DPR Goes Back to School

USD: While attending the University of San Diego (USD) for her MBA, Elizabeth Barrie of DPR’s San Diego office had the opportunity through her project management class to make a contribution to the community. With DPR donating construction materials and Barrie serving as a team leader, she and her 20 classmates took on the renovation of a senior citizen’s home in the Linda Vista neighborhood, which surrounds the university.

“The experience was extremely rewarding,” said Barrie. “Not only was I able to give something back to the community, but being a leader of a construction team filled with MBA students, who had never picked up a hammer before, really expanded my management skills. I’m hoping to continue my involvement with this program in the future.”

ASU: Across the nation, teams of DPR Champions are working with their alma maters to create recruiting plans that will help attract the best and brightest construction students to the company. In developing the plan for Arizona State University (ASU), Jon Bloom of DPR’s Sacramento office found that the university placed a heavy emphasis on scholarships. In partnership with ASU’s Scholarship Committee, the DPR Ever Forward Scholarship was established and offered to the student body of the Del E. Webb School of Construction. One of the largest given at the school, the $5,000 scholarship includes the opportunity to serve as a summer intern at the recipient’s choice of DPR offices in the United States. Based on his scholastic achievement, career path and core values, Michael Hacker, a junior, was chosen from a large pool of applicants as the first recipient of the scholarship.

Portland Named 2000 Office of the Year

DPR’s Portland office was recently honored with the company’s “Best-of-the Best” award. Given annually, the award was created to honor the office with the highest achievement in four categories - employee satisfaction surveys, customer satisfaction surveys, measured performance in DPR’s critical success factors, and overall profitability and bottom-line performance.

Each office’s results in these equally weighted categories were compared and analyzed to decide the best-in-class winner. With strong employee, customer and financial results, Portland edged out the San Diego and Sacramento offices for the top honors.

“The success of our company is derived from the combined efforts of all our offices,” said DPR’s Peter Nosler. “There were great achievements by each office, but Portland’s performance in 2000 was outstanding.”

In recognition, Portland office employees will receive an additional paid day off. However, Nosler notes, “The real benefit of the awards process is the creation of tangible measurements of each office’s success in reaching its goals.”

Diverse Projects in Austin

With the goal of increasing participation by minority and women subcontractors in its projects, DPR’s Austin office has implemented a Supplier Diversity Program that is winning some raving fans in the region. Initiated approximately a year ago, the program has been instrumental in raising awareness in the minority contracting community of the opportunities available on DPR projects. DPR’s outreach to the 582 certified minority/women subcontractors in Austin includes notifying them of bid opportunities, breaking down bid packages into smaller contracts, conducting informational meetings and pre-job walks, and assisting with the prequalification process.

“We want to do everything we can to encourage minority sub participation,” said Dee Cantu, DPR’s champion of the program. “But this isn’t an altruistic proposition. By opening up the process to smaller companies, we increase the number of qualified subs, which creates a more competitive bidding process.”

The program has proven its effectiveness. On one recent project for Sun Microsystems, 38 percent of the subcontractors were minority- and women-owned companies.

Oracle Campus Expands in Rocklin

DPR’s Sacramento office recently began construction of a second building at Oracle’s Rocklin, CA campus. The two-story, 120,000-sq.-ft. project is located in one of the fastest growing regions in California. With an aggressive 11-month schedule to meet the estimated May 2002 completion date, the new building will provide room for more than 680 Oracle employees.

“The Rocklin/Roseville area is experiencing tremendous growth,” said DPR’s Brad Des Jardin. “With the presence of Hewlett Packard and NEC facilities, as well as the expansion of Oracle’s campus, this area continues to attract high-tech development, which is one of our specialties.”

Working with the project team, DPR is exploring the use of more energy efficient materials in the design and construction of the building, including glass, roofing and skin materials, as well as electrical, mechanical and lighting systems that will save on energy costs.