InformationWeek

October 16, 2000

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IT Management
Stephen Reiter Turner Construction

By Marianne Kolbasuk McGee

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he work done by commercial engineering and building company Turner Construction Co. involves a lot of nuts and bolts--but it also entails a lot of big-picture planning and exploration. Stephen Reiter, executive VP and chief technology officer at Turner, is a big-picture guy.

Reiter focuses on ways IT can be used to optimize the business, internally and externally. He's working on how the $4 billion company can improve its supply chain through the use of IT, particularly the Internet, for online auctions and procurement. Reiter is also a member of the policy committee for AECventure, a global business-to-business consortium of several large commercial construction companies that's developing ways to exchange real-time information and collaborate online.

As CTO, Reiter is examining the use of virtual-reality technologies to reduce design and construction costs. "If you can walk through a virtual-reality model and see that pipes are overlapping in the design stage, you won't have to wait till you're on-site to discover this," he says. "On-site changes are more costly."

Reporting to Reiter is VP and CIO Doug Nies, who oversees the internal use of IT. "You might say the CIO is my manufacturing guy. He makes sure all our internal [IT] needs are met," Reiter says.

Before joining Turner in June, Reiter was senior VP and CIO at ServiceMaster Co., where he launched two Internet ventures. Previously, Reiter was VP and general manager for Computer Science Corp.'s $4.2 billion, 10-year outsourcing agreement with DuPont.

Reiter was a history major in college. But he began an IT career 25 years ago at EDS, which was looking to hire and train young people with no formal computer education. Before that, Reiter spent two years in the Army.

Reiter says military experience provided important lessons for his IT career. "The military is about logistics--getting supplies where they're needed--quickly--when they're needed," he says. "IT is the engine for making that happen in business."