Friday, July 19, 2024
By: Kyle Niblett
Isaiah Dacius has big dreams.
He wants to become a project manager and eventually obtain his general contracting license.
With two more years to go at the M.E. Rinker, Sr. School of Construction Management, Dacius is chasing down his dreams. This summer, he is working at Southland Contracting in Green Cove Springs, Florida, to get the experience he needs to be successful.
From learning how important it is to upgrade infrastructure for rural communities, to gaining the respect of his peers and community while doing so, the Miami native is learning more than his fair share about using surveying equipment. He is currently working on the Shands Bridge project, which is an expansion of the new First Coast Expressway near the Jacksonville area.
“Every day I work alongside the surveying manager and party chief and lay out points across the site,” he said. “Right now, it is the beginning phase of the bridge project so I am finding and staking center lines of pile and bents so that the pile drivers can work on building a trestle to bring our main operating crane onto the water.”
When he’s not doing that on the Green Cove Springs project, Dacius works on setting control points for the whole site so that his coworkers can reference it when performing level loops, finding elevations, and when staking right of way and demucking limits.
“Though Isaiah came to the project at an early stage, he has gotten a good understanding of how heavy civil jobs are started,” said Arturo Salinas, who serves as a survey manager with Southland. “He has learned how a jobsite is set up and the importance of surveying for all things built.”
Dacius says the most rewarding part of his summer is knowing he is part of something bigger than himself. Knowing the impact this bridge will have on the entire Green Cove Springs community is humbling for the new Rinker student. He credits his first few courses at Rinker with helping him, however.
“The College of Design, Construction and Planning has prepared me for this internship by getting me familiar with the basic language and knowledge of the construction industry,” said Dacius, who is scheduled to graduate from Rinker in the spring of 2026. “Rinker has also shown me how to effectively communicate between my coworkers.”
His favorite moments at Rinker thus far have been construction drawing with Professor Robert J. Ries, Ph.D., as well as spending late nights in Rinker Hall with his friend working on his final project drawing portfolio. It is these moments that have led to him dreaming about owning his own construction firm.
So, while Dacius dreams big, his future is brighter than ever.
“He has made an excellent impact on my crew,” Salinas said. “Though Isaiah has much to learn about project management, he has gotten a whole new perspective on the scale of projects as large as this. I believe he will take this new experience and utilize it in a wonderful way in his future.”