Happy 40th EDAWN! UCC team members attended the State of the Economy in Northern Nevada luncheon today, where we enjoyed celebrating their 40th-anniversary milestone and listening to presentations about the continued growth and success of our local economy. Thank you EDAWN for helping create a bright future for Northern Nevada!
Congratulations to our team members Leman Jones, Harlee Annis, and Robert Felstead for graduating from Nevada Chapter AGC’s Leadership Series training by BREAKTHROUGH TRAINING™’s Jeff Benjamin. The 8-module program took place over 4 months and focused on developing strong and effective communication skills and leadership skills and techniques. To celebrate this achievement, a luncheon was held and each graduate gave a 3-minute presentation before their fellow students and invited guests about what they learned over the course. Thank you Nevada Chapter AGC and Breakthrough Training for providing a great educational experience!
UCC team members Leman Jones, Jeremiah Bergara, Gladiss Hernandez, and Shelby Cox attended EDAWN’s Existing Industry Awards ceremony last night. From EDAWN “The Existing Industry Awards recognizes Primary Companies in the region for their outstanding contribution to our community in a variety of ways. A Primary Company is a private sector company in Washoe County, Storey County, or Fernley where the majority of the company’s revenue (>50%) is generated from outside the State of Nevada. The Existing Industry Awards is a great opportunity to recognize existing Primary Companies for their contribution to Northern Nevada.” At this year’s event a total of 56 companies were nominated for their valuable contributions to our community. United Construction is proud to be a gold investor for EDAWN.
United Construction is honored to be recognized as a Top Workplace in Nevada. Our employees are our greatest asset, and we are so proud you all love to work here. Congratulations to our wonderful employees that make United Construction the company that it is! And thank you to Las Vegas Review Journal for hosting a great awards ceremony luncheon to celebrate all of the Top Workplaces honorees.
Cheers to 25 years! We had a blast celebrating Catherine Bernauer’s 25 years of service with a surprise lunch party, enjoying her favorite Chinese food. Thank you Catherine for being an integral part of UCC and a great friend to every one of us. We truly appreciate your hard work, loyalty, and the efforts you put in each day. Congrats Catherine!
We loved seeing the kids smile and their eyes light up with excitement as they ran to play in their new English Cottage-style playhouse! Thank you to our UCC team for their hard work designing, building and delivering the playhouse yesterday to its new home, and a huge thank you to Shannon Keel from Grand Sierra Resort for winning the playhouse at the auction at the Children’s Cabinet Art of Childhood Gala and generously donating it to the Summit Church. Many kids will enjoy this for years to come!
Congratulations to the team for being granted a Temporary Certificate of Occupancy (TCO) for our Swope Middle School project! To celebrate this achievement our entire site crew including subcontractors, as well as Swope Middle School teachers, enjoyed a delicious lunch from Butcher’s Kitchen Char-B-Que. Two lucky crew members on our subcontracting team scored some YETI swag in a raffle as a special thanks for all of their hard work on this project.
Students will be welcomed back on Monday for their first day of school! The 3-phase project included a new gym and basketball courts, a new two-story classroom building, a new kitchen, and renovations to the older section of the building including an updated HVAC system. A new multipurpose room, administrative offices, nurses clinic, and courtyard are currently under construction and will be turned over to WCSD in phases by the end of this year.
Our team had fun attending this year’s Art of Childhood fundraising gala event! The event raised over $600,000 throughout the night to help support The Children’s Cabinet and their mission to keep children safe and families together. We are proud to support this organization and all they do to help members of our community with many different resources, including one resource highlighted at this years event – free family counseling services.
We are happy to announce this year’s English Cottage-style playhouse, designed and built by our team for the live auction, raised over $3,700 for The Children’s Cabinet. Stay tuned for more photos soon of the playhouse at it’s new home!
United Construction Company (UCC) announces Sarah Schmidt as their new Manager of Employee Retention and Development, a newly-created position at the company. The promotion went into effect on Wednesday, June 1, as she receives her Associate Professional in Human Resources (aPHR) certification.
Schmidt was the Executive Administrator at UCC for more than three years, with a decade of office management, project coordination, executive assistance, and employee development experience. She will grow upon her skills in her new role at the company.
“I’m excited to mix my passion for employee and corporate development with my devotion to United Construction and its people,” said Schmidt. “I anticipate a great future ahead for the company, and I’m excited to be a part of its internal growth.”
Schmidt’s primary responsibilities are to support ongoing company operations and improve employee engagement, development, and retention. Under those responsibilities, she will have several duties that will further United Construction’s mission to maintain a great company culture and invest in the career development of UCC’s employees.
Schmidt will head several human resources functions in her new position as well. These include working with senior management to evaluate staffing needs of the company, supporting recruitment and onboarding efforts, keeping the company current on employment laws and regulations, helping with record-keeping and budgeting, and more. On the training and career development side, Schmidt will help conduct basic new hire training, assist in the preparation of career path development plans for employees, monitor ongoing staff training programs, create relevant training materials, help managers conduct performance evaluations and goal setting/mentoring, and building solid cross-functional relationships across all company locations and groups.
Sarah will also have a focus on maintaining company morale/welfare in her new role. She will implement and facilitate team building activities, develop ideas for employee involvement activities, maintain the company event calendar, and plan more social events.
“As our company continues to reach new heights, we identified an opportunity to enhance our focus on employee career development and retention, and Sarah was the perfect fit for this role,” said Mike Whittaker, President of United Construction. “This has been a career aspiration for her, and we are thrilled to support her career development and benefit other UCC employees in the process.”
The month of May marked an especially productive timeframe for the construction team at Swope Middle School. Site crews have reached completion or near completion on several aspects of both the interior and exterior of the new two-story classroom building and the existing classroom building.
“We are proud of the immense progress our team has made thus far at Swope,” said Casey Gunther, Operations Manager for United Construction. “This work is a testament to the dedication of our subcontractors, partners, and Washoe County School District.”
The roof atop the new classroom building is finished, and the building is dried in as well. The mechanical, electrical, and plumbing rough-ins are also substantially complete. Thanks to the quick work of our site crews, almost all walls and soffits are completely covered with drywall. Our team is now in the process of taping and texturing the interior walls, which will be followed by paint. On the exterior of the building, the areas in the north courtyard have been excavated for the six above-ground planters that are planned to be built. After the footings for the planters are poured, the forms will be stripped, and the concrete masonry units (CMUs) will be installed.
On the northwest corner of the new gym, the pad for the new chiller unit has been prepped for the concrete slab to be formed and poured. Crews have been working on the HVAC system in the attics of the existing classroom building after school every day, installing new duct work and mechanical equipment.
Concurrent with the physical work on site, United Construction has been meeting with their key subcontractors to plan the sequencing of all work planned to be performed during summer break.
Photos by Ryland Sweigard