1. Kiewit Construction Company in The
Community – High School Student Shadows DUS
Project Team
August 12, 2011 By The DBEtoday.com Publisher/Editor
From Left: Jaron Walker, Bishop Machebeuf High School Senior with His Mentor and Kiewit Project
Engineer Darron Rolle
This summer Kiewit Construction Company provided an opportunity for a high school student to shadow
its employees to learn more about the construction industry. This was the first time a job-shadow effort
had been structured for the DUS project. Jaron Walker, entering his senior year at Bishop Machebeuf
High School in Denver, was the participating student. His father Anthony Walker is one of the contractors
on the Denver Union Station Project and helped to pave the way by inquiring about this opportunity.
We talked with Jaron and Darron Rolle, Project Engineer at Kiewit, to learn about this summer
shadowing experience. Darron outlined the process for us. The shadowing consisted of six one-half day
sessions. Jaron was expected to come in once or twice during the week.
Session One — For his first session, Jaron came to the Kiewit office at DUS and spent the day with Chris
Waibel and Darron Rolle to receive an overview. As Darron relays, “We got Jaron signed up, handed him
some PPE (personal protective equipment, i.e. hard hat, vests). I gave him a 2-3 hour overview of the
project so he could understand all of the roles in construction. He learned what project engineers do,
what superintendents, project managers, foremen and field engineers do. We then talked about what we
are building at DUS. Jaron sat in the conference room as we went through a couple of presentations of
what we were constructing for the project.”
Session Two — Jaron came back the following week for a half-day session. That day he shadowed B. J.
Gehrki, Kiewit’s light rail area manager, responsible for managing the light rail cutover process. B. J.
took Jaron out to the site to show him all of the work that was going on.

2. Session Three — On the third day, Jaron spent time in the office with Darron Rolle and learned how to
read construction drawings.
Session Four — The following week, Jaron spent time with Kiewit’s Survey Group. He shadowed Randy
Thompson, who is one of Kiewit’s surveyor party chiefs — the person who basically runs the field survey
work. Jaron got an education on how, spatially, one lays out a job and how one figures out where the
building goes. The surveyors showed him how to take the information from the drawings (which he
learned about in his prior session), put it into a survey instrument and then how to lay out what the
drawings prescribed in the exact position required. Learning about the drawings the week before was a
good segue to surveying, as it helped Jaron understand where the surveyors got their information.
Session Five — In the next session Jaron sat with Darron Rolle for about an hour, talked through his day
with the surveyors, and reviewed some of the things he gained an understanding of. After his surveying
experience, Jaron was placed with Matt Tolsma, one of Kiewit’s field engineers. Matt’s job entails
making sure all of the grading operations are running smoothly for the day. Matt also manages the
employees who work on the concrete paving for the DUS project. This gave Jaron an opportunity to see
how much work is involved, given that the field engineers have responsibility for most of the “doing” on
a project. Jaron got a snapshot of what goes into ordering materials, drawing up schedules, forming and
putting together work plans, etc.
Session Six — The sixth and final session was occurring as we conducted the interview with Darron and
Jaron. Jaron had two tasks assigned. The first was to prepare for a job walk with the master developer for
the DUS. Frank Cannon of Union Station Neighborhood Company (USNC) was due to arrive at 10:00
that morning. Jaron was tasked with developing the agenda and talking through the tour. The past four
sessions, Jaron had been out to the field so he had a good handle on what was currently being built. So on
his last day, he was busy putting together his drawings and getting the route and notes together so that he
could lead the tour.
The second task for Jaron to initiate on his last day was the preparation of a final report that he could
share (with his father). Jaron was asked to summarize what he learned about civil engineering,
construction, what it takes to be a contractor and what he gained from his summer shadowing experience.
All of the Kiewit employees Jaron shadowed were impressed with him and were excited to hear a young
person’s perspective on the DUS project. It was refreshing to hear that aspects of the job like surveying
and understanding location and spatial orientation were things that youth thought of as “cool” and could
liken to the GPS systems they used on their cell phones as well as to the principles learned in
trigonometry and geometry classes at school. . . or that a specific rendering, that showed where pedestrian
lights could be positioned, was thought of as “tight”!
When Jaron was asked how he became interested in this opportunity and what he took away from the
experience, he had the following to say:
“At my school, I am a part of a group called MESA which is Mathematics, Engineering, and Science
Achievement. We work on different designs. For instance, we did a popsicle stick design of a bridge; and
that really got me interested in engineering. Also my chemistry teacher, who is a chemical engineer, had
the class work on a project on any type of engineering or related science. I wanted to take advantage of
this summer shadowing opportunity to help me understand more about the field.”

3. “When I first came in, I knew a little bit of stuff. I learned a lot while shadowing on the DUS project,
particularly that communication and planning are key in this kind of work. I saw how folks in the office
and outside the office really have to communicate for the job to be successful. I really enjoyed seeing the
plan and how the business of construction really works. I also learned how you have to stick with the
drawing and understand what the person you work for really wants – so that they will be satisfied with the
work.”
In closing, Jaron quotes comments that stuck with him from his mentor Darron Rolle. “You can have the
smartest person in the world but if they can’t communicate what they want, then their smarts aren’t going
anywhere. A person who is not the brightest star in the world, but who can communicate, will go a lot
further.”
Well said Jaron! We will be looking to hear more about your many successes as you move forward in
your academic and career pursuits!

4. Year, Session One, Union Station, Vests, Waibel
About The DBEtoday.com Publisher/Editor
Ellsworth D. Grant is a highly experienced, multi-faceted marketing communications professional with
many years servicing the B2B and B2C market segments. Grant holds an M.B.A. from Northeastern
University in Boston, MA and a B.A. from Wayne State University in Detroit, MI.
With over a decade as a magazine and web-based publisher combined with many years in corporate
marketing communications, his areas of expertise would include:identity, brand positioning,
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Earlier in his career Mr. Grant worked as an Assistant Brand Manager in Polaroid’s International
Marketing Department covering Europe and Asia, US West Long Distance as a marketing analyst, and at
MCI in the marketing department of it's small business segment.