Meet the Team - Dr Gary Holt

Dr Gary Holt BSc (Hons), PhD, FCIOB

Gary commenced his construction career on a (what he terms, “good old-fashioned”!) City & Guilds Bricklaying apprenticeship. Once qualified, he went on to manage his own brickwork gangs, gaining hands-on, self-employed experience in most aspects of new build and refurbishment building works in the housing, industrial and commercial sectors.

Following attainment of two BTEC qualifications in Building Studies, and simultaneously with successfully reading a First Class Honours Degree in Building Management, he began to manage construction works (mainly building, but some civil-engineering), first as a Foreman, then a Site Manager and ultimately as a Contracts Manager. Throughout this period, much of his career was involved with speculative housing development. He later spent over a decade researching and teaching in the Higher Education Sector, mostly in the UK, but often visiting overseas. He was the founder, and Director, of the Built Environment Research Unit at the University of Wolverhampton, UK, where in 2001 he was awarded a Chair in Construction Management. As an academic, Gary supervised to satisfactory conclusion research projects at Undergraduate, Masters and PhD levels and Directed numerous construction management research programmes; both for industry and for public Bodies, such as The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council of the UK.

The products of his extensive research activities have been disseminated through four published textbooks and in excess of 150 refereed academic research papers, most of which were published in leading-edge, international journals. He has been a member of several international conference committees and editorial boards; and has acted as a referee to almost all of the leading construction research journals, the world over. He presently holds Fellowship of the Chartered Institute of Building, is a former Fellow of the Royal Society for Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, a former Fellow of the Faculty of Building and a former Member of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

Presently, Gary is principally engaged in providing consultant services for research, and freelance (building, construction management and construction education) technical authoring assignments. He does however, retain a fondness for getting actively involved with “good old-fashioned” building work!