|
Kristen is a Las Vegas native who has always had a connection to UNLV. She attended the university herself, her mom works at the Boyd School of Law, and her sister teaches psychology here. But Kristen quickly realized that a traditional college path wasn’t for her.
In high school at Southeast Career Technical Academy (SECTA), Kristen studied construction and discovered that she preferred hands-on work. After a year at UNLV, she left school and entered the construction industry, where she spent four years installing restrooms.
Seven months ago, Kristen’s longtime connection to UNLV and her construction experience came together at just the right time. The company she was working for permanently closed, and while looking for a new position in project coordination, she came across an opening at UNLV. “Everything just kind of fell into place,” she says.
Today, Kristen is a multi-trade project coordinator in Facilities Management. She coordinates projects that require several different trades, including restroom remodels and room refreshes involving work like painting, flooring, and other improvements.
Her days are split between the office and the field, which is one of the things she enjoys most about the job. She tracks projects, coordinates with in-house trades and outside contractors, attends job walks, gathers estimates, develops scopes of work, and handles the administrative work needed to move projects forward. She also does the background work to establish project costs before passing that information along for budget decisions.
“I like that I get to be out on campus and do job walks, but I also get the office side with spreadsheets, emails, and administering projects,” she says.
Kristen especially enjoys seeing a project evolve from beginning to end. She has started incorporating before-and-after photos into project reports, giving her team a visual record of what their work has accomplished. “I’m a visual person,” she says. “Sometimes you’re in a project for so long that you forget what it looked like before.” Seeing the finished result gives her a chance to step back and see the impact of the work.
She also appreciates the collaboration that goes into making those projects happen. Kristen works with a variety of trades across Facilities Management and says she has been impressed by how readily people step in to help. “Everyone works really hard, and they’re always ready to help make sure things get done,” she says.
| 
