When Nick was young and people asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, he would say “electrical engineer.” Raised in the electrical industry, Nick worked for his father and uncle’s electrical contracting business throughout high school and summers in college. This experience had a great influence on Nick’s career path, leading him to work for two different electrical contracting businesses before joining Alvine Engineering where he became involved with design-build projects.

Nick considers a successful design-build project to be one that allows the owner’s vision to come to life, while maintaining a schedule and budget. He has found many design-build projects across the University of California Irvine’s campus, including the Anteater Learning Pavilion and College of Health Sciences, to be especially exciting highlights in his career so far. The design-build delivery method not only helped the University make the most of available funding, but provided opportunities for creative and innovative solutions.

Design-build projects are a very collaborative process, involving communication and teamwork across disciplines from the owner and general contractor to architects and engineers. This means that all design team members need to be well-rounded and have a general understanding of how systems are integrated throughout a building. Nick believes it will be especially important for engineers to be well-rounded going into the future because, in many parts of the country, the industry is embracing more and more design-build projects.