Congratulations to Jonathan Nyone, project manager with DAY CPM (a division of Otak), named as one of eleven Phenoms under 40 by the Daily Journal of Commerce. Phenoms & Icons is a new awards competition to honor the local building industry’s rising stars and building industry icons.
Jonathan is managing a critical, high-profile project for the City of Portland as owner’s representative: the $195 million complete renovation of the iconic Portland Building, adorned with the famous statue “Portlandia.” Not only is the project one year ahead of schedule and on budget, but the project team is also seeking LEED Gold and WELL certification for the building’s sustainable features. The Oregonian noted that “the fact that the massive renovation remains on budget is notable, given the white-hot competition in the construction market.”
Jonathan has promoted more active involvement with minority/women/disadvantaged business enterprises (M/WDBEs) on his projects, and consequently the Portland Building contains the most diverse subconsultant team we’ve ever had. He is also the social equity work group lead, representing the owner in bimonthly meetings, interfacing with procurement, talking about outreach opportunities, working closely with DAY’s equity subconsultant (FM Burch & Associates), coordinating with different subconsultant firms, and helping the City exceed its M/WDBE target.
Miro Radoynovski, DAY CPM senior project manager, said, “Jonathan is the champion of using new technology tools in the quest to better serve our clients. He is a natural leader who teaches, guides, and helps not only the people on his team, but also everyone who approaches him with a request. Jonathan conducts company-wide training sessions for how to use cloud-based project management software and improve work efficiency.”
Jonathan has also been working with Otak and DAY CPM to promote greater equity and inclusion on projects and in the company. Jonathan serves on Otak’s new Rising Together team, which is advising and educating Otak’s leadership and employees on how to create a more equitable, inclusive workforce and community.
"Jon has demonstrated unmatched forward-thinking, progressive management as a leader in our organization,” said Mike Day, president of DAY CPM. “He is always looking for opportunities to creatively serve our clients in addition to sponsoring new initiatives that advance our company."
Jonathan will be honored with the other 22 Phenoms and Icons on December 13 at the Sentinel Hotel from 4:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. Congratulations, Jonathan!
Otak, in partnership with the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) and Quincy Engineering, provided design and construction management for this $25 million roadway improvement in the heart of Tillamook. The project made significant improvements to both US101 and OR6 and the intersection between the two highways, and it included reconstruction of the US101 bridge over Hoquarton Slough.
Otak designed the one-way couplet through downtown Tillamook and provided stormwater treatment and landscape architecture services throughout the project. With construction starting in summer 2016, we provided construction management and inspection to oversee work progress. The project was substantially completed in October 2018, a success story for both ODOT and the City of Tillamook.
On October 31, 2018, the City and ODOT held a ribbon-cutting ceremony in the 2nd Street plaza, a festival street that will be used for farmers markets and other outdoor festivities to bring the community together. Members of the local community shared stories, along with ODOT and state representatives such as Senator Betsy Johnson and Congressman Kurt Schrader.
This project provides great value to the Tillamook community through improved traffic flow, pedestrian connectivity, and safety improvements, and it continues downtown revitalization with the new streetscape and aesthetics.
The Otak team is excited for ODOT, the City of Tillamook and its citizens, and the road users who will experience this great project!
On a recent Saturday, nearly 20 Otak employees and their friends joined in planting the riparian buffer of the Otak-designed Zackuse Creek Fish Passage and Stream Restoration Project.
The City of Sammamish partnered with King County to upgrade three undersized culvert pipes to fish-passable box culverts in the first 400 feet of stream above the confluence with Lake Sammamish. Otak designed the third fish-passable culvert, under a major arterial, and realigned and restored over 400 feet of the creek upstream of the culvert and within private property.
Improvements included creating a more sinuous, stable channel with step pools, boulder bands, and woody debris appropriate for Kokanee spawning. Many key stakeholders were involved from the early stages of planning through design and permitting, including assisting during public outreach. This level of public involvement was greatly reflected in the diverse group of 100 people who came to help replant the area near Zackuse Creek, including the Snoqualmie Tribe (who organized the revegetation work party), families from the neighborhood, City staff, and other community members.
In addition to design, Otak also provided construction support on the project. It was a special opportunity for many on the design team, to put the final touches on a project they had been creating and visualizing through a computer over the previous two years! And such a treat to do so on a sunny day with friends and coworkers! "It felt like Earth Day," said Kaela Mansfield, water resources engineer. "The Snoqualmie Tribe did a great job of advertising the event."
Congratulations to Otak's team: Greg Laird, project manager; Ryan Hawkins, construction management/inspection; Kaela Mansfield and Mike Rafferty, water resources; Eva Ho, Touta Phengsavath, and Dave Cole, civil and utility support; Bob Doherty, culvert/structures; Kevin O'Brien, permitting efforts; Ben Schneider and Lindsay Martin, planting restoration design; and Jeff Gray and Kevin O'Brien, permitting support.
Paul Moreau, P.E., brings decades of experience and expertise to Otak's growing Transportation and Infrastructure team.
He joins Otak as the Transportation and Infrastructure technical manager, responsible for leading and growing the firm's transportation and infrastructure capabilities in the region. With 29 years of progressively complex design and management experience on many challenging transportation and traffic projects, Paul has served in leadership roles at Stantec, Matrix Design Group, and Drexel, Barrel & Co., among other firms.
With strong experience in civil engineering and project/program management, Paul has expertise in highway and intersection design; traffic engineering; signal design; signing and striping; plans, specifications, and estimates; and construction engineering. In addition to engaging and leading technical teams on complex transportation and traffic design projects, Paul enjoys mentoring staff and engaging with the public on projects.
“Paul provides well-rounded transportation design experience on a variety of small and large projects across the state. His experience and leadership will strengthen our ability to successfully deliver projects to existing and new clients. We are excited to have him on our team,” said Pete Loris, Otak’s Colorado region manager and senior vice president.
Five Otak employees from our Redmond office (left to right: Kevin Kraxberger, Joe Schober, Ellen Webster, Dave Cole, and Kaela Mansfield) went flyfishing on Saturday, October 13, at Rocky Ford in eastern Washington. The event was sponsored by Flycaster Brewing in Kirkland, Washington. They enjoyed a BBQ lunch and Flycaster beer on a sunny day, fishing for rainbow trout just downstream of the state-run Rocky Ford hatchery, which sits on a natural spring in the Columbia Plateau. Part of the group stayed the night in Ephrata and golfed in the morning at Moses Lake.
At Otak, our employees enjoy spending time together after hours...just as much as we enjoy working together! And yes, they went home with some fish!
Here's Dave Cole in action:
Otak is honored to announce that two of our senior women have been named Women of Vision by the Oregon Daily Journal of Commerce: Li Alligood and Tammi Connolly.
Li Alligood, AICP, LEED Green AP, is a senior planner and project manager who has mentored young women through the American Planning Association’s mentoring program; elevated Otak’s Green Otak (GO) Committee, which focuses on sustainable practices, operations, and training; and enjoys working with a large team of positive, sharp, committed professionals to build vibrant community spaces. Recently, she has worked as a senior planner on “The Fields,” a 264-unit affordable multifamily development and 100,000-square-foot office development in Tigard.
Principal Don Hanson believes his decision to hire Li is one of the best contributions he’s made in his 32 years at Otak. “Li’s exceptionable performance has upped our game on complicated projects and given both our team and our clients confidence that projects will be successful,” Don said. “Before joining Otak, Li did excellent work in the public sector on community-based planning initiatives. Li provides much of the glue that unifies our team moving forward.”
Tammi Connolly, P.E., CWRE, ENV SP, is a water resources engineer with a true passion for helping others develop their technical and leadership skills. She’s a role model for young professionals through her commitment to diversity, sustainability, and community outreach. Tammi is on the board of Women Leading Water and chairs the annual Women in Leadership Symposium, a place for women to come together to talk about the challenges they face in the workplace, find ideas and support, and discuss how they can bring others along on the journey. She also co-chairs Otak’s GO Operations Subcommittee, coordinating sustainable operations at our offices, including composting, recycling, transit programs, and energy and water saving.
Tammi has been mentoring a young engineer, Jeremy Tamargo, P.E., for the past four years. “Tammi’s leadership manifests itself daily through her deeds, particularly her willingness and commitment to go above and beyond her job description to support team members. She always sets high standards, challenging team members to uncover latent abilities and talents which otherwise would remain untapped.” Jeremy concluded, “Tammi has made me feel like an appreciated and valued member of the team since my first day at Otak. Unsurprisingly, Tammi inspires a deep sense of loyalty and affection. I feel grateful to call her a mentor and a colleague.”
Otak is proud of Li and Tammi for what they have accomplished in their careers and for our communities. “Li and Tammi are with Otak not because they are women, but because they are leading professionals in our industry," said Jim Hamann, Otak’s CEO and president. "It’s our responsibility as a firm to ensure we continue to foster and increase our focus on establishing a culture of inclusion and equity for all. We look forward to the continued advancement of Li and Tammi, and all women in Otak, to make us a stronger and better firm in the future.”
The Oregon Daily Journal of Commerce Women of Vision awards pay tribute to Oregon and Southwest Washington women who are shaping the built environment with their leadership, mentoring efforts, community involvement, and promotion of industry diversity. The awards ceremony will take place Oct. 18, from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the Portland Marriott Downtown Waterfront hotel.
Congratulations to Tammi and Li!
The first phase of construction is wrapping up this month on the salmon-safe clean water retrofit that Otak designed at Mt. Hood Community College. This project, led by the Sandy River Watershed Council, will improve water quality and salmon habitat in Gresham’s Beaver Creek by treating 1.9 million gallons of polluted runoff per year. Older parking lots like this college campus were built without the stormwater treatment that is typically required in new development today.
Otak’s water and natural resources engineers designed the retrofit project to treat as much runoff as possible while keeping costs down, minimizing loss of parking spaces, and protecting the mature trees that shade the parking lots. Stormwater swales and planters fit into slivers of available space, with drywells added to increase infiltration. A large raingarden creates the focal point of the retrofit, providing a visible opportunity to educate campus visitors about stormwater and watershed health. New signs designed by students will help spread the word about the project’s environmental benefits, and the City of Gresham installed devices to monitor water quality and flow rates before and after construction.
The project is funded by East Multnomah Soil and Water Conservation District, Metro regional government, the City of Gresham, Spirit Mountain Community Fund, and the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. In 2016 the partners came together to identify retrofit projects on the college campus that would maximize environmental benefits and public education opportunities. These parking lots got top priority and are expected to be the first of many future improvements. Mt. Hood Community College is the first Salmon Safe certified community college in the country, and the stormwater retrofits will help the college maintain its certification.
On October 27, volunteers will plant the portions of the project that were built by the nonprofit group Depave. Contractors for the project are Britton Excavating and Grow Construction. The second phase of the project is expected to be built next summer, pending funding.
*Photo credits: Mt. Hood Community College
Otak has joined a select group of leading firms on the Zofnass Program for Sustainable Infrastructure’s Sustainable Infrastructure Advisory Board (SIAB). SIAB works with the Zofnass program at Harvard University to identify approaches and metrics to measure and deliver sustainable infrastructure.
Founded in 2008 by Paul and Joan Zofnass, the Zofnass Program for Sustainable Infrastructure develops and promote methods, processes, and tools that quantify sustainability for infrastructure. Its goal is to facilitate adoption of sustainable solutions for infrastructure projects and systems, and expand the body of knowledge for sustainable infrastructure. The program provides resources and tools and hosts events to facilitate sustainable project planning and design, as well as rate the sustainability of infrastructure projects.
Housed at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, the program is supported by the industry through the SIAB and by research foundations. The unique collaboration of academic experts and industry specialists led to the Zofnass Rating System, which has been integrated into the Envision™ system of the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure.
“As charter members of the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure, this SIAB membership represents our ongoing commitment to sustainable infrastructure” said Jim Hamann, CEO and president of Otak. “We are recognized for the integrated expertise that crosses traditional barriers to create innovative solutions. We are proud of our successful track record of championing solutions that holistically encompass community livability and environmental sustainability.”
Employees began congregating in the lunchroom and adjacent conference room around 4:00 p.m. They lined up to fill their plates with food and their glasses with wine, beer on tap, or kombucha. After a busy day at work, it’s fun to relax with our coworkers.
Soon the attention was focused on the screen and Christina West and Nolan Dalman from the Architecture and Planning & Design teams, which hosted Wine-Down Wednesday’s brief program. We said goodbye to one of our summer interns, Nolan Dalman, and congratulated Otak’s two winners of the Daily Journal of Commerce Women of Vision awards: Li Alligood and Tammi Connolly.
First: a game! Employees viewed a series of project photos and competed to guess the name of the project. Was it the Beaverton High School gym repair and remodel; the Kronberg bridge, an elevated, meandering bridge through ecologically sensitive Kelly Creek; the new 22-story hotel and apartment tower in the Pearl District, Hyatt Place; or Yosemite Big Oak Flat visitor station? The first person who guessed correctly got a (fitting for the event) bottle opener.
Next: a rousing, quick game of Pictionary! Teams of two were called up and invited to draw, concurrently, the word on the piece of paper. The first team that guessed correctly went onto the next level of the tournament. Each team got just one try to get it right, but in the finals the best of three rounds won! All of the words related to Otak’s design and architecture work…bicycle lane, curtain wall, mass transit, rebar, crane…some of which challenged our creative attention. Creative Juices, the communications team (1/2 of which was a graphic designer), quickly learned it didn’t necessarily require drawing skills to win a round!
The winning team of Mandy Flett and Otho Belkhayat, titled “WOOOOW,” defeated the last remaining team from Marketing & Communications with the helpful name, “Don’t Eat Yellow Snow.”
Just another Wine-Down Wednesday in Otak’s Portland office, where every other month, we enjoy hanging out with our colleagues and laughing at ourselves!
Congratulations to the U Champion team, an amazing trio of students who participated in the 16th annual OAME Youth Conference.
Five Otak employees participated in this great event. Stephen Wasserberger, senior project manager with DAY CPM (a division of Otak), coached the U Champion team, which took first place!
Each team of young people developed their own product or service from concept to presentation. They conceptualized a need for a product or service, came up with a name, branded it, made a promotional video in only 20 minutes, and developed and made a final presentation. They needed to consider how to allocate $5,000 of seed capital, advertising, marketing, pricing, and most of all, how to add a “secret sauce.” A panel of judges evaluated the teams’ presentations, similar to the TV show “Shark Tank.”
“I very much enjoyed working with the students,” said Stephen Wasserberger. “They are a remarkable group of kids with a strong future ahead of them.”
The winning U Champion team came up with a service to help student athletes who might not be recruited by top-tier colleges and universities. U Champion would match young people with the right divisional levels and help first-generation athletes and their families navigate the scholarship process. The service would advocate for students in what can be a stressful and complicated process.
The U Champion team consisted of Michelle (pursuing her master’s degree in counseling), high school student Myles, and middle school student Isaiah. Stephen assisted this team with Phil Miller of Fortis Construction and two people from Hoffman Construction.
“Sponsor support is critical to maintaining successful programs that champion education of our youth,” said Stephen. “I am proud to be a part of Otak/DAY CPM’s commitment to mentoring the leaders of tomorrow.“