Kara Lewandowski Puts Others First While Advancing the Industry
Date Posted: March 18, 2019
Posted In: People, Workforce,
From ConstructionDIVE: With a penchant for problem-solving and assembling things, Kara Lewandowski stared down two career choices as a kid: engineer or professional baker. “My dad looked me in the eye and said, ‘Kara — you can always bake as a hobby,'” she joked, “And that is an excellent point.”
Lewandowski’s graduation from North Carolina State University’s civil engineering program in 2007 coincided with the Great Recession slump, and after a relatively slow stint as a field engineer for Hensel Phelps, she headed to a region where there’d be no shortage of work. In 2010, New Orleans was clawing back from the damage left by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
As virtual construction coordinator at local firm Woodward Design+Build, Lewandowski contributed to structural engineering design coordination for one of the largest and most complex projects in city history, the Southeast Louisiana Veteran’s Health Care System Replacement Medical Center. The nine-building, 27-acre facility was designed to be practically hurricane-proof with essential infrastructure on upper levels, an independent power station, blast loading and more.
“The first floor was considered a throwaway floor,” Lewandowski explained, “so if they got another flood, all utilities and systems could be shut off to the first floor and the remainder of the campus would still function.” The emergency department on level two is accessible by a ramp that doubles as a boat dock while a 1,200-foot-long concourse on the fourth level provides pedestrian access to all buildings in the event of a flood.
The Department of Veterans Affairs tapped the joint venture of Clark Construction Group and McCarthy Building Co. to manage construction of the $1 billion hospital, which broke ground in June 2010 and opened in November 2016. Just three months in, Lewandowski was promoted to oversee mechanical, electrical and plumbing coordination as BIM manager for the full project, working closely with the design team, owner and medical equipment vendors to evaluate and redesign spaces as needed.
Keeping the train on the tracks
Lewandowski’s sensitivity to constantly evolving stakeholder relationships and ability to adapt to the many moving parts and pieces of an immensely complex project subsequently brought her to McCarthy’s attention, Central Division President John Buescher told Construction Dive.