Kitchell’s Garcia could not have planned career better

This article originally appeared in Arizona Business Magazine.

As the second of five children, Julie Ernzen Garcia grew up with fierce convictions to faith, family and service and a drive to succeed seeded by her parents. Her father was a commissioned Army officer whose career required the family move every three years, and her mother was a graduate of the first class of women at the University of Notre Dame. Adapting to change was par for the course, which is evident in the way Garcia approaches every aspect of her life. When asked how she grew into the role of Kitchell’s Director of Preconstruction, she laughs “I always have a plan, but I never end up where I’m planning to go.”

Diagnosed with Juvenile Diabetes at the age of 6, Garcia has a hard time remembering life without it. It is a constant, nagging and sometimes life-threatening burden, but she takes it in stride. “It’s a part of me but does not define me.”  

Inspired by her experience as a patient, Garcia headed to Arizona State University with a full scholarship and intent to be a pediatric endocrinologist… until she realized she couldn’t handle other people’s blood.

She took one construction class at the behest of her dad, who teaches at ASU’s Del E. Webb School of Construction. She loved it, took more classes and obtained a degree in construction management with a residential focus while earning the highest GPA of anyone in the program. She interviewed with Kitchell only because they had a custom homes division and accepted a position after taking the summer off and obtaining her real estate license.

But rather than put Garcia on a custom home project, in 2004 Kitchell was staffing up for the St. Joseph’s Medical Center Barrow Neurological Institute hospital tower project. She was assigned as a Project Engineer.

“Until my first day, my naive brain thought ‘what custom home is being built at St. Joe’s?’”

That first day started a long-term career at Kitchell and Garcia has never looked back. She was paired with old school project superintendents who challenged her, developing endearing relationships and close connections. During her early years at Kitchell, she married her high school sweetheart, Neil, and had four healthy children in short order despite having high-risk pregnancies. When she returned from maternity leave with her oldest, she was asked to choose between being a project engineer in Kitchell’s Custom Homes division or going into preconstruction for a year. By that time, she had the maturity to realize that embracing something she thought she would hate (preconstruction was the only class she did not like) might lead to new opportunities. 

That decision ultimately led to the role Garcia has today: leading a preconstruction team working on a multitude of projects, including the $525 million Maricopa Integrated Health System’s Care Reimagined campus transformation. 

“I love preconstruction because we have the biggest impact on projects in the shortest amount of time.”

When not at work or spending time with Neil and their brood (Neil is the director of training for an automotive group and Julie’s biggest supporter), Garcia is an adjunct faculty associate at ASU. She teaches the same class – Construction Management 101 – that led to her chosen career. She also recently joined the local board of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

“I’m here because nothing turned out the way I planned, and I’m very blessed.”

Kitchell CEM names new regional leaders in California

Kitchell CEM recently named Vice President Wendy Cohen leader of the company’s Northern California region and Kevin Pokrywa as Regional Executive for Southern California.

“Since joining us five years ago, Wendy has had an incredible impact on our profile in Southern California,” said Kitchell CEM President Russ Fox. “She came to us with a broad base of experience in healthcare and has grown our footprint with municipalities, education, justice and other markets. Moving her into the Northern California region – closer in proximity to more of our public-sector work – is a strategic decision that will be a great benefit to our clients and our employee-owners,” he said.

Wendy assumes the role previously held by Executive Vice President Mansour Aliabadi, who will transition out of the day-to-day operations.

Since joining Kitchell five years ago, Wendy has rapidly expanded Kitchell’s presence in Southern California. Under her leadership, Kitchell has become a go-to source for entities seeking guidance for bond measures, long-term capital improvement plans and engineering assessments. She opened two new offices in Los Angeles and Riverside and dramatically grew Kitchell’s Southern California workforce. She came to Kitchell after serving as Director of Facilities, Planning and Development at Escondido, Calif.-based Palomar Health where she oversaw the execution of a $1 billion-plus master plan. A native of San Diego, Wendy has been a finalist for San Diego Business Woman of the Year and Outstanding Women in Construction & Design. She was honored by the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) with the 2012 Regent’s Award for Early Careerist Healthcare Executive.

Kevin Pokrywa joined Kitchell in 2015 after also working at Palomar Health. Kevin has been an integral player in growing the Southern California region, building long-term relationships with clients in both the public and private sectors. He has facilitated major development programs from land acquisition and entitlement to construction and close-out, becoming a trusted adviser on fiscal and risk management, processes and procedures. Prior to being named Regional Executive, he was Program Director.

“Wendy and her leadership team have been largely responsible for building a book of business and a solid group of dedicated employee-owners who will continue to prosper under Kevin’s management,” Russ said. “We are fortunate to have this level of talent covering our entire state.”

Sacramento-based Kitchell CEM is consistently ranked the #1 Construction Manager in the Sacramento Business Journal and among the Top 50 Program Managers in the national Engineering-News Record rankings.