Leader of the Pack

Beating out some of the area’s top companies, DPR’s Austin office recently earned the title “Best Place to Work” after placing first among companies with corporate offices outside the Central Texas area by the Austin Business Journal. Based on employee responses, the survey measured everything from compensation to quality of life issues. Though lifestyle factors—the Austin office boasts, in true Texas style, a saloon—do point to employee appreciation of the enjoyment core value, other ever forward benefits, such as DPR’s “Phantom Stock” program and collaborative culture, played equal parts in this success. Also honored in 2005 were the Redwood City, San Francisco and San Jose offices, which collectively ranked 13th in the companies with 101-350 Bay Area employees category of the San Francisco Business Times and Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal’s “Top 50 Best Places to Work in the Bay Area” survey.

Following through for U.S. Pharmacopeia

After tackling preconstruction services for the consolidation of nearly 140,000 sq. ft. of laboratory and office space for U.S. Pharmacopeia (USP), a non-government organization that promotes public health by establishing state-of-the-art standards to ensure the quality of medicines and other health care technologies, DPR was awarded construction of the complex, ground-up biotech facility. Located in Rockville, MD, the fast-track project consists of two structures, a four-story office/laboratory building and a state-of-the-art conference center, spanned over a three-level, 120,000-sq.-ft. below-grade garage. With construction currently underway, the project is scheduled to be completed in the fall of 2006.

Bulking up the Blood Supply

When selecting a general contractor to build its new blood processing and distribution facility in Douglasville, GA, the American Red Cross Blood Services Southern Region considered seven companies before awarding the project to DPR’s Atlanta office in June. The facility, which will include state-of-the-art laboratories used for processing blood and platelets, as well as blood component storage and the maintenance of a rare blood bank, will have to conform to regulatory standards required by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). According to Wayne Brown, chief administrative officer for the Southern Region, DPR’s extensive biopharmaceutical experience helped shape the decision. “It is essential that the builder we use is experienced in the design and construction of a complex, regulated environment and DPR has an impressive background in this area,” he explained. Work on the 185,000-sq.-ft., two-story tilt-up structure began in late July with substantial completion expected by January 2007.

Safety in Numbers

In its relentless pursuit of zero—zero punchlist, zero safety incidents—DPR recently completed the first half of 2005 with more than one million man hours worked and a total recordable case incidence rate of just 0.77. The lowest incidence rate in the company’s history, it is also significantly below the construction industry’s recordable incidence rate of 6.8, based on the U.S. Department of Labor’s most recent Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses. In this timeframe, DPR can also boast a perfect—0.0—lost-time injuries incidence rate. To keep people safe, DPR has long employed an Injury-Free Program on all its jobs. “This is an indicator of the level of performance and commitment everyone from the craft level all the way up to management has to sending people home from a jobsite safely,” explained DPR’s Rodney Spencley. “This is not luck—it is the result of a lot of team members’ contributions to a well-planned and executed project.”