Senior project manager Ashlee Blessing hadn’t planned on building a career in construction. As an undergraduate studying interior architecture at the University of Oregon, she worked part-time for a small design-build company in Eugene that specialized in student housing and light commercial projects.
During her three years there, the occasional site visit sparked something unexpected. “I just realized I felt more at home in the field learning how buildings come together from the ground up,” she says.
That realization led to a pivot, and eventually, a two-decade career managing complex higher-education and K-12 construction projects in Oregon’s South Willamette Valley.
A new home for North Eugene high school
After joining Lewis in 2020, Ashlee served as a project manager on Eugene School District 4J’s North Eugene High School.The first major step was demolishing an existing elementary school to make way for the new 216,000-square-foot high school building. From there, the team began building a new facility, all while the existing high school remained fully operational on the same campus.
After the new high school opened its doors to students in 2023, demolition began on the old high school last year. In its place, Lewis recently built new athletic fields, rounding out a comprehensive transformation of the campus.
The new North Eugene High School includes acoustically sensitive and technically challenging spaces like the 400-seat auditorium, the music band and choir rooms, plus equipment-dense science labs, a community health clinic, and a large commercial kitchen.
On top of that, the school houses a variety of Career Technical Education (CTE) programs, allowing students to learn about and try different career avenues.
The CTE spaces were designed to host classes like wood and metal shops, plus unique courses in culinary arts, child development and education, health sciences, 3D and 2D art, digital media, theater, and more.
“What’s nice about CTE programs is that they’re teaching kids at a young age that trade school is an excellent option after graduating high school,” Ashlee said. “Especially for those students that want a different avenue than college or joining the military.”
The finished high school remains a point of pride for Ashlee, a Eugene native and resident.
“The coolest part is driving through Eugene and saying, ‘I helped build that,’” she says. “Knowing it’ll still be there in 50 or 60 years, making a difference for students—that’s pretty incredible.”
Modernizing OSU’s Withycombe Hall
This spring, Ashlee’s project team at Oregon State University celebrated the grand opening of the newly-renovated Withycombe Hall in Corvallis. Originally built in 1952, Withycombe Hall has evolved into one of OSU’s most impressive hands-on learning environments.
At the new Beaver Classic Creamery, students create and sell their own ice cream, cheese, and honey. The building also now houses the Tillamook Dairy Innovators Lab, the Erath Family Foundation Winery Laboratory, and upgraded labs and offices for the Department of Animal and Rangeland Sciences.
For Ashlee, one of the most complex and rewarding aspects of the project was the construction of the dairy processing plant, a fully operational, washdown-grade facility. Designing and building that kind of space demanded specialized construction methods, materials, and coordination with niche vendors.
“Everything in there can get hosed off and wet,” Ashlee explains. “That has its own set of challenges in terms of complexity.”
The building now accommodates a wide range of highly specialized environments, from winery labs and dairy facilities to bovine research spaces, classrooms, and offices. Each lab was custom-designed to meet the unique needs of its end users and principal investigators.
The art of project management
For Ashlee, the foundation of successful higher education projects lies in extensive upfront engagement with end users during preconstruction planning. If researchers plan to move specialized equipment from existing labs, Ashlee ensures her teams conduct thorough field inspections to understand amperage requirements, utility connections, and spatial needs.
“One thing I always try to make sure our teams do is put eyes on equipment,” she explains.
This hands-on approach allows her to build detailed matrices for equipment transitions, ensuring labs function properly from day one.
The timing of construction activities presents another layer of complexity unique to educational construction. Academic schedules drive everything. Labs can’t be shut down in the middle of a term, and user moves need to align with breaks.
Financial stewardship adds weight to every decision. Managing public bond dollars and state funding demands transparency in procurement and spending, with project managers serving as careful stewards of taxpayer investments. Daily change management becomes a constant balancing act.
The technical requirements of educational spaces demand specialized knowledge of building codes and acoustic design standards.
Classrooms require different acoustic treatments than private office spaces, she says, and understanding how each space will be used informs critical design and construction decisions.
The aspect that’s most challenging of all is the interconnected nature of campus construction. Even when a building is vacant, construction activities can impact adjacent occupied buildings through shared utilities and other campus infrastructure.
When construction blocks established pedestrian routes, Ashlee and her teams work closely with campus administrators to create alternative pathways, ensuring both new students and those familiar with campus can safely navigate around active construction zones.
“It’s not like building on a greenfield site. It requires a lot of forethought and planning and making sure planned activities are communicated,” Ashlee notes.
The seamless coordination also comes from working with many of the same South Valley team members from Lewis across multiple projects—creating continuity and a shared understanding that benefits the many construction challenges they tackle.
Making an impact in the classroom
Away from the job site, Ashlee is active with Lewis’ volunteer committee. She recently helped lead an Architects in Schools program at Adams Elementary in Eugene. There, she and colleagues taught fourth graders about drawing to scale and three-dimensional design.
The students also learned to fold and assemble paper buildings and construct a city together.
“It was exhausting but so fulfilling,” Ashlee said. “I walked away with a deep appreciation for teachers and a renewed sense of how fun it is to inspire young minds.”