Arol Wolford

Arol Wolford is a pioneer and passionate advocate of building intelligence. He has devoted his career to the proposition that sharing information among owners, architects, contractors, and manufacturers is the key to creating better and more efficient buildings.

Arol is the founder of Construction Market Data (GMD), a global leader in building information serving the United States, Canada, Mexico, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, China, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia and Australia. The company grew from 5 employees in 1982 to 1300 employees in 2000 and offered well-known information sources such as CMD Bulletins, Architects’ First Source, CMD Connect to Sales Force and Microsoft CRM, Manufacturers’ Survey Associates and RSMeans, CMD Group was acquired by Reed Elsevier for $300 million in 2000.

Arol was one of the original board members of Revit Technology Corporation, creator of the first parametric building modeler. Revit was sold to Autodesk in 2002 for $133 million. In 2003, Arol founded SmartBIM, a creator of Revit Objects. The American Institute of Architects (AIA) named Arol an honorary member in 1997 and in 2007 chose him to serve on the AIA 150 Board, the first non-architect to be so honored. Arol was the Construction Specification Institute (CSI) President’s Award Winner in 1999 and 2020. He serves on the board of Design Intelligence, and is a Design Futures Council Senior Fellow. He is currently an owner of VIMaec, a 3D visualization and data optimization tool using the Unity gaming engine to link 3D models and data to create virtual information models (VIM’s) form building information models (BIM’s). Arol is also an owner and Board Member of Green Building Holdings founded by their CEO Charlie Cichetti.

Through Arol’s leadership in applying technology to the AEC professions, he has pursued connecting the design and construction professions through managed information over the past three decades. He is a recognized industry visionary and expert and has contributed his insights to many published industry books and articles.