  Our St. Louis construction industry is built on traditions and relationships. Unfortunately those traditions and relationships have become tarnished and fractured in the past few years. Bluntly, what worked in the past is no longer working. Change is necessary if we are to have any possibility of recovery and growth. A combination of issues has effectively stalemated our ability to recover from the current construction recession and has opened our market to further deterioration, both in loss of business to other areas of the country and to the entry of national contracting and design entities from other markets into the St. Louis area. One of the most effective ways to begin change is to openly and candidly address the issues at hand with dialogue and with the presentation of statistical evidence.