Seamans’ Pre-construction Director Mark Reason plays a pivotal role in every project the company bids for and wins.

With 20 years’ experience in the sector and having progressed from a management trainee to pre-construction manager, Mark joined Seamans Building in May 2021 to head up its pre-construction department before joining the board of directors in September 2023.

“My role is broad and encompasses all of our work-winning activities,” he said. “That ranges from producing the financial aspect of a bid, writing responses to quality questions, overseeing our marketing strategy and ensuring we have a healthy tender pipeline.

“When deciding whether to tender for a project, we carefully consider whether we are the right fit for the scheme and vice versa and, importantly, whether we have capacity to deliver it and the right skillset to make the project a success.

“We also have to review any quality aspects of a bid and how we can add value in respect of our social and environmental obligations as a responsible contractor.”

Joining Seamans Building gave Mark the opportunity work alongside his father Steven, who worked at Seamans for more than 30 years before retiring in early 2022.

“Like a lot of people here at Seamans, I grew up in construction,” he said. “It’s a very family-orientated company.”

Mark said as each bid is unique, he gets to work on a huge variety of fascinating projects.

“We have worked hard to develop our tendering strategy, incorporating new software and systems,” he said.

“The variety of work we price makes each tender unique.

“One day we can be pricing the renovation of a listed property, building up rates for completing the work with our directly employed craftspeople, and the next pricing a commercial project with the assistance of our dedicated supply chain.

“Our objective is for our bids to be well considered and inclusive.

“Consistency has always been really important to me and I’m very conscious that how we conduct ourselves during the pre-construction stage sets the tone for the rest of the project, so we need to be responsive, and do what we say we’re going to do.

“In the three years since joining the company, we’ve had some really positive success stories including securing a place on the Suffolk County Council Construction Framework and reestablishing ourselves in the commercial market whilst maintaining our strong presence in the new build private residential and social housing sectors.

“In addition to this I’m privileged to sit on the SJCC committee which, along with the implementation of a management trainee programme within Seamans, provides a platform to work with education providers to attract more young people into the industry.”

For more on Seamans Buildings and our projects, see here.