pass that on.  

 

Wes Edmiston:  

 

So, very similarly, we’re doing the same thing with the data that we’re collecting at the different phases of construction as well. There’s a serious opportunity in order to utilize this for all of the progress the industry has made towards digitalization, there is, I think, do we keep saying this, there’s a long way still to go.  

 

What are some of the biggest barriers that you see that is preventing a lot of this digitalization and innovation from being adopted? And how can these barriers be overcome?  

 

Eveart Foster:  

 

Well, the digital transformation that has been adopted, we’ll start there, then we’ll answer what the barriers are.  

 

I would say that for the technology that’s working right now, and you look at certain categories, like the audio capture, right? It started off a couple of years ago. It’s just an easier device than your phone to take images of the job site, take store and name images of the job site.  

 

Prior ways of storing images was you take your phone or you take a camera. Walk the job site. And then at the end of the day, you upload it to file a folder on your desktop and then you maybe put it into your company’s folder.  

 

Record system record, right? And then it transitioned to well, a 360 camera is way better than an iPhone photo. It’s almost 3D. So then it turned out an easy adoption, right? So we went from 2D cameras to 360s, right?  

 

And then from there we said, well, what if you could pin the 360 photo on the blueprint? And then boom, you have open space, you have structured site, you have reconstruct, you have hollow builder, you have all these plethora of reality capture solutions.  

 

Then it evolved into, well, we were taking all these images. What if we started to learn from these images? That’s when you started to use machine learning to teach the camera’s file record system how to recognize an object.  

 

That’s when we’re starting to see extreme advances in the digital transformation of what a job site looks like digitally. And I give that example because that is a point solution that evolved naturally by its utilization, right?  

 

It organically grew, and then now there’s a bunch of venture capital accelerating its growth. But that works as one area of project management that already existed in a way that has never been challenged per se.  

 

But it’s now evolved so much that every single job site probably has a pretty 60 camera on it, no matter how much revenue the job site is going to generate. So the parts where there is a lack of digital transformation still is parts of project management that require approval are utilization for multiple levels of project management on a single project.  

 

What I mean by that is the more signatures you need to utilize the technology on your project or at your company, the harder it is going to be to adopt that solution. We look at 360 cameras very, very easy because you don’t need to leave your project to get approval to use it.  

 

You just expense $500. You expense $1,000 a month on subscription. You can find a way to make that without having to get anyone else’s approval if you’re a PM or even a project engineer in some cases.  

 

So when fresh out of college, you can expense that if you need to. Anything else beyond that, that makes, like makes you have to go to your project executive or director or above to get approval on multiple signatures.  

 

You have to do an ROI analysis. That’s a longer adoption cycle, that’s more people involved, that’s planning to adopt it. That’s a multi month, multistep process that could have a big impact, but ultimately it’s going to slow down the adoption life or the adoption curve for most of the stakeholders.  

 

And then that’s where you get into areas of slow digital transformation between the end user and the person writing the check at your company. Most of the time, it’s two different people depending on how big of a check it is because of systems and just normalcy.  

 

But the big digital transformation areas I see available will be around. Really leveraging the BIM model all the way to close out and not just Pre-Con and estimating or not just MEP coordination, but continuously having as many stakeholders as possible.  

 

Leveraging a 3d model, preferably in the cloud, which doesn’t require on prem software, which doesn’t require you to invest in a lot of hardware. That’s where I see a big gap right now is true utilization of BIM for coordination of every part of the project’s data thinking that and something that.  

 

We’ve seen, what we’re actually trying to focus on a little bit better now is building in these solutions earlier on in the project, right so early in the life cycle. We are working with companies in order to get their data ready, get their digitalization plan ready for what technologies they’re going to be implementing through the different phases of construction.  

 

Wes Edmiston:  

 

Do you think that’s something that other companies should be looking at doing? That some of these GC’s should be looking at doing? How it is that they can start this plan earlier so that by the time that you kind of get through that long life cycle of approvals and getting everything signature required on the line that you’re not already missing the mark with deploying these innovative technologies on project? 

 

Eveart Foster: 

 

Yes, it’s kind of interesting. Some projects can operate without the need for planning technology utilization on them. Mainly tenant improvement projects that are two, 3, 6, 12 months, a couple of million dollars here and there.  

 

We’re talking about commercial construction for example. You don’t really have to come up with I don’t want to call a BIM execution plan because that’s going to be your larger project. But a technology implementation plan, you’ll have your tech stack kind of evaluated, you’ll have the cost evaluated, that’ll be in your bid to the owner and who’s going to be at your company doing the work, doing the overhead to use that technology.  

 

There are more complex projects where that is necessary. We’re actually seeing it. You look at an example like the Hilti Jaibot, which is a robot that can go on a job site and do overhead installations, hanger installs that actually has to be planned out through the Pre-Con department before you even break ground on a project.  

 

So you can’t last minute decide to use that project, at least not right now because of the sensitivity it has to the job sites environment which requires the job site to pre plan this utilization from whoever’s cleaning the floor that day to when the installs get actually put up by the Jaibot itself.  

 

This is the example. It has to be implemented. Into your MEP coordinate, not into the MEP coordination, but your BIM execution plan and how you plan on actually installing and performing labor. Because in a way, it’s stepping in as a subcontractor that has to be scheduled on your gas chart and has to be thought out way in advance of its utilization to actually achieve its ROI that has been promised to achieve.  

 

That’s just one example. There’s others that involve, really, robotics and anything that happens in the field, that technology has to be planned out in advance if you really want to make your project achieve that ROI that’s supposed to be achieved.  

 

Wes Edmiston: 

 

I’d actually never heard of the Hilti Jaibot, but that sounds like a really, honestly, really exciting and cool technology.  

 

Eveart Foster:  

 

Yeah, look it up. It’s pretty cool.  

 

Wes Edmiston:  

 

Yeah. I’m going to after this call. So to pivot the conversation away just a little bit, I wanted to make sure that we had an opportunity to talk about this.  

 

I recently saw on your LinkedIn profile that you have been appointed the president of the WITS Organization, a nonprofit in Chicago. Could you tell me a little bit about how it is that you got involved in this and what the mission of the organization is?  

 

Eveart Foster: 

 

So glad you asked that. Yes. So, like I said, I had a roommate who was a construction management major in college. He got me the job at Pepper Construction. Being that just full transparency. You probably see me on stage at a Built World event, in a conference room, and I’m probably one of two black people in the room. Just full transparency there.  

 

That’s just how it is. And me and him, both in black males families that have never been in the construction industry, who were first timers, first generation construction management, construction technology personnel.  

 

We have to walk into a room with a certain level of confidence that’s needed to make an impact, right. Whether it’s. Faking my confidence or not. That’s how we start off. This is how it is. So he actually introduced me to a mentorship program at Pepper Construction, his workday mentorship program, where they bust these kids from the West Side of Chicago.  

 

Very at risk neighborhood. And for once a week, for an hour, these kids would read with us a handful of Pepper Construction employees who wanted to volunteer. And for the first ten minutes, we would do some homework, help.  

 

Then we do about 40 minutes of reading, dedicated reading, one on one with these kids. And then the last ten minutes, we would play a game or so on and so forth. So we did that an hour a week, and we would do that from November to May.  

 

And just me, naturally, wanted to get more involved. I had the opportunity to join the Associates Board of Woods, I think it was 2019, and I joined the Associates Board, and I had no idea what I was doing.  

 

I didn’t know what the Associates Board was. But I realized part of the scope of the Associates Board is a fundraiser. And I was kind of terrified of that. And why? Because if you had known me several years ago, I didn’t have the speaking capabilities I have now.  

 

I was very much introverted. I was very afraid of public speaking. I was very afraid of asking people for things, and I was very to myself. And I took on the opportunity of the Social Board to kind of break out of my shell and make myself uncomfortable by fundraising.  

 

I never asked anyone for anything. So I did my fundraising, and it was actually way easier than I thought. I ended up doubling what I was supposed to raise that year. And then I had the opportunity to represent the Associates Board on a strategic planning event with Boston Consulting Group to come up with a five year budget for the program, where I worked directly with their consultants and their advisers to come up with the budget.  

 

And I gave some feedback and give some ideas that ultimately turned up. Turned into me being appointed membership chair of the Associates board. And within that two year term that I sat as Membership Chair, one of my goals, and one of the goals that PCG suggests that we do is to really diversify the Associates Board to make it look more representative of the communities that we were serving.  

 

So I did that and I brought a lot of different industries, different people in different ethnicities into the Associate’s Board, which is about 42 people right now to really pull in the capabilities of what the Chicagoan area has as far as professionals working in the city who want to make an impact.  

 

And then that ultimately, luckily, I can say this now, in 2022, that allowed me to grow the Associates Board to a point where I was making a lot of revenue or a lot of funds for the group. And I was fortunate enough to raise the most amount of money of the Associates Board.  

 

Last year, with 13% of the funds raised, I think I raised about $11,000. And that was just for me, running full speed with the ability to fund raise. And then ultimately now, as of January of this year, I’m starting my two year term as President of the Associates Board, where I am basically in charge of the executive committee that runs the Associates Board.  

 

And part of my deliverables is to kind of encourage, teach and really spearhead the fundraising efforts of all the Associate’s Board members and also make sure that what we’re raising is making an impact on the kids lives.  

 

And try to encourage many people to volunteer and many as many organizations in Chicagoland area to partner with Associates Board so we can do workday reading programs at more schools. And it’s a great organization because the amount of people on the Associates Board that are top performers in their field, we have investment banking, we have health care. We have a whole bunch of different sectors all coming in with their very best employees, their very best talent on the associates boards. We have some of the smartest people in the city on this board.  

 

And what I really like about it is we have a limit on how many people can be on the board. So we actually drop some people off every year just to keep some of the top fundraising people in the most energetic of people on the board.  

 

So I was listening to this. Please reach out to me if you have anybody in mind. But yeah, I love working with WITS, and it’s really helped my career out too, from public speaking, from being able to push and be creative in what I think can make an impact.  

 

It’s been ancillary to what I do in my professional life, honestly.  

 

Wes Edmiston: 

 

You’re clearly very passionate about this subject. I’m happy to hear that you are directing yourself toward a cause that is honestly so valuable.  

 

One of my wife’s best friends, the maid of honor at my wedding actually, is a public school teacher in the city of Chicago. And there is so much need, honestly, just for mentorship like you’re saying.  

 

Right. Some of that one on one attention, people showing that they care and having these kids really to give them the opportunity in order to learn, especially at a young age. Right. Because that is the foundation of all of the education they have.  

 

And honestly, I’m just really blown away by the fact that you used to be introverted. I think we met about a year ago, and that is the furthest thing from Eveart. So good job. Kudos to you. 

 

Eveart Foster: 

 

That’s like another why I do WITS is because I’m trying to position myself to be the person that I wish I had growing up.  

 

If I had someone in my life at their age that was actually able to inform me beyond what my parents could at the time. I had great parents. That’s a whole other story. Amazing people, but they had limitations on how much they can inform me to prepare me for the work and professional life.  

 

But had I had someone to kind of mentor and nudge me and really give me some guidance, I think I would have been further along professionally than I am now. And I think it would have allowed me to walk in the room with more confidence than what I had back in the day.  

 

But that’s another reason I want to be there because I want to have myself be an example of what they could be and to kind of desensitize them into coming into downtown Chicago. Because a lot of times this is the only time these kids make it downtown Chicago for this program.  

 

So if they come downtown and they see another black face in a downtown setting, they start to desensitize themselves to being in that same position. Whenever I was growing up, I’d even know of anyone doing what I’m doing now and obviously you go to some of these conferences or events, I might be the only black person you see there full transparency.  

 

So being on stage at a construction event, being on a podcast, I’m trying my best to be seen because it is going to make an impact where I don’t have a direct contact to that person. But as long as my face and my voice is being heard, I think it’s going to make an impact long term because it’s desensitizing others to being in that same position.  

 

Wes Edmiston: 

 

For anybody that is in the Chicagoland area or that is interesting, how is it that people can look up this organization and support? 

 

Eveart Foster:  

 

https://witschicago.org/ or add me on LinkedIn, Eveart Foster, it’s going to be in one of my links on there.  

 

Rapid Fire Questions 

 

Wes Edmiston: 

 

What is one word that best describes you?  

 

Eveart Foster:  

 

Innovative.   

 

Wes Edmiston:  

 

What is your favorite quote?  

 

Eveart Foster:  

 

If at first you don’t succeed, try again.  

 

Wes Edmiston:  

 

What song do you listen to when you need to get motivated?  

 

Eveart Foster: 

 

I listen to so much music, and a lot of the music I listen to, it’s not even in English. It may be Beat It by Michael Jackson.  

 

Wes Edmiston:  

 

Where is the favorite place where you’ve traveled?  

 

Eveart Foster:  

 

Bali, Indonesia.   

 

Wes Edmiston:  

 

Does pineapple go on pizza?   

 

Eveart Foster: 

 

If there’s barbecue sauce and chicken and bacon.  

 

Wes Edmiston: 

 

If you could have dinner with any one person in the world, living or dead, who would it be? 

 

Eveart Foster:  

 

Barack Obama. The reason why is that he wrote the book called Audacity of Hope.  

 

In the last half of the book, he explained how he didn’t like having to fundraise for his campaign and how it really pushed and evolved him. And that was actually the book I read right before I joined Wits, which made me feel like I should do it and fundraise for WITS.  

 

So it’s all connected. And having that in the Chicago land area definitely gives you an even higher level of connection. So that’d be a really good dinner. 

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