Brian Dugan asks the same question at the start of every project: are we setting this up for success? It sounds simple, but in practice it means holding every early decision to a higher standard than most teams realize is necessary. Are the right people in the room? Does the solution being proposed actually match the client's goal? Are we focused on what matters most? For Brian, those early decisions are where the outcome of a project is largely determined.

The Howard County Courthouse put every one of those instincts to the test. The county's largest infrastructure project, its first public-private partnership, delivered through a global pandemic, and followed by three years of operations that Brian led personally. What follows is a closer look at how his approach played out from beginning to end.

Align

The first question on any new engagement sounds simple enough: do we actually understand what this client wants? Not what we assume they want, not what another client in a similar sector wanted, and not what fits neatly into an existing playbook. The real question is what this client, in this moment, with their specific constraints and stakeholders, is actually trying to achieve.

One of the most common mistakes Brian sees institutions make is going to market before they've fully clarified what they want the project to accomplish. Procurement becomes a kind of fishing exercise, with the hope that the responses will help define the goals. The result is confusion, midstream pivots, and wasted effort on all sides. Brian has seen projects stall because the solution being proposed was technically sound but described in a way that didn't resonate with how the client's leadership actually evaluated and approved capital investments. Getting the framing right before the first design conversation takes place can change the trajectory of an entire effort.

On the Howard County Courthouse, Brian's first step was to go sit in the existing courthouse for months, observing how the building actually functioned day to day. How people moved through the space, where the bottlenecks were, what worked and what didn't, and how the facility's limitations were affecting the people who relied on it every day. That firsthand understanding of the institution, its people, and its operations informed every decision that followed.

Once the goals are clearly defined, the next step is making sure the right people are at the table, and that brings its own set of considerations.

Assemble

The procurement for the Howard County Courthouse was highly competitive, with nine teams at the qualification stage narrowed down to three finalists. Brian put together a team specifically built for the challenge, one that could navigate both the financial complexity of the deal and the operational nuances of delivering a facility for multiple user groups with different institutional structures. Edgemoor was ultimately selected.

The project was structured as an availability-payment P3, the first of its kind to reach financial close in the United States outside of California. That financing model was a significant innovation for the P3 industry and assembling the right financial partners, legal advisors, and design and construction teams to execute it was as important as the structure itself.

Partner

The partnership between Edgemoor and Howard County was built over years of working closely together through every phase of the project. Brian's involvement spanned six years, from the deal's close through design, construction, and three years of post-delivery operations. That sustained presence meant he wasn't just overseeing the project at key milestones. He was embedded in the work alongside the county's team, building the kind of trust that only comes from being there consistently over a long period of time.

That trust proved especially critical during COVID. The pandemic hit about six months into construction, and the entire team had every reason to slow down. Instead, the county's leadership, the construction team, and Edgemoor all made it a shared priority to keep the project moving forward. Nobody pointed to the contract for relief. Everybody focused on delivering what had been promised despite circumstances that nobody could have anticipated.

That kind of alignment under pressure doesn't happen by accident. It's the product of years of honest communication, accessible decision-makers, and a partnership where both sides genuinely want the same outcome.

Prioritize

With departments from across the judicial system consolidating into one building for the first time, there was no shortage of competing requests, strong opinions, and individual priorities that could have consumed the team's attention. Brian's principle of seeing the forest through the trees showed up daily on Howard County, not as a philosophy but as a practical discipline.

His approach was to build contingencies into the process so that smaller issues could be resolved quickly and efficiently without pulling the full team off the work that actually shaped the outcome. That discipline freed everyone to stay focused on the decisions that mattered most, rather than treating every issue with the same level of urgency.

Despite a pandemic, a first-of-its-kind financing structure, and a building program that required consensus across half a dozen user groups, the project never lost its footing. That's a credit to everyone involved, from the county's leadership to the construction team to every partner who stayed focused on what mattered most.

Deliver

The Howard County Courthouse was delivered a day early and on budget, through COVID, on a project type and financing structure the county had never attempted before. An independent review of major projects during the same period found that Howard County was the only one of eight that remained on time and on budget throughout. For a county that had been working toward a new courthouse for more than two decades, it was a very meaningful milestone.

Brian's involvement didn't end at delivery. He stayed on to oversee three years of post-delivery operations, making sure the transition from construction to daily building management was handled with the same care and discipline that defined every phase before it. That continuity meant the county never had to explain their building to a new team or rebuild trust with a new partner. The same person who helped set the project up for success was still there years later, making sure it was living up to its promise.

The project received six major industry awards, including Best Social Infrastructure Project, Best Financial Structure, and Developer of the Year at the P3 Awards. Howard County won Silver for Government Agency of the Year, competing against organizations from around the world. The county's team traveled to New York for the ceremony, and the pride they felt that night was as much about the experience of the partnership as it was about the building itself.

Built for Long-Term Success

The Howard County Courthouse now serves as the consolidated home for the county's entire judicial operation, with long-term maintenance planning and operational standards built in to ensure the facility continues to perform at the level the community deserves.

For Brian, the real measure of success isn't the track record, awards or the recognition. It's whether the people who walk into that building every morning are better off than they were before, and whether the county would choose to partner with Edgemoor again if given the chance.

The answer, by every indication, is yes.