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Three of 38 professionals named in Constructech magazine’s 2015 Women in Construction list are DPR employees: Lisa Lingerfelt, Radhika Menon and Cari Williams. The winners were chosen based on their involvement with technology within the construction industry, contribution to their companies and influence on colleagues.

AUSTIN, TX

Dividing the schedule into activities based on “dirtiness” to better control potential contamination, the team successfully converted two existing wet labs into two Class 100 and two Class 1000 cleanrooms and won an excellence in construction award from the Associated Builders and Contractors (Central Texas). The University of Texas at Austin Micro Electronics Research (MER) Cleanroom build-out was especially challenging due to strict quality standards and the accuracy of as-built records. Laser scanning proved helpful in identifying existing steel and overhead mechanical/electrical/plumbing (MEP), which was incorporated into building information modeling (BIM) for clash detection.

ATHENS, GA

After two years of construction, the project team completed Correll Hall for the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business campus. The building is 75,000 sq. ft. and houses graduate programs, the dean’s suite, state-of-the-art classrooms, administrative offices, and a two-story study lounge. Supported entirely by $35 million in private donations, Correll Hall is named in honor of alumni Pete and Ada Lee Correll (both from the class of ’63).

ORLANDO, FL

“The House That Love Built” is the theme of the Nemours Children’s Hospital’s new Ronald McDonald House, which will host families of children undergoing medical treatments when completed in 2016. To kick off construction, the project team received help from a very special guest: two-year-old Isabella. Isabella had just received her last chemotherapy treatment at Nemours when she joined team members to place the final tiles into a mosaic heart at the facility. DPR’s Special Services Group (SSG) team—which focuses on small to mid-size projects—is building the $6-million facility. Built on more than three quarters of an acre, phase one will include 15 bedrooms, two commercial kitchens, and family gathering spaces. The team held a topping out ceremony in November.

ST. PETERSBURG, FL

Over the summer, the project team at 330 Third Street South Residences celebrated with a traditional topping out ceremony. The ceremony marks the occasion where the team puts the final beam in place, signifying the end of structural steel erection. Located in the heart of downtown, the 625,394-sq.-ft., 19-story tower will include 17 residential floors and a rooftop with an amenity deck. Completion is scheduled for next year.

BALTIMORE, MD

In October, more than 300 attendees celebrated the ribbon cutting for the Father Martin’s Ashley Skip’s Hall for Integrated Addiction Treatment. The 44,000-sq.-ft. facility will allow for a stronger therapeutic alliance between the patient and his or her treatment team and a more streamlined approach to the admitting process. Additionally, Skip’s Hall will house the pain recovery program, allowing patients in that program to move easily from one treatment modality to another, maximizing their time in active therapies and as a cohesive therapeutic group.

PASADENA, CA

DPR broke ground on the new Shriners for Children Medical Center, set to open in 2017. The state-of-the-art outpatient medical center will include clinical, diagnostic, outpatient surgery, rehabilitation and orthotics/prosthetics services. It will help bring exceptional specialty pediatric care to children and families in Southern California, across the Southwest, and Mexico, regardless of the families’ ability to pay. The team anticipates holding the project topping out ceremony in the new year.

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According to Gallup, the average American adult works 47 hours a week, which adds up to 2,256 hours per year. That is just one of the many reasons why researchers and psychologists have put so much time and effort into understanding what makes a workplace great. In 2015 alone, various business publications have given DPR spots in the top 10 on their lists of best places to work, including the Triangle Business Journal and Florida Trend, which both ranked DPR the No. 1 Best Place to Work.

ASHBURN, VA

Up to 70 percent of the world’s internet traffic flows through Loudoun County’s nearly 6 million sq. ft. total of data centers each day, dubbing the Northern Virginia region “Data Center Alley.” Since 1999, DPR has been part of Virginia’s growing data center presence and is continuing its role in the economic development of the county with its newest project, the Equinix Ashburn North campus. This campus will add 1.2 million sq. ft. of new data center space, which represents about half of the site development of the entire campus. Congresswoman Barbara Comstock was among the groundbreaking celebration attendees in October and applauded Equinix and DPR for contributing to the growth of the county.

FORT WORTH, TX

The project team broke ground on a new data center for Facebook in the AllianceTexas development. The 500,000-sq.-ft. facility will incorporate the latest in computing infrastructure design and will be powered by 100 percent renewable energy. This project marks the fourth Facebook data center campus to be built by the DPR Fortis Mission Critical team. Previous projects include:

• Facebook’s first ground-up data center in Prineville, OR, which won “Project of the Year” and “Green Project of the Year” from Engineering News-Record in 2011;
• Two 370,000-plus-sq.-ft. facilities in Forest City, NC, as well as ancillary buildings;
• A 300,000-sq.-ft. data center in Lulea, Sweden—Facebook’s first data center outside of the U.S.

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In July, DPR celebrated 25 years of building great things and the completion of more than 8,700 projects, totaling some $29.7 billion. In November, the San Francisco Business Times honored Co-Founders Doug Woods, Peter Nosler and Ron Davidowski (the D, P and R) with a Most-Admired CEO award (Private Company). Other CEO award recipients include Bernard Tyson (Kaiser Permanente), Joe Lacob (Golden State Warriors), Keith Krach (DocuSign), Laura Alber (Williams-Sonoma), Niki Leondakis (Commune Hotels+Resorts) and Randy Scott (Invitae).

RICHMOND, VA

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s…the DPR Descenders! Rappelling 400 feet down from the local SunTrust tower building—safely, of course—a team of DPR superheroes raised more than $6,000 for the Special Olympics Virginia. From left to right: Jay Ryba, Lisa Lingerfelt, Tyler Atkins, Jenny McCune, Jose Calderon.

SAN DIEGO, CA

For the 22nd year, DPR has supported the Luau and Legends Surfing Invitational to benefit the UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center. Some 600 attendees—including surfing legends, cancer survivors, community members and sponsors from the biopharmaceutical industry—set a new record by raising an estimated $475,000 for cancer research, according to event chair, DPR’s Larz Lock. Since it first began, the event has collected more than $7 million in total. The event marked the culmination of more than nine months and hundreds of hours of planning and organizing for DPR volunteers.

BOCA RATON, FL

In October, TJAC Development, and DPR Construction along with ZVI Construction broke ground on The Boardwalk at SW 18th Street. The approximately 130,000-sq.-ft. project within the Boca Pointe Community consists of three ground-up structures and will contain a mix of retail, restaurants and offices. Existing businesses at the location will remain operational during construction. Completion is scheduled for 2016.

PLANO, TX

At the groundbreaking of the 205,000-sq.-ft. expansion to Capital One’s corporate campus in October, employees, city officials, state legislators and project team members celebrated the new space. Bringing the overall campus to nearly 1.5 million square feet, the expansion will house up to 1,200 employees and include six training rooms, a full-service cafeteria, collaborative spaces and game room, as well as more than 550 additional parking spaces.

“The things that one would see in this building, from a work perspective, would be the things that one would see in a leading-edge Silicon Valley company. We have a great workforce here and in the [Dallas-Forth Worth] area, and then the officials in Plano really opened up their arms and helped make it easy.”- Sanjiv Yajnik, president of financial services, Capital One

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Engineering News-Record (ENR)—a publication often referred to as the “bible” of the construction industry—published its Sourcebook for 2015. Discussing trends in market sectors in this year’s edition, DPR’s Mike Ford said the following: “Office is in a strong cycle, and we see it remaining strong for at least three years.” Sourcebook supplements ENR’s initial Top 400 list, which ranked DPR as the number 21 contractor in the nation by revenue this year. This is the eighteenth consecutive year that DPR has ranked within the top 50 of ENR’s list. 18 years ago, DPR first broke into the top 50 (at No. 46).

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“Kids these days!” It seems every generation has heard this phrase from the generations that came before them, and millennials are no exception. The youngest generation in the workforce, millennials are those born between 1981 and 2000. CBS Sunday Morning explored the topic of millennials in the workforce in a segment that featured DPR as an example of a company that empowers its employees—millennials included.