David Hettinger

David spent the first 15 years of his career analyzing problem projects—helping a variety of industry players recover from cost overruns and schedule delays.

David was fortunate during that time to learn from experiences with several multinationals, over half of the top 20 contractors, and many of the top owners, architects, engineers, trade contractors, construction attorneys, and other technical and subject matter experts. David also learned the telltale signs of a bad project and what to do in those situations—including how to leverage a contractor’s tech or software stack to obtain the data and documentation necessary to analyze an alleged impact, quantify the resultant costs, and gather the support necessary to tell the story of what happened and why.

Building on those experiences and a strong desire to help move the industry forward, David started Entropy in 2020 with the mission to prevent problem projects—for the benefit of the industry as a whole. Having spent 15 years analyzing them, David believes problem projects exhibit certain patterns of behavior. And that a significant opportunity exists for AECO players today to leverage their data and existing technologies to lower risk, preserve margins, and avoid the significant, future costs associated with problem projects.

David is a member of the BuiltWorlds verified contributor program and has been fortunate to be a moderator, guest speaker, writer, and analyst on topics such as scheduling, 3D modeling, preconstruction, data collection, quality, modular/offsite prefab methods, and intellectual property in construction, among others. David has also been fortunate to guest lecture within the master’s in project management program at Northwestern University on a variety of topics including change management, mega-projects, chaos theory applied to construction, preventing problem projects, and others.

David received his master’s in the management of product design and development from Northwestern University, and studied systems engineering, design, and business at the University of Illinois. In 2022, David was fortunate to be named on the BuiltWorlds Top 50 Adoption Leaders List honoring people who are “leading the way towards innovation for their companies and the industry overall.” At last year’s Buildings Conference, he sat down with the BuiltWorlds team and shared his perspective on some of the challenges and opportunities facing the industry today. Here’s the link to learn more.