In the heart of Berkeley, just a few blocks from where new skylines are taking shape, stands a six-story testament to community resilience: the Hope Center. Opened in September 2022, the facility serves as a critical hub for veterans’ housing, transitional shelter, and permanent supportive housing. It is also the site of a burgeoning partnership between Webcor’s Black Employee Resource Group, The Collective, and Insight Housing.

For Webcor Prequalification Analyst Chanelle Jones, who helped facilitate the connection, the motivation to engage with the unhoused and vulnerable is a legacy passed down through family. Chanelle's mother, Judith Jones, spent years working with Bay Area nonprofits, introducing Chanelle to community service early on.

A Connection Rooted in Community

The bridge between Webcor and Insight Housing was built through direct, personal engagement. Chanelle first connected with the organization through Andre Green, the head chef at the Berkeley site, and later with Colette Lyman, Insight Housing’s philanthropy manager. "Over the holiday season, she and I built a strong working relationship that has already opened the door to continued partnership," Chanelle notes.

The scale of the operation at the Hope Center is significant. The kitchen serves hot meals Monday through Friday to both residents and the public. "Their kitchen serves nearly 160,000 meals each year," Chanelle says, highlighting the sheer volume of support required to sustain the program.

In the heart of Berkeley, just a few blocks from where new skylines are taking shape, stands a six-story testament to community resilience: the Hope Center. Opened in September 2022, the facility serves as a critical hub for veterans’ housing, transitional shelter, and permanent supportive housing. It is also the site of a burgeoning partnership between Webcor’s Black Employee Resource Group, The Collective, and Insight Housing.

For Webcor Prequalification Analyst Chanelle Jones, who helped facilitate the connection, the motivation to engage with the unhoused and vulnerable is a legacy passed down through family. Chanelle's mother, Judith Jones, spent years working with Bay Area nonprofits, introducing Chanelle to community service early on.

A Connection Rooted in Community

The bridge between Webcor and Insight Housing was built through direct, personal engagement. Chanelle first connected with the organization through Andre Green, the head chef at the Berkeley site, and later with Colette Lyman, Insight Housing’s philanthropy manager. "Over the holiday season, she and I built a strong working relationship that has already opened the door to continued partnership," Chanelle notes.

The scale of the operation at the Hope Center is significant. The kitchen serves hot meals Monday through Friday to both residents and the public. "Their kitchen serves nearly 160,000 meals each year," Chanelle says, highlighting the sheer volume of support required to sustain the program.

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The construction industry has a long memory, and those who have spent decades on a jobsite know that the most valuable education happens when a project engineer is staring down a major time crunch, a trade model that doesn't match the as-built, and a superintendent who needs an inspection report by morning. For the last several years, the Associated Schools of Construction (ASC) Regions 6 & 7 Competition in Reno has served as the ultimate pressure cooker for engineering students to experience these exact scenarios.

While many companies view university recruitment as a passive exercise – a booth, some brochures, and a generic pitch – Webcor treats Reno as a strategic necessity. With the talent war won in the trenches, providing students with a direct, hands-on experience of our culture and technical rigor is a compelling way to ensure the next generation is ready for the field.

The Anatomy of a Problem: Washington Hospital

Every year, Webcor’s VDC (Virtual Design and Construction) team selects a case study based on an experience on an actual project to serve as the problem for student teams to solve. This year, the focus was on the Washington Hospital Tenant Improvement (TI) project. It was a departure from previous years, introducing the added complexity of a healthcare environment. Students weren't just coordinating drywall; they were navigating the nuances of an operating hospital and the logistics of installing a heavy MRI magnet.

The problem statement comprised seven distinct challenges across three core specialties: estimating, logistics, and scheduling. Teams had to divide resources and "think about it in advance," as judge Annie Eismeier, VDC manager based in Los Angeles, noted. "At the start of each session, they had to assess the problems and how best to allocate resources. They had to divide and conquer."

The estimating portion was particularly grueling. "It was a hard-bid project," explained judge Rachel Johnson, a San Francisco-based preconstruction project manager. “We put that into the problem. They had to deliver a hard-bid proposal in the afternoon, similar to what a real hard bid would be like."

Moving Beyond the Digital Model

A recurring theme at Reno is the transition from "bits" to "atoms". The VDC problem team ensured the digital models had physical consequences. Webcor’s judges built a replica of the MRI room in the competition room, and students had to perform a laser scan of the mockup to find discrepancies. "The task was: the superintendent has an inspection tomorrow," Rachel says. "Go do a laser scan to make sure it's all correct. You need to give a report to the superintendent about what's been installed incorrectly and provide any recommendations."

After taking turns with the laser scanner, the students had only a few hours remaining to review the point cloud data versus the coordination models.

According to Annie, the students and judges both handled the pressure well: "We were under a time crunch on this problem. We had to build the mockup, import the point cloud data, and share that large file with the students (over very slow internet) in only a few hours. Bute I think the students enjoyed trying out the laser scanner and their reports were impressive."

The Recruiting Engine: Finding the "Cream of the Crop"

While the student teams were sweating over their hard bids, Webcor’s recruiting team was engaged in an "always-on" talent search. Destiny Sepulveda, a Webcor Project Engineer who attended the competition as a student before returning this year as a Webcor recruiter, noted the shift in perspective. "It was a fun experience to meet different people—be on the other side,” she says.

Webcor’s presence at Reno this year was punctuated by several key highlights:

• The Standing-Room-Only Booth: Marketing’s new convention-style booth was a standout. "It mimics the main office in a way," said recruiter Parker Jones, a senior project engineer on the NorCal estimating team who is also co-coordinating the 2026 intern program.  "It was one of the stops where people were taking pictures, and other companies were asking about it. The new booth did just what you would want it to do – it brought attention to us."
• The Cowboy Hospitality Event: A Western-themed mixer that saw over 200 students and faculty filter through for a raffle. "The energy in there with the students is pretty cool," Rachel noted.
• A Higher Standard of Talent: Recruiters noticed the quality of the participants. "The quality of students we see is significantly above what we see at an average career fair at a school," said Webcor Carpentry Project Manager David Friend, who participated as a recruiter. "The cream of the crop comes to compete at this competition." And many of the students are competing for the second, third, or even fourth time, allowing them to show off their experience.

Results and Reflections

The VDC competition – which featured 14 teams (including Cal State Long Beach, a newcomer) – saw UC Davis take home the first-place trophy, a first for the program. Cal Poly SLO took second, and UC Berkeley placed third.

For the Webcor judges, Reno is an exhausting marathon that requires "sleepless nights" of preparation. It also forces the judges to sharpen their own skills. "Some of the things we were training the students to do, the Back Office normally does for us," Annie admitted. "It forces you to challenge yourself and think about things in a different way."

While the judges’ time was devoted to the VDC problem, the recruiters were able to sit in on sessions sponsored by other companies and see how those teams were doing. “The big companies – McCarthy, Swinerton, Clark – are well organized, and the problems are well thought out, technical, and challenging,” Parker recalls.

The Reno competition serves as a critical diagnostic tool for the future Webcor workforce. It isn't enough to simply hire someone with a high GPA; Webcor needs engineers who can maintain their composure when a hard bid is due in three hours or when a laser scan reveals that the physical build has drifted from the coordinated model.

By moving away from the "illusion of control" and placing students in high-friction, real-world scenarios, our ASC Reno team can identify talent capable of bridging the gap between digital theory and jobsite reality.

Reévan Cole didn’t set out to build pump stations. "Webcor was kind of an accident," she says with a laugh. But accidents can reveal a foundation that was already there. What began as an unexpected opportunity has evolved into the cornerstone of Reévan's vision: creating affordable housing that truly serves the communities that need it most.

As an assistant project engineer on the Biosolids Digester Facilities Project (BDFP), Reévan brings a rare perspective to Webcor – one shaped by her architectural studies at UC Berkeley, lived experience in the Berkeley/Oakland area, and a commitment to design that centers on people.

From Documentary Filmmaker to Designer

Reévan’s path to architecture wasn’t a straight line. It began with a fifth-grade math assignment focused on floor plans, where she discovered her passion for both math and design. However, it wasn't until the ninth grade, through a digital media class assignment, that she felt she discovered her purpose. When tasked with creating a film about an issue close to her heart, Reévan chose to produce a documentary about homelessness in Oakland. Through the film, she aimed to explore the complex reasons people become unhoused and address misconceptions surrounding the issue. The project, "Is Homelessness a Choice?", proved transformative.

"That's when I decided that I want to help through design specifically," Reévan explains. "There are design strategies that can be made to assist unhoused and low-income individuals in a better way."

Growing up in the East Bay, Reévan witnessed and experienced the housing crisis firsthand. Her mother’s commitment to service – volunteering at their church's meal program – made a lasting impression. "I'd walk over to the church every Monday after school," she recalls. "I always had a fascination with housing, so being able to engage with unhoused and low-income communities gave me the opportunity to understand housing needs in a different way."

That fascination has evolved into a clear mission. "A lot goes into an affordable housing project," she says. "It's easy to lose focus on who the design is intended for, and for that reason, as both a designer and contractor, I want to focus on the lived experience of a space."

Finding the Path to Webcor

Reévan was introduced to Webcor through the 100 Black Men scholarship program while pursuing her undergraduate degree in Sustainable Environmental Design at UC Davis. A board member saw her resume and connected her with CIWI -- a partnership opportunity designed to give minority students exposure to the construction, development, and architecture fields. After a series of interviews, she was hired for a 2022 internship at BDFP and returned for a second internship in 2023.

Working at BDFP was her first experience setting foot on an active construction site. It opened her eyes to the full project lifecycle. "I was excited to leave one summer after putting core foundations in the basement, then next summer come back and see rebar going up for all the tanks," she says.

Her mentor, Sr. Project Director Rowena Domingo, encouraged her to explore the field widely. Reévan took that advice, interning at David Baker Architects in 2024 – a firm known for its affordable housing work. As a designer, she recognizes the significance of understanding the construction process, so as she entered graduate school, she realized she needed more than just a job; she needed a place to grow. She asked Rowena if an offer she had made to Reévan to return still stood. The answer was a definitive yes. She was hired part-time as an assistant project engineer in the summer of 2024.

Mentorship and the Culture of Learning

In a world where many feedback loops go nowhere, Reévan found a different experience at Webcor. Initially working with the electrical team, she found a new mentor in Assistant Project Manager Niki Blinov, who pursued an architecture license while working in construction. "I want to do exactly what she's doing," Reévan says.

Now part of the Building 610 team, focused on digester tanks, roofing, and metal packages, Reèvan credits the BDFP team with creating an environment where curiosity is an asset. "So many people are willing to be mentors and teachers. They make it feel okay to be in a space where you don't know something."

That support was vital early on when imposter syndrome surfaced. "When I was first hired, I was questioning why I got the internship – in a room with all construction management and engineering students, I had a design major nobody else had or even heard of." But the BDFP culture made her feel comfortable, and her growth has been remarkable. The real-world experience has even enriched her graduate studies. "It's helped in terms of school -- translating what I learn on the jobsite to what I'm doing in class."

Why Representation Matters

Cole is candid about the reality of being one of the few Black women at the company and one of only two at the BDFP site. "I don't see many Black women at Webcor," she notes, observing that representation is often higher in the field than in the office. "But it's uplifting when people in the field see another Black face in the office managing day-to-day activities."

While she has built strong relationships with subcontractors, she acknowledges that her age and background occasionally lead others to underestimate her, but she constantly strives to grow.

Reévan recently joined The Collective, Webcor's Black Employee Resource Group, and she plans to deepen her involvement. The goal is simple: to understand the mission and find her place in advancing it.

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