Aug 02, 2022

Compass Construction

Kirkland-based Compass Construction hired Randy Gross as a project manager, Oleg Chebotarev as a field engineer and Joe Bennett as an assistant superintendent. Gross has over 19 years of construction experience, including a past role as a senior project engineer at Compass. In his return to the company, he is working on a project in Northgate. He completed the construction management certificate program in 2016 at the University of Washington. Chebotarev is working on the Redmond Grand project. He holds a bachelor's degree in business administration from the UW. Bennett is on the Liza project in Seattle. He has over 30 years of construction experience, having completed trade school for carpentry and worked his way up the ranks from a journeyman carpenter to a superintendent.

WASWD

The Washington Association of Sewer & Water Districts presented its annual Outstanding Legislator Award to Senator Marko Liias, in recognition of the efforts he made to protect a critical state funding source for water, sewer and other local government infrastructure projects. Liias, as chair of the Senate Transportation Committee, was a leader in the negotiations of the state $17 billion transportation package that was passed this year. During these discussions, amidst pressure from the oil industry and several large business associations, he consistently objected to siphoning money from the state's Public Works Assistance Account to fund the transportation package, according to WASWD. While Liias's efforts did not overcome the momentum to use funds from the PWAA for the transportation package, they helped to temper the amount of money that was diverted, the association said.

Jul 26, 2022

McKinstry

National construction and energy services firm McKinstry is enhancing its services to include solar photovoltaics, distributed generation, battery storage systems, geothermal energy, electric vehicle charging infrastructure and community solar. In the past three years, the company has grown its renewable energy team from two to 20 professionals. Its local projects include Seattle's Climate Pledge Arena, which is targeted to be the first International Living Future Institute-certified zero-carbon arena in the world; and Spokane's Catalyst Building, which uses technologies and solutions such as cross-laminated timber, daylighting and air sealing to hit zero-energy and zero-carbon targets. McKinstry was one of the first groups to sign The Climate Pledge, co-founded by Amazon and Global Optimism. The company's goal is to reduce its net greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2025 and achieve net-zero carbon by 2030.

Port of Seattle

The Port of Seattle this fall is holding its second annual PortGen Accelerator, an 11-week training and mentorship program for women- and minority-owned business enterprises, as well as small businesses. The program builds relationships with industry and agency representatives, while preparing disadvantaged businesses for contracting opportunities. It runs Sept. 7-Nov. 16, and the application deadline is Aug. 8. More information is at https://nwmmsdc.org/portgen-accelerator.

APA — The Engineered Wood Association

In Tacoma, APA — The Engineered Wood Association announced the winners of its 2021 Safety and Health Awards. The program encourages and recognizes operational excellence with the goal of reducing injury and illness rates. For 2021, 69 APA-member structural wood panel and engineered wood product facilities in the U.S., Canada and abroad participated in the program. Local winners included Boise Cascade Co. of White City, Oregon, for the Division III Three-Year Safety Award; and Boise Cascade Co. of Homedale, Idaho, for the Division III Safety Improvement Award.