My PM Beginnings: A Foundation Built To Last
Just two years out of college I was fortunate to land a job in Marshall y Asociados (MYA), a new company, uniquely specialized in Project Management.
I started as a scheduler when MYA was only a year old.
My first project? “El Menito”, the development of a new city of 250,000 people, in the eastern coast of Venezuela’s Maracaibo Lake. We were hired by Maraven S.A., a Venezuelan oil company operating as a subsidiary of Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA).
I reported directly to the project manager @Martin Fierro Bedoya, who, within just two weeks, recognized that my abilities went beyond scheduling. He saw that I was a natural integrator.
While I enjoyed my original assignment, I quickly evolved into a broader role. Still, scheduling remained a cornerstone of my work, a discipline I continued to manage with depth throughout my career.
Fierro soon entrusted me to be his right hand, a sort of deputy project manager. It was in that role that I learned the full scope of Project Management.
I was fortunate to be learning within a company shaped by excellence and deep expertise.
The Origins of Marshall y Asociados
Marshall y Asociados was born from the vision of Edgar Marshall Balza, a Venezuelan engineer and globally recognized leader in the iron and steel industry.
He brought to MYA the wealth of knowledge gained during his tenure at Siderúrgica del Orinoco (SIDOR), which he helped elevate it from obscurity to rank among the top 40 steel producers in the world, He successfully led Plan IV, a megaproject that more than doubled SIDOR’s production capacity—from 1.2 to 4.8 million tons of steel. A $3.5 billion project at the time, equivalent to approximately $17.625 billion today.
Marshall managed Plan IV with a multidisciplinary team, following a comprehensive master plan that upheld strict adherence to the project’s core pillars:
- Quality,
- Schedule, and
- Costs.
When he founded MYA, he brought together many of the same experts who had proven their ability to deliver on ambitious projects; and he built the company on stringent project management standards.
Surrounded by this exceptional team, I gained invaluable cross-disciplinary insights.
What Set Marshall y Asociados Apart
At the time, there were no project management companies. There were engineering companies that had project managers, but MYA was fundamentally different.
It distinguished itself as the firm dedicated exclusively to project management, establishing a disciplined and standalone practice, built on rigorous standards for execution, scope control, and accountability.
At its peak, MYA had over a thousand employees, 80% of them in project management roles, all held by professionals such as architects, urban planners, and engineers from a range of disciplines.
This strong foundation of technical expertise enabled us to achieve deeply integrated and collaborative project environments, where decisions were grounded in our in-house technical knowledge and multidisciplinary insight.
Within a decade, the company was managing national and international projects across sectors including oil, steel, iron, bauxite, aluminum, infrastructure, hydroelectric dams, feasibility studies, and organizational development.
My Project Management Foundation
Marshall’s rigorous Project Management foundation equipped me with enduring fundamentals, a compass that still guides my path four decades later.
📊 Baseline planning
🧩 A strong matrix organizational structure
👥 Project team formation
🧠 Project management system, procedures, and training programs
🪜 Work Breakdown Structure to keep projects controlled and within scope
⏱️ CPM scheduling and allocation of available resources
💰 Estimating and budgeting resources
📄 Contract management, purchasing, extra work orders, change orders
🧾 Cost accounting requirements to bill clients for each of the project activities
📈 Monitoring, measuring, reporting progress; analyzing project status; earned value performance measurement criteria
🧭 Conflict management; leadership styles; management skills, motivation and morale
📞 Clients’ relationships
🤝 Enduring friendships, built through a deeply unified and collaborative environment.
A solid foundation.
All those elements were woven into our project management practice decades ago. They guided my work then, just as they guide it now.
So what’s different today?
Not the fundamentals, that’s for sure.
Almost fresh out of college, I joined this newly formed project management company in Caracas’s also just-minted architectural gem: the Cubo Negro (Black Cube).
There, I learned from the best, in the best company, on the best projects.
To Edgar Marshall and all who were behind this company. Many thanks!
