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Women in Construction: Alexis Carver’s career in design took her back to campus

Kitchell Project Director Alexis Carver was always drawn to buildings and design. When she was in elementary school her family decided to build a home. They met with several architects, visited homesites and pored over designs. While most kids would consider that insufferable, Alexis enjoyed it so much that she followed her passion to college and obtained a degree in Architecture from the University of Arizona.

“I really enjoyed the process of seeing a project from design through completion and wanted to help people achieve their dreams.”

With parents who worked full-time throughout her youth, she also realized she needed to love her job enough to want to work for a long time. So after five years in residential design, she began looking for opportunities to apply her talents to projects with a bigger purpose. She enjoyed her thesis project in college, which included designing a school for special needs children. She leaped into the general contracting world doing virtual design and construction and BIM coordination in manufacturing, senior living, hospitals and higher education markets.

When Alexis joined Kitchell, she was in a position to better understand what she wanted from a career as well as what she could contribute to a company. She had a wide range of experience, a great rapport with clients and a desire to work at a place where she felt comfortable at the outset.

“I did a lot of thinking about whether I wanted to stay in construction management, or go back into architecture,” she said. “At that point in my career, social media played a big role in generating job leads. I had an outpouring of support from people I knew in the industry, including architects, general contractors and was fortunate that Kitchell was one of several that had opportunities.”

Alexis felt at home as soon as she stepped foot in Kitchell’s office.

“What struck me was how transparent and relationship-based Kitchell was from the get-go,” she said. “My first conversations were really comfortable and it was clear that Kitchell cared about its people, its clients and was looking to help people grow in their careers.”

The biggest selling point for Alexis might have been the idea of working on projects at her alma mater. She is currently an active team member working on the University of Arizona Grand Challenges Research Building, an engineering marvel currently under construction on the UA campus – just across from McKale Stadium. Kitchell also built the award-winning Health Sciences Innovation Building, a design that has garnered national kudos and opened for use just before the pandemic.

“It’s really special to be back where you were a student and see the campus grow and progress, and know how you’re impacting the future students,” she said. “I feel like I’m part of the UA community again and even have my ‘CAT Card’ back!”

Alexis plays an active role in recruiting students from the University of Arizona, attending the College of Architecture recruiting event every year. She sells the same relationship-based concepts that drew her to Kitchell – the immediate warm feeling, flexibility, openness to ideas and ongoing skills training. As an active participant in Kitchell’s Mentor Program, she also understands the need to be a mentor in an industry where female mentors are few and far between and has worked throughout her career to identify women who can help navigate career and life choices.

She hopes to inspire others to pursue the industry and stick with it, noting that retaining women in the architecture industry, which starts out about 50/50 men and women but gradually declines over time, is challenging.

“People are just looking for the best ideas, regardless of whether they come from men or women,” she said. “But I do think that overall we need to do a better job of retaining women, and that means having women mentors in the industry who can serve as role models and advocates.”

Kitchell ranked among the Valley’s Healthiest Employers!

For the second consecutive year, Kitchell was ranked the #2 Healthiest Employer in the Phoenix Business Journal‘s annual rankings in the midsize category. Below is the article about Kitchell’s program, originally featured in the Business Journal.

What it does: Kitchell is a holding entity of several companies that are part of Kitchell’s core commercial building business. Services provided within these businesses include general contracting, construction management, real estate development, program management, engineering and architecture and facilities management.

Local leader: Jim Swanson, president and CEO

Who leads health and wellness initiatives: Kitchell human resources team in collaboration with a cross-company wellness committee.

Year company was founded: 1950

Number of employees: 786

Why did your company decide to start a health and wellness program? Our health and wellness program began as an effort to take care of our employee owners. Believe it or not, our wellness program’s humble beginnings were a walking club that spanned all our offices and locations, tracking the number of steps achieved in an “Around the World with Kitchell” feature, supplemented by fruit baskets at job sites. Today it has evolved into a sophisticated, proactive effort that encourages our people to make healthy choices, be active and get preventive care by incentivizing them through cash rewards.

Why is health and wellness important to your company and how do you encourage participation? Health and wellness is important to Kitchell because it ensures the overall well-being of our employees. As a self-insured (and employee-owned) company, it is in our interest to keep our people happy, healthy and productive, and being proactive with wellness is a sure way to maintain a healthy workforce. We encourage participation by providing on-site health screenings, in-person and virtual health events, webinars, individual and group challenges.

What has been your company’s most successful program, and explain briefly what it involves? Kitchell’s health and wellness program provides a generous HSA contribution, which motivates our employee-owners to stay well. We learned a long time ago that money is a big motivator, and we offer up to $2,000 wellness dollars to our insured employees. This is more than enough to cover the employee’s portion of the annual premium for a single insured, so they have a net benefit in health savings dollars. Those who are not covered by Kitchell’s insurance are also encouraged to participate in our wellness plan and can earn swag — not to mention kudos from their colleagues — for their involvement. In 2022 we had 253 employees who maximized all their wellness dollars compared to 214 the prior year, representing a 16% year-over-year improvement. Approximately 67% of our employee owners participated in some wellness activity in 2022, which is an enormous success considering the transient nature of our workforce—many of our people are remote and travel to various job sites throughout the week.

What’s your top tip for other employers as to how they can support their employees in eating healthier and leading a healthier lifestyle? Our wellness program keeps us competitive, and the ROI speaks for itself. Our employees are healthier, our claims are lower and the cost of our self-insured plan is manageable. The wellness platform allows us to gain insight into how our employees behave and what health and wellness initiatives employees like most.

How has your health and wellness program impacted your company’s productivity overall? Productivity as a direct result of our wellness program is difficult to measure, but our employees are generally in good health and our claims continue to trend downward. The wellness program has stimulated the overall well-being of our employees, which ultimately feeds into their performance, retention and our ability to attract talent.