Procon has given $1 million to sponsor an innovation center inside the new Hitt Hall.
When Mark Ilich and Kyu Jung applied at Virginia Tech in 1992, they used a typewriter. By 1998, they had dreamed up a tech-focused construction management company in Jung’s residence hall, Main Campbell. Nearly 25 years later, the co-founders of Procon Consulting, are giving back and inspiring today's students to keep innovating. Drawing from their experiences as Hokie engineers, Ilich and Jung have established a successful construction management consulting business that harnesses cutting-edge technology. Now students will be able to do the same.
“The Procon Innovation Center will focus on automation, safety, and other ways to innovate the lives of humans that will have a direct impact on the built environment and lives of everyday people,” Jung said.
In the spirit of Ut Prosim (That I May Serve), the space will be a hub for collaboration among robotics researchers. Notably, it will feature a 3D concrete printer that will deliver housing solutions to Virginia communities. Civil engineering Assistant Professor Alexander Brand and Beliveau Professor of Building Construction Andrew McCoy will lead students in this effort to help families in need of affordable housing in the Norfolk and Pulaski areas.
“With the new Procon Innovation Center, we can prototype large building sections at scale, complete with detailed wall cavities, position them for testing, and use the unique space to demonstrate our work to students, train professionals, and attract top researchers and industry professionals to our campus,” said McCoy, associate director for research and innovation for the Myers-Lawson School of Construction.
Mentorship was the blueprint
Ilich and Jung both started in civil engineering in ‘93. Their first encounter, however, wasn’t in a university classroom, it was seated next to one another in their middle school homeroom.
Once at Tech, both found inspiration and mentorship in the civil engineering and building construction programs. Ilich and Jung appreciated the guidance they received from Yvan Beliveau, a professor in the building construction program at the time.
"In Yvan's class, we heard about how he started his own companies," Ilich said.
Jung added, "Yvan wasn't just talking from a theoretical standpoint, but real-life experiences. Virginia Tech did, and still does, a great job connecting industry with students.”
One way Beliveau connected students with industry was by bringing in a local banker to review their business plan assignments.
“The concepts of the business plan Mark and Kyu made in my class took hold,” Beliveau said. “As we talked about the different issues of creating a company, they took it to heart and really understood what their business model should be.”
After taking Beliveau's construction management course in his junior year, Ilich was tempted to switch majors to building construction. Beliveau instead encouraged Ilich to stick with his civil engineering degree and to stay for a master's degree in building construction.
“We both come from hard-working, blue-collar backgrounds,” said Jung. “The two ingredients that allowed us to achieve the American dream were a company management course with an end-of-year project to produce a business plan, and an influential research project with the Virginia Department of Transportation during our graduate studies at Virginia Tech.”
With the help of research assistantships under Associate Professor Thomas Mills and with the Virginia Department of Transportation, Ilich and Jung could afford to continue their education. Their research centered around virtual site inspection technologies. The technology at the time was bulky, and the device looked like a belt donned by a character from Star Trek.
"It was awkward walking onto the construction site with the device on, so Mark and I would flip a coin to see who had to wear it," Jung said. "The study was about virtual inspection services, so one person was located in a construction trailer video conferencing, while we were on the site with the camera."
By the time they graduated with civil engineering degrees in 1996, typewriters were out and the dot-com boom was taking off. The duo would soon be swept away by the excitement of technology's rapid change.
“The construction industry had a slow adaptation to technology in the late '90s, but it’s been a much more rapid change in the last 25 years,” Beliveau said. “When Mark and Kyu started Procon, I knew failure wasn’t an option for them.”
Since its creation, the company has led projects in nearly all 50 states while continuing the legacy of learning and entrepreneurship where it all began — Virginia Tech Engineering.
Breaking through the construction industry
The construction industry is more than hard hats, hammers, and nails — it’s our built world and tangible spaces that provide support to our communities like schools, hospitals, and homes. Ilich and Jung understand the field of construction is not on most engineering students’ radar unless they grew up with family in the industry. With trailblazing, hands-on work in the Procon Innovation Center at the forefront of Hitt Hall, the two College of Engineering alumni hope to inspire students and researchers to solve problems in unexpected new ways, breaking the mold of a typical construction career.
From its very beginnings, Procon has focused on technology to improve construction efficiency and project excellence. Twenty years ago, its focus was web-based project management. Ten years ago, Procon built information modeling to change the industry. During the height of the pandemic, due to job site access restrictions and the need for the government to verify work-in-place from remote locations, Procon was able to implement virtual site inspections. This helped prevent project managers from exposure to the virus on-site, while keeping complex builds on schedule. Now, the company is looking at how to use AI on various client projects and how to reduce digital turnover.
“Engineers are constantly struggling to solve problems more efficiently, with less waste or by minimizing the impact on the environment,” Ilich said. “Hitt Hall, and specifically the Procon Innovation Center, provides a platform for students to experiment with new tools. Exposing students to different technologies, like 3D printers that create homes for Virginia communities, is one example of how engineers can be problem solvers for a better tomorrow.”
As Procon leads technological innovations in the construction industry, it’s not without giving back to the next generation of Hokie engineers. The company previously supported collaborative efforts at Virginia Tech by working with the Myers-Lawson School of Construction and the Division of Campus Planning, Infrastructure, and Facilities. From 2020 to 2021, the company sponsored a yearlong research project that used Spot, a mobile autonomous robot dog. The project studied construction progress monitoring with the integration of emerging technologies developed at Virginia Tech, giving select students exposure to the future of automation in the construction industry.
“We came through the building construction program when it was in Burrus Hall in sort of this small space and it was humble,” Ilich said. “We didn't have much, but we made the best of it. After we graduated, Bishop-Favro Hall was built, and now Hitt Hall. This continual growth shows how important the Myers-Lawson School of Construction is.”
If you want to have an impact on our students and faculty like those featured in this magazine, go here to support the College of Engineering. For more information, call (540) 231-3628.
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