Category: Life at Lewis

Seeing Both Sides: The Value of Design-Construction Integration

March 11, 2025
By: Lewis Team
In a new Q&A with the Seattle DJC today, senior design-construction integrator Eva Talbot shares how her team is helping shape all phases of project delivery at Lewis. As a licensed architect with a background in industrialized construction, Eva brings a unique perspective to Lewis, bridging the gap between design and construction and helping Lewis… read more

Recapping CoreNet Washington State’s Event at Lewis

March 10, 2025
By: Lewis Team
Seattle’s commercial real estate market is facing headwinds, but local industry leaders see reasons for optimism. At CoreNet Global Washington State Chapter's event at Lewis’ office last Thursday, four panelists weighed in on the challenges and opportunities shaping today’s construction and real estate development landscape. “We have a diversified economy, we have really well-capitalized growth… read more

Welcoming Senior Superintendent Kory Ray to Lewis

February 3, 2025
By: Lewis Team
A chance interaction set Lewis Senior Superintendent Kory Ray on the path to a 25-year career in commercial construction. At 18, Kory joined his father—a school district facilities director—on a tour of a construction site in their hometown of Lebanon, Oregon. While watching a framing crew at work, Kory made some observations. A site superintendent… read more

Building Futures: Farm-to-Table Learning in Seattle’s Central District

September 30, 2024
By: Lewis Team
Last week, a volunteer crew from Lewis joined forces with Sawhorse Revolution staff to install cedar tongue-and-groove siding at Cherry Street Farm, where a future demonstration kitchen is taking shape. Once complete, this kitchen will support a 320-square-foot hydroponic growing lab for vegetables operated by Hip Hop is Green, all on a 5,000-square-foot residential lot… read more

Student, Intern, Employee: How Three Friends Went from Classmates to Coworkers at Lewis

August 22, 2024
Ben McLean, Communication Specialist
Jaron McGillivray (JM), Kayla Kumle (KK), and Paige Dieckmann (PD) share a unique journey. They all went through the construction engineering management (CEM) program at Oregon State University (OSU), interned at Lewis and now work as project engineers out of the Eugene, Oregon office. Their strong friendship, forged during their time at OSU, played a… read more

Press Release: Lewis Promotes Three Leaders in Washington Division

May 20, 2024
By: Lewis Team
SEATTLE – Lease Crutcher Lewis (Lewis) announced today the promotion of Shannon Testa and James Furlan to vice president of operations and Jeremy Callas to director of operations for the company’s corporate market sector. “We’re building on nearly 140 years of tradition by elevating the next generation of Lewis leaders from within,” said Chief Executive Officer Bart… read more

Healthcare Superintendent Profile: Shane Weller

May 6, 2024
By: Lewis Team
In 1989, Lewis senior superintendent Shane Weller’s grandfather Bill brought him to the Boeing Red Barn at Seattle’s Museum of Flight. The structure, the country’s oldest surviving aircraft factory, held special meaning for the Weller family. It was there that Bill closed out his carpentry career in 1983, working on the barn’s restoration before retiring.… read more

Press Release: Coriann Presser Named Washington Division President

May 2, 2024
By: Lewis Team
SEATTLE – Lease Crutcher Lewis (Lewis) announced today the promotion of Coriann Presser to President of the company’s Washington Division. Presser joined Lewis in 2005 as an intern and has since served in the roles of project engineer, project manager, project executive, and most recently operations director leading the company's Life Science market sector. In her… read more

WIC Week Profile: Estimator Sharaya Hays

March 4, 2024
By: Lewis Team
As a high schooler on summer break in her hometown of Anchorage, Alaska, it wasn’t unusual to find Sharaya Hays laying on the grass in her backyard, sketching houses and floor plans on graph paper. She was sure she’d be an architect. Her passion for design could be traced to her dad, Cam, who owned… read more

WIC Week Profile: Site Safety Coordinator Adriana Mendoza

March 3, 2024
By: Lewis Team
As an undergrad at Washington State University, Adriana Mendoza majored in kinesiology with the aim of becoming a physical therapist. But an internship at a PT clinic her senior year in the Tri-Cities opened her eyes to underlying safety challenges across a variety of industries. She'd see many repeat patients—often from the same construction sites—dealing… read more

Reflecting on Obliteride 2023

December 4, 2023
By: Lewis Team
With a steady rain falling and the days getting ever shorter, it's hard to believe that Obliteride was held on a balmy weekend just four months ago. In addition to those on the Lewis & Friends team who took to their bikes, walked, ran, donated, or otherwise participated, 23 volunteers also helped make the day… read more

Building a High-Performing Life Science Team

August 30, 2023
By: Coriann Presser, Life Science Market Director
As career builders, few things faze Lease Crutcher Lewis’ life science team. Architectural concrete, cGMP spaces, below-grade research suites with highly sensitive vibration requirements, interstitial floors packed with enough MEP infrastructure to service a small village—we’ve built that. At the same time, we acknowledge that life science projects are tough. From coordinating lab benches and… read more

Employee Spotlight — Interview With Ushik Shah

November 4, 2021
By: Teagan Wood, Marketing Coordinator
Ushik Shah used to watch a lot of television as a kid and it’s actually one of the ways he fell in love with construction in the first place. He admits that what really made him curious about pursuing a career in construction was his favorite television show in high school, Prison Break. One of… read more

Employee Spotlight — Interview With Charity MacDowell

October 28, 2021
By: Teagan Wood, Marketing Coordinator
Charity MacDowell has been a builder in the Pacific Northwest for 11 years now, both at work and at home on her big, forested property that, fittingly, used to be a lumber yard. It makes it easy for her to geek out about building in her free time, too, whether it is working on ongoing… read more

Employee Spotlight — Interview With Renata Popov

October 21, 2021
By: Teagan Wood, Marketing Coordinator
There is something electric and mysterious about a construction site hidden behind a fence. Curiosity has a way of drawing us in to peek through fence panels and see what activities are hidden from view. Project Engineer Renata Popov can speak to that, especially since what first called her to construction was the gritty cache… read more

Discussing Diversity, Equity and Inclusion: Part 2

January 21, 2021
By: Won Moc, Marketing Director
This is the second blog in Lewis’ Martin Luther King Junior Day series, which shares the perspectives and experiences of several Lewis employees in celebration of diversity, equity and inclusion. Earlier this week, we heard from Celina Yee and David Torres on their experience in the construction industry and what diversity, equity and inclusion mean… read more

Discussing Diversity, Equity and Inclusion: Part 1

January 19, 2021
By: Won Moc, Marketing Director
In celebration of Martin Luther King Junior Day, we will hear from several Lewis employees on their experience as black, indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) in the construction industry, what Martin Luther King Junior means to them and how they are taking time to celebrate this year.   WM: Throughout your time working in… read more

Building the Future for Women in Construction

March 5, 2020
by MacKenzie Junor, Communication Specialist
We shadowed Journeyman Operator Mercedes Toro and Journeyman Laborer Karen Francis to learn what it’s like to work at Rainier Square, how they found a career in construction and what they are doing to change the future of the industry. The two have more in common than meets the eye.  On the corner of… read more

A New Life, A New Trade

February 18, 2020
by Jordan Gevers and MacKenzie Junor
At Lewis, each of our jobsites consists of hundreds of laborers and construction professionals performing hundreds of tasks.  Every one of those people has a unique story to tell about what brought them to the site that day. This is the story of how Donny McKay, an intelligent, hard-working and highly respected apprentice carpenter at… read more

Population Heath: Why is Design-Build Fulfilling?

August 1, 2019
by MacKenzie Junor, Communication Specialist
We asked a member from each major partner working on Population Health, an integrated design-build project for the University of Washington, how this project differs from previous ones, and more importantly, if this delivery method has affected their career fulfillment. What we learned was relatively simple; the collaboration, the innovation and the results are what… read more