Dr. Avila's industry experience spans over two decades in construction, primarily in general management. Before moving into academia, he served as executive vice president and general manager of CA Construction, a family-owned firm that specializes in disaster restoration and government contracting. As general manager, he oversaw business operations along with construction and consulting services for government agencies, homeowners, property managers, law firms, AEC firms, third-party administrators, and major insurance carriers.

He is a scholar-practitioner committed to enhancing the work of restoration industry professionals through applied research. The goal in all of his work is to help disaster restoration firms build capacity by advancing the understanding of industry dynamics, improving the design and application of best practices, and strengthening the connections between scholarly and professional activities. His research has explored family business dynamics in restoration, and, working with faculty at Purdue University, he recently served as principal investigator on a study of employee burnout and engagement in the industry.

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Since 2008, Dr. Avila has taught in business, engineering, and construction programs at the graduate and undergraduate levels. Before coming to MTSU, he served at two other institutions as an associate professor, business department chair, MBA program director, and program director in a college of engineering.

Dr. Avila holds a bachelor's degree in industrial/organizational psychology from Pepperdine University, a Master of Business Administration from California Baptist University, and a doctorate from the University of Southern California. As an undergraduate he studied at ITESM in Guadalajara, Mexico, and while earning his master's he studied at Regent's Park College at the University of Oxford in England.

He and his wife, Becca, have been married since 2004 and have three children: Jackson, Liv, and Jeremiah. They live in Franklin and love to travel, explore, hike, fish, hunt, and do many other things outdoors.

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Much of Dr. Avila's recent scholarship examines employee burnout, worklife, and family business dynamics in the restoration and concrete industries, drawing on established tools such as the Maslach Burnout Inventory, the Areas of Worklife Survey, and structural equation modeling. Working with faculty at Purdue University, he served as principal investigator on a study of employee burnout and engagement in restoration. His research has appeared in leading peer-reviewed journals, including the American Society of Civil Engineers' Journal of Construction Engineering and Management and he has presented at national conferences. He also writes regularly for the profession, including a recent three-part series, "A Maturing Industry Under Pressure," applying Porter's Five Forces to the restoration industry. He is the sole author of an upcoming textbook, Disaster Restoration and Reconstruction Management: An Introduction, currently under peer review.

Since joining MTSU in 2018, Dr. Avila has applied for roughly $9.49 million in external funding. His grant work includes serving as co-principal investigator on an NSF/NASA grant and a National Association of Home Builders grant. His scholarship and industry partnerships have also sought to make MTSU a national hub for disaster restoration. His next study, an updated peer-reviewed project on burnout in disaster restoration, is currently underway.

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