CMT recently conducted a can-struction competition, where each team collected donation items for local food pantries and animal shelters, and then used these items to create a unique sculpture or “can-struction.” We had 10 teams compete for three honors: Most Creative Design, Best CMT Theme, and Most Creative Team Name. As you can see below, these sculptures are incredible, but the biggest accomplishment is collecting over 5,000 items plus an additional $560 in cash donations!

Donation Item Total: 5,016

Additional Cash Donation Total: $560

Benefitting Organizations:

  • Aurora Area Interfaith Food Pantry
  • Bishop Sullivan Center
  • Catholic Charities of Springfield, Illinois
  • Central Illinois Foodbank
  • The Little Pantry That Could
  • Mid-Ohio Foodbank
  • No Questions Asked Food Pantry
  • Operation Food Search
  • Ozarks Food Harvest
  • Sangamon County Animal Control
  • St. Petersburg Free Clinic
  • Stowe Mission of Central Ohio

Read more below on how each team came up with their ideas and the can-raderie it took to create a masterpiece.

Most Creative Design – Aurora, IL with “Au-ROARING Ahead

“CMT: Bridging Our People Together” encompasses the spirit of teamwork and camaraderie across CMT, featuring the Aurora staff as Avengers superheroes. The bridge carries our CMT superheroes over a soupy ocean filled with a thriving population of tuna. A construction crane is nearby to lend support to our superheroes working hard to provide superior infrastructure solutions to our local communities.

This was a fun and meaningful way to continue celebrating CMT’s 75th anniversary and to contribute to our local community. We are grateful to everyone who participated through donations, ideas, time, and encouragement. We’re honored to be awarded Most Creative Design, but the real prize is working with fun and friendly co-workers who are dedicated to excellence—even in can-struction!

Honorable Mention (Creative Design) – Kansas City, MO with “CANsas City”

With the Kansas City office being a newer/younger office, there was not a list of project history to pull from and can-struct. What we did know was the CANsas City Can-struction team wanted a way to represent the city in the best way possible. What better way than to recreate the heart of Kansas City: Arrowhead Stadium. Kansas Citians love their Chiefs football and follow them religiously. The Chiefs in turn do a great job giving back to our community, which is a part of what we strive to do as engineers: give back to the communities within which we live, work, and play. The team unanimously agreed upon this idea and charged forward like a fullback charging through the opposing team’s defensive line.

Our team is humbled to be an honorable mention for the Most Creative Design category. We had a lot of fun working together, and we are happy to benefit a great cause. Congratulations to all offices on a job well done.

Best CMT Theme: Springfield, MO with “Queen City CAN Crew” 

We wanted to include our community in this event, so we came up with the tag line “Paving the way to eliminate hunger in our community,” and we pitched it to several different contracting companies that we work with as well as Food 4 Less, a large grocery store. They wanted to be involved as well, so just like when going putting together a strong bid, we teamed with Hartman, APAC, Hunter Chase, and Food 4 Less to raise funds to acquire the cans needed for this ambitious can-struction.

Starting with the Route 66 road and the “Paving the way…” tag line, we transition to CMT’s 75th anniversary. We designed a morphing logo very similar to a lenticular 3D print. As you move from left to right, the logo changes from an old CMT logo or our new blue logo. Atop the cans is a rotating 75 made from cans as well, to signify our 75 years in business. Finally, the last panel is our team.

We love and value our community and are proud that we CAN make a difference!

Most Creative Team Name: Springfield, IL with “The Land of LinCAN”

“The Land of LinCAN” pun was just too good to pass up! As for our can-struction design, since our Springfield, IL office is our company headquarters, we wanted to pay a tribute to our longstanding clients. We created billboards (held up by mini binder clips) with their names and logos, as well as a few “Land of LinCAN” callouts along the way. In true CMT form, as part of our submission we created a drone video, taking a trip throughout our can-struction “city” of Springfield.

We are happy to credit our win to Good Ole Abe Lincoln and his punny name for this occasion, and we know that our benefiting organizations (Catholic Charities, Central Illinois Foodbank, and Sangamon County Animal Control) will put our donation items to good use.

CAN-gratulations to all of the other teams on spectacular designs!