Author: Shelby Cox

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03 May

Posted at 10:31h in Community, News, United Team

The first full week in May of each year marks North American Occupational Safety and Health (NAOSH) Week, which launched in 1997 from an agreement between the USA, Canada and Mexico. According to naosh.org, the goal of this commemorative event “is to focus employers, employees, partners and the public on the importance of preventing injury and illness in the workplace, at home, and in the community.”

United Construction has a safety-focused culture and sets a precedence for safety in the workplace, with a commitment to zero accidents and zero injuries. From on-site logistics and training to expert advisement from our partner Elite Safety, we take this seriously, and that includes protecting the health of our team. We are especially proud – not just this special week but every week – to have the support of our safety partner to help us excel in our high safety standards for our projects.

If we could pin one incident as a major test of our immense dedication to preventing injury and illness at work, it would be the COVID-19 pandemic. With strict precautions to keep everyone healthy – including mask mandates, social distancing, high cleanliness standards and fostering a culture of care where our staff members are encouraged to take sick time to care for ourselves – we will always keep the health and safety of our United team and partners at the forefront of what we do day in and day out.

How do you commit to occupational safety and health in your work?

30 Apr

Posted at 11:15h in News, Project Milestone, United Team

Tenancy has begun at 4141 Distribution Circle in North Las Vegas, one of our projects we’ve turned over with Dermody Properties after an aggressive 7-month schedule.

Justin Williams, who was project manager until handing off the project to Dane Horton in March, said it’s been a great project. “Thanks to the father-son team of Kerry and Colton Brock, the job went smoothly. We transformed a 20-year-old portion of the building with new finishes and systems, and we roughly doubled the warehouse space to a total of about 226,000 square feet.”

“Our expansion and renovation greatly increased the function and value of 4141 Distribution Circle, and helped re-position the building to a more modern and desirable warehouse/distribution facility,” said CEO Michael Russell.

The new warehouse is keeping Dermody Property representatives busy talking to interested tenants. In the photo above, you’ll see a shot highlighting the transition from the existing building to the expansion.

21 Apr

Posted at 11:03h in News, United Team

The Northern Nevada Business Weekly spoke with representatives from four contractors in Northern Nevada, including our very own Michael Russell. Michael spoke about the construction industry as it stands today, especially as the pandemic lingers on, and the opportunities that are imminent. Read his Q&A below, pulled directly from the NNBW article:

Question: What is the biggest difference in how your company assesses a job now versus before the pandemic?
Answer: The biggest difference for us is to focus on communicating our policies and procedures for the COVID response with our customers and incorporating language into our contracts, which allows us to react in unnecessary manner. There have been a few COVID delays in some of our projects, nothing major. But we have had a few impacts on a few projects where people showed up to the job site, and maybe had exposures or came up with COVID. So, we’ve had to do all the things that you’d have to do when you get exposed — sometimes stop the work for a few days till we can contract trace and figure out who’s exposed, who’s been exposed, etc. Really, it’s just communicating with all of our stakeholders and making sure our customers are aware of some of the impacts when they occur.

Q: What are the top challenges and opportunities facing your industry in 2021 and beyond?
A: For opportunities, this year — and probably for 2022 — there’s a very high demand for new industrial buildings, which is the bulk of our type of construction. That demand has been driven by the acceleration due to COVID of more goods being bought online and having to be delivered to people’s houses. That’s been driving our market sector property heavily. We’re as busy as we’ve ever been and we have more projects in the pipeline than we’ve ever had in terms of industrial. The main challenges we’re facing nowadays is steel and wood and plastic products have all become in high demand. Manufacturers right now have way more demand than they can actually manufacture and supply, so lead-time to getting materials to job sites is stretching out. In addition, there are cost escalations going on in the marketplace based on the inverted supply-demand ratio right now. And then thirdly, the top challenges and opportunities we have is finding and hiring quality people. Our business here locally is kind of limited because we have a small population. Companies like ours have to kind of sit back and balance our resources, because we can’t take on necessarily everything we get an opportunity to look at, so we have to look at our resources to make sure that we can perform the work without killing our people with overtime. So, that’s a kind of balancing act right now for a lot of companies here.

Q: With the need for masks, social distancing and other measures, how do you address safety in the workplace differently now?
A: We follow the Washoe County Health Department and CDC guidelines. And additional to the traditional safety items, we also ensure the proper use of personal protection equipment, and social distancing, health assessments, proper sanitation facilities, and cleaning protocols. We’re reducing meeting sizes or changing locations to safely support larger groups, as well as additional documentation to record those efforts and support possible contact tracing as necessary. And we’re communicating that with our field staffs on a regular basis. Our field supervision project control teams are well-versed in these requirements; they’re on top of this stuff every day at the job site.

15 Apr

Posted at 10:54h in News, United Team

As we all know, Casey Gunther, Operations Manager for United Construction, was announced as a winner of the 2020 Twenty Under 40 Awards, hosted by the Reno-Tahoe Young Professionals Network. When he was (very deservedly!) selected among the 20 leaders under 40 in the northern Nevada, the Northern Nevada Business Weekly (NNBW) asked him to share his thoughts on the economy and community leadership. Check out his responses below, copied from the NNBW article:

Q: What do you see as the top one or two economic development opportunities in Northern Nevada in 2021 and beyond?
Casey Gunther: We will continue to grow in our role as a major distribution hub for a wide range of goods, including products manufactured and assembled here. The opportunity for tourism is very bright given our vast public lands and the increased desire for outdoor recreation. It would be great to see entrepreneurs further facilitate the … responsible use of our public lands for the outdoor activities like horseback riding, hiking, camping, bird watching and more.

Q: Why is it important for young professionals to have a seat at the table when it comes to the business community in Northern Nevada?
Gunther: It would be great to have more young people at the table who are inclusive and open-minded. Because our political parties have become so polarized, we need new leadership that is respectful of differing points of view and willing to seek compromise.

Q: What under the radar businesses have the biggest opportunity for growth in Northern Nevada?
Gunther: The healthy food processing industry … I think we will continue to see quality food and nutraceutical manufacturers move to Northern Nevada or expand their operations here. We are also seeing recreational equipment startups, and I think that trend will continue in support of outdoor enthusiasts nationwide.

Q: Where do you see the greater Reno-Sparks region in 5 years?
Gunther: We will have greater economic diversity as businesses from California and other states continue to relocate here for our favorable business environment. I have faith our school districts, our regional transportation commission and governing agencies will continue to responsibly respond to this growth.

Q: If you could change one thing for the better about your community, what would it be?
Gunther: I wish we could build homes that are more affordable. Our employees want to live in a community where their children will be able to buy homes and live comfortably in the future. Residential prices are on a trajectory that makes home ownership less likely in the future for young professionals.

Q: Why do you feel this region is better positioned to bounce back from the COVID recession than other parts of the state and country?
Gunther: As a major distribution hub, Reno-Sparks is seeing substantial growth in industrial, e-commerce, food processing and last-mile demand, because people are staying home and ordering online the goods and foods they can have delivered. This online product demand is driving distribution construction and employment. I think the convenience of online shopping will be the norm long past COVID.

12 Apr

Posted at 10:19h in News, Project Milestone, United Team

“As Uline shipped its first package today from its new Reno Fulfillment Center, I want to salute the United Construction team that kept and met our promises. Uline, at nearly a million square feet, is one of the most complex and aggressive projects we’ve ever delivered. Uline required an intense amount of customer service, and our team did an amazing job of responding to Uline’s highly detailed needs and expectations.”

Strong words of positivity from United’s Operations Manager Casey Gunther, as we complete our work at Uline’s new facility in Northern Nevada and employees begin shipping out products.

Uline is the largest shipping supply company in the world. They have 12 buildings in three countries including Canada, Mexico and the USA. This facility is just over 900,000 sf that features three separate tenant improvements. The main office is nearly 16,000 sf while the separate Warehouse Managers Office is a two-story office structure.

Uline has extremely high standards when it comes to their building – those standards which are set by the owner Elizabeth Uihlein as they try to keep each of their facilities set up the same.

For instance, Nick Crawford, the Superintendent on the project, gave a few examples of Uline’s high standards of excellence:

  • “The entire ceiling structure was painted with three coats of paint! While we had originally allotted two coats of paint for each 100,000 sf, we ended up adding an additional coat of oil base paint to the scope. Uline accelerated the painting contractor by paying all the overtime it took. So this meant three coats of paint on the ceiling structure totaling over 3,150,000 sf of paint.”
  • “The facility has a lot of racking, as one would expect for a warehouse, with some of the racking requiring in-rack fire suppression. The facility has a large automated UPS conveyor system In the UPS area. It also has an automated shrink wrap machine for shrink wrapping full size pallets in their bulk shipping area. The facility is equipped with a unique Sackett Battery charging station. This Sackett system is a fully automated battery charging station with 120 battery capacity for warehouse equipment charging needs. Given the facility operates 20 hours a day, the demand for batteries is more then we have seen in the past.”
  • “This project also has a generator that supports full power back up. In case of a power outage the Uline facility can fully operate with no down time. These are the things that made this project unique and challenging for our project team.”

The new Uline center sits at 8800 Military Road in Reno.

03 Mar

Posted at 09:03h in News, United Team

United Construction is in design on a $25,000,000 clean room project, says Paul Laird, our VP of Preconstruction. Hamilton Company, a manufacturer of precision measurement devices, hired us to expand its campus to include a 68,000 sf multi-story, high tech facility. Hamilton is responding to a tremendous demand in their products, including syringes, needles and lab instruments.

While we’ve worked for Hamilton before, United won the project by providing a competitive budget estimate, beating out a national clean room specialty contractor, who has worked for Hamilton. “We are seeing more owners who want multiple contractors to provide competitive budgets. The new facility featured a competition, and we won the work because we had the best number.”

Paul is collaborating with local architects at FormGrey Studio to design the facility. Architect Kay Radzik, who formerly worked at United, is on the FormGrey team.

“It’s a tough, complicated project,” Paul explains. “We have a lot of challenges with the small site and the logistics of fitting in a tremendous amount of equipment in the given space. We will be working closely with the city to scope the project to meet their parking and landscaping expectations within the one-acre site. It will take some finesse to get this through permitting.”

In 2013 at Hamilton, United delivered a 13,200 sf clean room, which is shown in the image above, and a workshop in an existing warehouse. We have done other tenant improvements at the campus, including the total renovation of their parking lot in 2020. Currently, we have an important roadway project in permitting for Hamilton on Reactor Way.

25 Feb

Posted at 08:42h in News, United Team

United Superintendent Andy Jones is hard at work delivering Symmetrix Composite Tooling’s new facility in Minden. Symmetrix creates composite molds used to manufacture products for alternative energy, marine, aerospace, transportation and architecture industries. As the design-build contractor, United Construction is providing in-house architecture and construction services for their new 36,000 SF metal building.

This ultimate makers space will be a machining resource for the including wind energy, aerospace, architecture, infrastructure, marine and transportation industries. Innovative designers from all over the United States can have this plant mill the composite patterns and molds they are creating.

We sat down with Andy Jones and Symmetrix Owner John Barnitt to learn more about the project:

 

United: Is John Barnitt a hands-on kind of owner who visits the site often and pays close attention to the details?

Andy: Absolutely. He is very helpful, and it has been a pleasure working with him.

United: Do innovations flow out of the 26-foot-wide rollup door that opens into the location of the bank of state-of-the-art 5-axis CNC machines?

Andy: They move projects out and over to the north door into a paint booth  The booth is currently not shown on construction documents. It will be a revision at some point. The other rollup doors will be used for bringing in raw materials and parts.

United: Is the building higher on one end to accommodate the viewer platform looking into the bay of 20 CNC machine?

Andy: I believe the overall height was determined for what will be manufactured and clearance needed for the CNC machine. With that, the height of building at the north and south end was determined by slope requirements to meet building codes.

United: John, do you see the Minden facility as bigger or better or different than the facilities in Rhode Island and North Carolina?

John: The Minden facility is actually based on the RI and NC tooling shops with the goal to make these as similar as possible.

United: Will other parts of the facility be more basic machines and equipment?

John: Yes, a smaller a 25 foot 5-Axis milling machine, fabrication area with welding, composite lamination areas and a 90 foot climate controlled spray booth.

United: CNC stands for Computer Numerical Control, which allows a user to dial in a machine to mill a product, but what does the 5-axis part allow a user to do?

John: This machine mills composite shapes in five directions. The word Axis refers to the direction of travel of the cutting head, in this case…

  • X-Axis=82 feet (East and west)
  • Y-Axis=22 feet (North and South)
  • Z-Axis= 10 feet of vertical travel
  • B-Axis= 360° of cutting head rotation
  • C-Axis= 270° of diagonal head rotation

Additionally, I’d like to draw attention to the CNC machine reinforcement in the floor and the recessed steel mounting plates.

Andy: The CNC machine rests on 68 embedded steel plates 31”x10”x ¾”. After leveling it will be bolted down to 545 anchor bolts, with 8 bolts per plate. The footprint of the machine is 33’ x 95’. The footing consisted of upper and lower #6 rebar and about 150 yards of concrete.

John sets the bar rather high for a really cool shop. Don’t try doing this at home.

27 Jan

Posted at 08:20h in News, United Team

United Construction CEO Michael Russell recently participated in a Q&A with the Northern Nevada Business Weekly (NNBW) about the trends in development that we are seeing locally. According to Michael, we are seeing an increased focus on sites that require complicated entitlements and grading.

Text below copied directly from the NNBW article:

Q&A with United Construction: Industrial development outlook

United Construction CEO Mike Russell recently discussed the future of the Northern Nevada industrial market with the NNBW and provided insight into development efforts and the strength of the market for 2021 and beyond. Below is an interview with Mike, slightly edited for clarity.

United Construction CEO Mike Russell believes investors will continue to view the industrial real estate sector as a safe haven for strong investment in Northern Nevada.

NNBW: What factors will impact the industrial market as we move through the year?

Russell: We will continue to have COVID impacts such as personnel health, material supply chain issues and potential project schedule delays. In the last several months we’ve started to see significant material cost escalations related to steel, lumber and sheathing in the industrial sector.

The increase in home building across the country, combined with steel and lumber mill capacities, has created high demand for dimension lumber, sheathing and steel-related construction products (rebar, steel piping, structural and miscellaneous steel, etc.).

This increased demand has created price volatility and escalations which have driven industrial construction costs 5 to 10 percent-plus higher just over the last few months. We’ll keep watch on these cost escalation trends to see if they hold at recent higher levels, or if they recede with future home building and industrial construction demand.

NNBW: Site availability in Greater Reno-Sparks is at a premium. How does limited availability of easily developed sites impact new projects?

Russell: I believe we’ll see a few trends. Over the years here in the Truckee Meadows, industrial development has typically gravitated to sites that have simple entitlements and somewhat flat topography.

One trend we’re seeing is development on sites that require more complicated entitlements and grading.

This trend will drive development delivery timelines longer and project costs higher. Industrial development will look east of Reno-Sparks in TRIC, Fernley and beyond to have more industrial land inventory and potentially less site acquisition and development costs.

We’ll still see industrial development at appropriately zoned infill sites throughout Reno-Sparks over the coming years, and developers will get creative at multiple property site assemblies to accommodate industrial development where possible.

NNBW: How will the ongoing pandemic and social distancing guidelines impact work operations across the county?

Russell: Unless the pandemic gets worse, we don’t anticipate much impact from what we’re already experiencing. We require daily health screening, masks, social distancing, health and safety practices per local and federal guidelines. COVID has already slightly impacted some of our project schedules and material deliveries since Q2 of 2020.

NNBW: Will 2021 be a good or bad year for the regional industrial market?

Russell: Industrial development has a strong future in Northern Nevada for the following reasons:

  • In our current COVID environment, industrial, food, e-commerce and last-mile demand is very strong since people are staying home and ordering goods and food online for local pick-up or delivery.
  • Northern Nevada is experiencing a major influx of businesses and people from around the country (a high portion from California), which will continue to diversify and strengthen our local economy. That in turn will require more industrial sector support.
  • While developers are feeling the impact of construction and land acquisition cost increases, exit cap rates are at all-time lows. Industrial lease rates also are/will be rising.
  • As has been the case for many years, investors view the industrial real estate sector as a safe haven for investment, which is truer today than ever since retail and office sectors are suffering higher risk.

13 Jan

Posted at 07:57h in News, Project Milestone, United Team

 

Digging the dirt today are Tina Iftiger, Chief Commercial Officer, and Darren Griffen, President/CEO of the Reno-Tahoe Airport Authority along with Dassault’s Michael Montgomery and United Superintendent Pete Brunner. The ceremony marked the beginning of the expansion of the Dassault Falcon building at Reno Tahoe International Airport. United Estimators Greg Park and Jami Evanson supported the project through preconstruction, while the United team leading the project through to completion consists of Pete Brunner, Project Managers Casey Gunther and Robert Felstead, and Project Administrator Glady Robinette.

Designed by United Design Manager David Eckes with assistance from local architect Fred Graham, the 11,000 sf, two-story addition will feature parts storage, locker rooms, records storage and a second-floor training/event room, avionics work room, engineering, conference room and quality assurance department. United’s in-house architects designed the expansion. Completion is set for late June.

Dassault is a French based aircraft manufacturer of business and corporate jets. The United design-build team also delivered the existing building used by Dassault. United delivered it in 1996 as an aircraft maintenance hangar for Reno Air.

08 Dec

Posted at 12:03h in News, United Team

Being named among the 20 under 40 allows Casey Gunther to urge disabled veterans to aim high when rebuilding their careers. “I am grateful the Reno Tahoe Young Professionals Network selected me as a 2020 recipient of this distinction,” says Casey, Operations Manager at United Construction Company. “It gives me a chance to tell my story and give hope to others who need to reboot for whatever reason.”

AIM HIGH

Casey first visited a Marine recruiting office at age 11 and enlisted at 17. “There is no greater honor than serving your country and leading people,” he explains. But an honorable medical discharge left Casey at a loss for his next move. “I turned wrenches to put food on the table for my family. I was working as the yard boy for a general contractor, but I knew that working as a laborer was further trashing my knees.” Never lacking courage, Casey walked into the vice president’s office and asked for career advice. Aim high, was the answer.

Casey set out on a dual path of being a fulltime student and fulltime project administrator and then project engineer. He got started at TMCC through Veterans Upward Bound studying construction and then attended UNR. When he was laid off in 2009, like many of his colleagues, he was unable to find a construction job for 72 weeks, but stayed in school and “found ways to earn a living and take care of my family. I did mobile ranch butchering. I logged and sold firewood, and I cowboyed.” He also earned his civil engineering degree from UNR.

When Casey returned to construction, he expanded his expertise by working as superintendent, project manager, estimator and senior project manager. He developed his ability to lead large projects. He has built facilities as large as 663,000 sf range and up to $30 Million. Today, Casey oversees 35 project professionals at United Construction in Reno and California.

SERVANT LEADER

Casey is a servant leader. His main goal is to serve those who report to him. “It involves putting people ahead of power,” explains Casey.  When he asks his coworkers what he can do to help them, they excel as a team.

Leadership a strength that disabled veterans can bring to an organization, says Casey. “I had numerous opportunities to grow as a leader in the Marines.” Casey received multiple meritorious promotions, Marine of the Quarter awards for his unit, Marine of the Year candidate and runner up for the 1st Marine Division, the Meritorious Mast award, and Certificates of Commendation. As a Corporal, he held the billet of a Staff NCO and was directly charged with leadership of 90 Marines.

Construction has been a good second career for Casey. Like the military, it involves special projects with teams of talent coming together to master a challenge. “Veterans who appreciate the rapport that goes with working on a mission will feel at home in construction. I’ve had the pleasure of working with several veterans in construction, and they always impress me with how they encourage teamwork.”

Teamwork and Community service remain Casey’s guiding principles. In his hometown of Battle Mountain, he volunteers for rodeos, parades and more. He served as board member and chairman of the Battle Mountain Livestock Board. Casey lobbies on complicated land issues and knows the challenges of dealing with wildfire devastation. As a member of Disabled American Veterans, he has supported various veteran initiatives.