Fernando Parada
Construction and Preconstruction Manager
Hire this person
Send a job offer directly to this candidate
About
Construction and Preconstruction Manager with 15+ years leading commercial, industrial, multifamily, and large-scale development projects from $250K to $50M+, including direct experience in data-center site development, entitlements, and agency coordination. Owns the full preconstruction lifecycle from concept through buyout: budgeting, value engineering, bid leveling, scope writing, and risk analysis, backed by hands-on project management of budgets, schedules, subcontractors, and field operations as a former owner-operator. Built and led a multi-year construction-development and mentorship program in partnership with Whiting-Turner, training project engineers on hyperscale data-center and large institutional projects.
Recently completed a Master of Architecture, adding design fluency and drawing-level coordination across owner, design, and field lines.
Experience
Preconstruction Manager at Procor Group (2025-10 – Present)
- Lead preconstruction for a $12M immersive film studio within an existing warehouse retrofit, coordinating ownership, design, budget, scope, constructability, RFIs, bid packages, bid leveling, and project risk analysis.
- Lead predevelopment and preconstruction for a $30M EV medium- and heavy-duty truck charging facility, including concept planning, owner budgeting, state and federal grant-agency coordination, utility interface, and preparation of design-build RFPs and scopes of work.
- Built company-wide estimating, bidding, and preconstruction-to-field handoff procedures and trained project staff on implementation.
Senior Project Manager | Head of Construction Operations at Mayson Dixon (2023-10 – 2025)
- Directed the full preconstruction and procurement process for a 54-unit land development: authored and issued the RFP for the site-work package, evaluated three finalist proposals through detailed scope review, and led contractor selection and buyout of major site-development scopes, including utilities, grading, and paving.
- Led value engineering on the same project, proposing alternative materials and methods that reduced cost without sacrificing quality, and coordinated with utility providers (BGE, Comcast) to integrate infrastructure requirements into the preconstruction plan.
- Served as owner's representative for a nonprofit facility acquisition and renovation, leading budgeting, project scheduling, consultant coordination, permitting, procurement planning, and owner reporting.
- Repositioned a five-parcel site into a $27M, 60-parcel master-planned community through cost analysis, phasing, and development strategy.
- Built and led a formal construction-development mentorship program in partnership with Whiting-Turner, supervising up to five project engineers at a time across data-center, large-scale housing, student housing, and hospital projects; the majority of participants were hired directly by Whiting-Turner after their first year.
Senior Construction Manager & Real Estate Development at Suzanne Real Estate Trust (2021-01 – 2023-10)
- Led execution of large construction and land-development projects to budget and schedule, managing site acquisition, permitting, and on-site crews.
- Led entitlement and site-development execution for a land-development project in Stafford, Virginia, coordinating directly with the Virginia Department of Transportation and the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality to secure the grading permit and approve utility taps and curb cuts, including managing site-plan adjustments after conditions discovered during grading.
- Managed a $35M+ portfolio, overseeing capital expenditures, property management, and disposition to optimize financial performance.
- Facilitated the sale of a 20-acre Northern Virginia site for more than $7M, resulting in a 1031 exchange into a portfolio now valued at $35M+.
Director / CEO at Lago Contracting LLC (2009 – 2021-01)
- Directed full-cycle construction management for commercial, multifamily, retail, and residential work, including buyout, subcontractor oversight, RFIs, submittals, change orders, pay applications, schedule recovery, quality control, closeout, and field problem resolution.
- Managed the $2.6M Richmond Hill Apartments renovation from buyout through closeout, coordinating the owner, design team, subcontractors, budget, schedule, and field conditions.
- Delivered multi-trade exterior packages totaling $1.2M under Whiting-Turner requirements, coordinating scope, procurement, documentation, quality, and field execution.
- Provided technical and project-management assistance to Continental Construction on carpentry and drywall subcontract packages for Clark Construction projects, including State Department Phase 1C and the Cannon House Office Building; supported field coordination, scope review, scheduling, documentation, and issue resolution on packages valued at approximately $500K-$1M.
- Scaled Lago from a small residential operation to a 20-person self-performing contractor delivering more than $15M in cumulative work.
Education
Master of Architecture in Architecture – Morgan State University (2026-05)
Bachelor of Music Education in Music Education – University of Rhode Island
10,000 Small Businesses in Business – Goldman Sachs
