Relentless Pursuit
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Our people bring the passion, drive and ingenuity to make great things happen for our clients, communities and industry.
Meet Our Relentless Allies
Florida Operations Announce Relentless Ally Award Winners
Relentless Ally
Congratulations to Florida office's 1st annual culture champions and Relentless Ally winners. Derived from the company’s culture statement, the award categories were Zero Harm, Client Experience and People First. The winners were announced at the Florida Managers Meeting this month, and the ceremony was a popular success! The Florida leadership team discussed the categories and decided the nominations. Nominees were anonymously submitted and chosen through supportive evidence, in-depth discussion and outside recommendations.
Zero Harm
The Zero Harm award recognizes a team that is striving for complete safety on the job to help 51Թ51cg1 lead the industry in safety. The winner was objectively chosen by pulling the safety statistics from every active project. What the statistics don’t say is how the team has changed their client’s safety culture to reflect 51Թ51cg1’s perspective on the importance of Zero Harm. Congratulations to Jacksonville Regional Transportation Center team on winning the Zero Harm Relentless Ally award. This team exemplifies the idea Make it Count; on the jobsite, you will see safety best practices to little things often overlooked. Way to go JRTC!
Client Experience
The Client Experience award recognizes a team that went above and beyond in their delivery to the client. The winning team overcame extreme obstacles and challenges to deliver the building early (35 days!); the early and in-budget project led to the client selecting 51Թ51cg1 for their next project. Congratulations to the SeaWorld Sesame Street team on winning the Client Experience Relentless Ally award. This team prioritized the client by delivering our services while forming a powerful and lasting connection. Great Job SeaWorld team!
People First
The People First award recognizes an employee who is truly a relentless ally internally, externally, personally and professionally. This individual is motivated to create an environment where 51Թ51cg1 is hands-down the best place to work. Congratulations to Jason Sizemore on winning the People First Relentless Ally award. Jason has a close relationship with his large team and focuses on developing them personally and professionally. He naturally connects with people on a personal level and is well-respected for that and many other reasons. Thank you, Jason, for truly putting your team members and clients first!
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Amar Vel
Relentless Ally
A Formula for Success
Nature versus nurture. It’s one of the most hotly contested topics within the field of psychology.
As the son of a civil engineer and interior designer who went on to build an impressive career in construction, Amar Vel might help scholars settle the debate.
Amar, whose family owned their own construction firm in Chennai, India, knew from a young age that he wanted to follow in his parents’ footsteps. When he was just 17, Amar came to the United States to study civil engineering at the University of Connecticut. With a prodigious talent for mathematics, Amar excelled at his coursework.
During an internship with the Connecticut Department of Transportation (DOT), Amar helped analyze the Metro-North rail line that crosses over approximately 150 historic bridges between New Haven Station and Grand Central Station. As he identified needed bridge repairs, Amar found himself dreaming instead about performing them. “I realized I enjoyed physically building something,” recalls Amar.
Upon graduation, Amar could have easily returned to India to work in his family’s business. But Amar wanted to write his own formula for success. The equation was simple: courage + opportunity = fulfillment of the American dream. “I wanted to stand on my own and build a name for myself in this country,” acknowledges Amar.
Preconstruction was a natural fit for the self-professed numbers guy who soon found his niche in high-rise, multi-unit construction, and most recently in the hospitality sector. But Amar didn’t just thrive on providing air-tight estimates; he enjoyed the relationships he forged with design, trade and engineering partners.
“If you can guide an owner or designer to make the most cost-effective decisions earlier during the preconstruction phase, you can start a project much more quickly than the traditional design-bid-build approach,” affirms Amar. The adage “time is money” rings true for all markets in construction, but perhaps none more so than multifamily—making Amar’s expertise even more valuable.
Amar joined 51Թ51cg1 in 2011 when the company’s Atlanta team was resuming construction on Buckhead Atlanta, a megaproject that stalled during the Great Recession. Amar was instrumental in helping reach a guaranteed maximum price (GMP), which set the successful restart in motion.
In his role as vice president, of preconstruction, Amar has taken countless projects from mere napkin sketches to become recognized Atlanta landmarks like . In fact, Amar is so fond of this brainstorming stage that he often keeps the first mock-ups as souvenirs. For Icon Midtown, it all started with a simple rectangle box from which Amar helped determine how to maximize the owner’s pro forma.
Amar is as passionate about hitting the numbers as he is about achieving them in an innovative way. Recently, Amar played an instrumental role in driving preconstruction efforts on the , 51Թ51cg1’s first project with off-site manufacturing firm Prescient. He performed six different density studies, ultimately developing a model that met each stakeholder’s distinct needs including the desired building skin and variety of floor plans. The result was a 13-story Prescient tower located adjacent to a precast parking deck and two five-story, wood-frame buildings.
Recognizing the density limitations of wood-frame structures and their long construction schedules, Amar believes off-site is the future of multifamily housing construction. “Owners are not always going to build 30 or 40-story towers, and labor isn’t coming back overnight. Structural prefabrication can achieve that middle ground with less on-site resources,” says Amar.
But Amar is quick to caution that innovative projects such as the Osprey must be planned and executed as a cohesive team. “You can’t think, ‘I’m an owner, I’m a trade partner.’ You have to think I am part of a team trying to achieve a common goal.”
As Amar seeks out new and innovative ways to serve 51Թ51cg1’s clients, he will continue to cement the legacy he set out to build as a young man. Amar’s family may have influenced his destiny as a second-generation builder, but it’s also his unique talents and entrepreneurial spirit that have helped him excel—thousands of miles away from where he first became fascinated by an industry that impacts the whole world, one building, one home at a time.
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Dennis Kuykendall
Relentless Ally
The best in class in school construction
When it comes to building schools and managing district programs, Project Executive Dennis Kuykendall, “aces it” each and every time. With his 25-plus years in construction, Dennis is deeply entrenched within local school communities located along California’s southernmost Central Coast. In fact, he has developed trusted advisor relationships with over 25-percent of all Ventura County School Districts.
In the ten years he’s been with 51Թ51cg1, Dennis has overseen work that includes just about every project in progress or completed by the Ventura office such as the Oxnard College Student Services Building; a parking structure for the University of California, Santa Barbara; Cesar E. Chavez K-8 School in the Oxnard School District; a new K-8 Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Agriculture and Mathematics (STEAAM) school for the Somis Union Elementary School District; a new K-8 STEAAM school for Rio School District; the Rio School District Bond program; and the Oak Park Unified School District Measure R Bond Program. Other large projects include the William J. “Pete” Knight Veteran’s Home, the Ruben Castro Human Services Center, and the
In the Oak Park Union School District, Dennis is a shining star for the work he performed at . That project gained national attention for the installation of seven, first of its kind, net-zero classroom buildings that were made out of single use containers used for ocean shipping.
The buildings achieve net-zero energy consumption, save 115 tons of landfill waste by using 85 percent reclaimed material, and use high-performing and energy-efficient systems that reduce monthly utility costs. Each building features full LED lighting, ductless HVAC Risystems, floor-to-ceiling windows, and solar panels classifying the buildings as “ultra-green” and automatically qualifying for 37 LEED credits or 42 CHPS credits.
Dennis played a key role in helping the District gain additional recognition for that classroom project, as well as for Oak Park’s program in general, with honors and awards from the United States Green Building Council’s (USGBC) California Central Coast Chapter’s Green School Award; “Green Ribbon” recognition from the U.S. Department of Education; and a Green School Leadership Award, which was presented at the Green Schools California Summit in 2011.
No matter what project Dennis is working on, his professionalism, leadership skills, passion for his work, and positive attitude fosters an uncanny ability to treat each project as though it was his own business. “To run a great business, you have to have a great team, and I’m lucky to have that in my favor,” says Dennis. “I’ve been working with the same, trusted 51Թ51cg1 teammates as a cohesive unit for the past ten years now. Together with our partners, we’ve built amazing structures and friendships. All of us are equally committed—and it shows in the trusted advisor relationships we’ve built over the years. They just keep getting stronger every day.”
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Elizabeth Angel
Relentless Ally
Transforming Projects through Technology
With over 21 years of experience in the design and construction industry, Elizabeth Angel is known as something of a technology wizard. In her role as director of BIM/VDC at Howard S. Wright (HSW), a 51Թ51cg1 company, Elizabeth focuses on implementing technologies that make projects located throughout the Pacific Northwest more safe, lean and efficient.
Her expertise using the latest technologies such as 3D modeling, OpenSpace and Procore, coupled with her strong network within the AEC community, places her at the forefront of her field. Elizabeth’s passion for technology ensures we are building to last, but her passion for diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) ensures we are also building new futures along the way.
Humble Beginnings
The sixth of seven children, Elizabeth grew up in San Ysidro, California where she and her brother spent countless hours in the back yard designing and creating structures of all shapes and sizes. She may not have realized it then, but it was during these early years that she honed her natural-born talent as an engineer. One of Elizabeth’s driving motivators has always been making her family proud—her maternal grandfather endured many hardships moving the family from Mexico in the 1960s, and her father, an engineer without a formal education, was the sole breadwinner for her large family.
Through her family’s support and guidance, Elizabeth earned her Bachelor of Science degree in architectural engineering from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. She joined her six other siblings who all earned college degrees and are now part of her family’s legacy as first-generation college graduates.
“I came from very humble beginnings,” says Elizabeth. “I’m grateful for the help I received when I was growing up; now it’s my time to pay it back. My biggest focus is not to be a bottleneck but an enabler. I’m determined to do whatever it takes to generate results and make it happen.”
Collaborating for Success
For Elizabeth, “making it happen” means thoroughly testing new technologies to ensure they improve the work of the teammates she supports. Working with her technology counterparts across the U.S., Elizabeth is dedicated to finding tools that make the job easier, not harder.
When she tests a new tool, Elizabeth and her team seek out opportunities to pilot it before rolling it out broadly. After 12 years with HSW, project teams trust that any tool Elizabeth introduces will increase efficiency and improve client experience.
Elizabeth isn’t always the driving force behind new technologies; just as her teams trust her, she trusts them to tell her what tools will be most useful on their projects. This type of collaboration is a hallmark of her work.
“New technology can be intimidating for a lot of people,” Elizabeth explains. “Working together ensures that everyone feels that it is learnable, shareable and tangible. And, above all, that it will improve the quality of our projects.”
Embracing Diverse Perspectives
In addition to leveraging technology to improve the quality of projects, Elizabeth is also helping diversify our pool of trade partners to bring new perspectives onboard. She is co-championing DE&I in Seattle by hosting in which representatives from small, minority and women-owned businesses and enterprises (SMWBEs) can learn about upcoming partnership opportunities and get to know the HSW team.
“The Diverse Partnership Engagement meetings are dynamic and meaningful opportunities,” says Elizabeth. “We want to raise awareness about upcoming bids, but more than that, we want diverse businesses to know we are proactively advocating for their success.”
Internally, Elizabeth is the current co-chair of the Northwest chapter of Somos, the company’s employee affinity group representing our Hispanic/Latin@ teammates, as well as a member of Connecting Women, our employee affinity group supporting the advancement of women in construction. Through her involvement with these groups, Elizabeth is advancing 51Թ51cg1’s goal of creating a workplace that is more diverse, equitable and inclusive of a wide range of talents and perspectives.
Whether she is introducing new technology, hosting diverse partners engagement meetings, supporting teams for successful projects or celebrating the accomplishments of her peers, Elizabeth puts her all in everything she does. She is passionate about all aspects of the business and a true ally for clients and co-workers alike—her last name says it all!
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