Now, as part of my job, I get to dive into countless books, and I must say, this one is an

absolute delight. No need for any unnecessary delay, let me give you a sneak peek

into what makes it so worthwhile. Are you ready? Let's jump right in with the

introduction!.Welcome to Fundamentals of Infrastructure Management! This book

emerged from our shared experiences as co-teachers of the 'Infrastructure Management'

course at Carnegie Mellon University over the past decade. Today, we are thrilled to

provide this book to the community of infrastructure management educators, practitioners,

students, and researchers under a Creative Commons license.While we believe that the

material contained in this book could attract commercial publishers, we have chosen to

make it freely available. Our intention is to expand the reach and impact of the content,

fostering improvements in the practice of infrastructure management. By "free of charge,"

we mean that the material can be obtained without cost, but we encourage readers to

invest their time and effort in mastering its concepts. To aid in your learning journey, we

have included problem assignments throughout the chapters and strongly encourage you

to engage with them.For educational purposes, we permit reproduction of this work with

appropriate citation. You can refer to this book as follows: Coffelt, Donald and Chris

Hendrickson. Fundamentals of Infrastructure Management. 2017. Pittsburgh,

Pennsylvania, USA. https: //doi.org/10.1184/R1/5334379.v1Your feedback and

suggestions are invaluable to us. If you find this work helpful or have ideas for additions

or corrections, please reach out to either of the authors: Don Coffelt

(dcoffelt@andrew.cmu.edu) or Chris Hendrickson (cth@cmu.edu). We plan to

periodically update the book, although our focus remains on the timeless fundamental

concepts. In this third edition, we have expanded the content to include topics such as

Service Life, Sensor-Based Condition Assessment, Demand Management, Climate

Change, and Capital Project Prioritization.Throughout our teaching, we have strived to

prepare students for careers in infrastructure management. We firmly believe that this

field offers an attractive and fulfilling professional path. As an illustration of the career

opportunities in infrastructure management, Don currently serves as the Associate Vice-

President for Facilities Management and Campus Services at Carnegie Mellon University.

In this role, he oversees a diverse team of nearly 400 personnel responsible for managing

the university's 150-acre campus, encompassing 7 million square feet of buildings, along

with transportation and utility distribution systems.