Paul Wember, Founder and President of Wember Inc
Paul Wember is the founder and president of Wember Inc, a company that represents owners in construction projects. The company has been in operation over 18 years and has put in place nearly $1 Billion in construction in Colorado and Wyoming.
For the past decade, Paul and his team members have relied on Owner Insite to help them deliver their projects on time and on budget. However, keeping projects on course is more challenging than it might sound; this is because owners representatives are typically brought in to advise owners on the most complicated projects.
What is an Owner's Representative?
Owners representatives serve as project managers from design all the way through construction and close out. The focus is on the full spectrum of the project, whereas a construction manager might focus directly on the actual construction phase.
“We tend to get involved is when a project is really messy. Our claim to fame is we handle the most complicated projects,” Paul says.
Wember Inc. has worked on some of the bigger bond projects in Colorado and Wyoming, and they’ve worked on the construction of some challenging laboratories.
“These are not normal projects,” Paul explains. “They require a lot of communication. There are often a lot of challenges with how these projects were funded, so having an advisor to guide the owners is really important.”
While many in the industry might not want to sign up for the projects that are guaranteed to come with the most headaches, Paul and his team members welcome the intricacy and the chance to troubleshoot.
How Wember Inc was Born
Paul’s penchant for problem solving was evident as a child. “The challenge for me was that I was the youngest of six so I never got a full lego set,” he says. “I always got the pieces and parts and was required to come up with my own manual and my own way.
“So I think problem solving as opposed to instruction following has always been a key trait. I was the brother who was building the layout and planview for the dollhouse that my sister never got. We would set it up and then we would create houseplay within the block plan as opposed to in a full doll house that we didn’t have,” he explains.
After Paul got his architecture license, he worked as an architect for 15 years, before he got his MBA. At that point, he realized that the owner’s representative market was a great niche and an excellent fit for his personality.
Paul Wember (5 min)
Rocky Mountain Deaf School
One of the most satisfying projects that Wember Inc has worked on was the Rocky Mountain Deaf School. There were many stakeholders in the project, and some were hearing and others were deaf.
Paul explains that it would have been easy for distrust to grow between his firm and the deaf stakeholders. But Owner Insite played a pivotal role in leveling the playing field and ensuring transparency.
“Owner Insite created a platform of continutiy on which everyone involved could read and share. The verbal transfer of words was always a little more challenging, so by putting everything in a place people could read and follow up really just created a sense of community that was much stronger,” Paul explains.
He says that Owner Insite played a key role in helping to keep this project—and all of his projects—on time and on budget.
Paul's Favorite Software Feature
When asked to pick his favorite feature of the Owner Insite software, Paul doesn’t need to think very long. “Owner Insite mitigates our risk by having budgets in a particular format that’s consistent across all our team’s project,” he says.
More than a decade ago, Paul learned the hard way the risk involved with keeping spreadsheets hidden on people’s individual servers. This led to a bust of a project that nearly led to the collapse of Wember Inc. “We had vowed there was a better solution,” Paul explains. “We spent a year researching different products to find a good match and this resulted in our long-legacy partnership with Owner Insite.”
Today, Paul has different challenges like managing 50 open, active projects and managing a team of 20 employees that includes architects, general contractors and other highly-qualified industry professionals.
Want to Learn More?
If you’d like more information about using Owner Insite in your district, don’t hesitate to reach out. We’d love to answer your questions and provide a short demo. Call us at (888) 336-3393 or email us at sales@owner-insite.com.
We look forward to showing you how much easier managing your construction project can be!
