Elevating DPR’s Up and Coming Healthcare Leaders

Building healthcare facilities requires more than technical expertise—it requires a deep understanding of the business of healthcare and the unique spaces where care happens. 

Across the AEC industry, programs like Lean certifications, DBIA training and Integrated Project Delivery workshops have raised the bar for collaboration and technical excellence. In healthcare, ASHE’s Health Care Construction and Certified Health Care Constructor programs help develop specialized builder skill sets. But to support this uniquely challenging market with healthcare clients experiencing financial strain, policy shifts and rapidly evolving care models, DPR saw the need to go further.

In 2024, DPR launched its Healthcare Fellowship, a professional development program designed to build business acumen for healthcare builders and equip emerging leaders with the knowledge to bridge the gap between construction expertise and hospital operational realities. 

Having wrapped up its second year in 2025, DPR’s Healthcare Fellowship program has graduated 43 emerging leaders equipped with the tools and knowledge to grow their careers in the healthcare construction space. Last year’s cohort consisted of 21 professionals from across the country, in a range of roles including project managers, superintendents and project engineers, with between four and 19 years of experience in the industry across MEP and SPW specialties.

Healthcare project delivery has very unique demands that can differ from other technical construction projects. One of the key takeaways from the first cohort was to give Fellows the opportunity to see firsthand how specific care spaces operate. 

“DPR prides itself on being a good technical builder and understanding the ‘what’ of what we build. The Fellowship was designed to answer the ‘why’ behind the spaces we build and to give participants exposure to a different side of healthcare they may not have otherwise been exposed to,” said Supina Mapon, a healthcare core market strategist at DPR, and one of the facilitators of the program. “It gives them a better understanding of how the spaces work.”

“I understand the healthcare industry from a higher level now that we’ve touched a lot of different aspects; just learning the new terminology—and the factors that influence operational and cost differences between acute care, non-acute care, inpatient and outpatient—has been really beneficial,” added Spencer Lamb, a project manager in DPR’s Boston business unit, and a member of the 2025 cohort. “Now I have a higher understanding of how hospitals operate.” 

The program has evolved in its two years of existence. This year, in addition to clinical exposure, the program brought in industry speakers, including designers, owners, clinicians and other experts, to provide a first-person view.

“What sets this Fellowship apart from others is the fact that they dig deeper on the challenges faced by architects, owners, engineers and other key trade partners. It's not just executing on a submittal or an RFI, it's things like understanding behavioral health details or physician shortage concerns,” said Aaron Zeligman, a senior project executive with Banner Health. “The Fellowship program truly promotes an understanding of the key issues that we are solving.”

The biggest piece of advice partners can offer? Be curious and knowledgeable about those you work with on the construction and use of the building.

“As architects, we’re not just designing spaces in a vacuum; we’re designing them with knowledge about how they will be used by the people who occupy them, just like [general contractors] are not just building a building,” said Craig Passey, vice president and director of health at SmithGroup. “There’s a level of understanding that comes through in what you’re building, an awareness of pressure points our clients are dealing with.”

By blending broader AEC training with healthcare-specific expertise, the program aims to develop professionals who are not just builders, but trusted partners, helping hospitals achieve both operational and patient-centered goals.

“A builder who has empathy for the spaces they build ultimately is a better builder. If you understand what you're building, it’s reduced risk to the project, it's better outcomes and it's higher value for the client,” said Mapon.

Now in its third year, the 2026 cohort is already underway, with 22 participants ranging from 3-13 years of experience. By the end of this year there will be nearly 70 DPR emerging healthcare professionals to have gone through the program, allowing all alumni to create their own far-reaching networks across the company.

“Sometimes, you may only focus on the projects that you’re working on, but knowing there are other healthcare leaders across the country that are doing very similar things to what I’m doing, and knowing that there are other resources out there that I can tap into and relate to? This is the first time I've gotten to do that since I joined [DPR],” said Lamb. “One of the main things that I got out of the program was the exposure to the vast amount of resources that DPR has in-house that we can tap into as young healthcare leaders.”