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Black Leaders: Joffrey Wilson, M.A. Mortenson Co.

Wallin Education Partners and Mortenson are offering a new scholarship for Dunwoody College of Technology students pursuing a career in construction.

Scholarship offers pathway toward Mortenson job

The affidavit revealed that Kernodle was still alive at 4:12 a.m. since phone records show she was using TikTok at that time, indicating she was probably still awake. z
Cisco starts laying off over 4,000 employees; affects 5% workforce
Idaho murder suspect Bryan Kohberger carried out the horrific crime in less than 13 minutes, according to an updated timeline of the University of Idaho slayings in the case's newly released police report. The affidavit also revealed that Kohberger had planned the murders for a long time and almost took no time in killing the four students. Officials had previously stated that they thought the four students were killed inside their off-campus Moscow residence between 3 am and 4 am on November 13 before the police affidavit was made public on Thursday. However, going by the new timeline, the murders were committed after 4 am and Kohberger fled the scene before 4:30 am. Killing Within Minutes
Dylan Mortensen, 21, (extreme left) and Bethany Funke, 21 (extreme right), the two survivors, with the four slain Idaho studentsTwitter
The police believe that Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Kernodle's boyfriend Ethan Chapin, 20, were slain between 4 am and 4:25 am. The one-hour timeframe has since been reduced to 25 minutes, according to the affidavit. The affidavit also revealed that investigators now believe Kernodle was still alive at 4:12 a.m. since phone records show she was using TikTok at that time, indicating she was probably still awake. According to the affidavit, the four victims shared a house with two other roommates, Bethany Funke and Dylan Mortensen, who were all back home by two in the morning after a night out. Bryan KohbergerTwitter
This means Kohberger broke into the house sometime between 4 am and killed all four students by 4:13 am before walking downstairs when he was seen by Dylan Mortensen. Kohberger then fled the scene from the backdoor by 4:25 am. Kohberger, 28, was identified as the suspect, according to police, after DNA evidence from a large knife sheath discovered at the scene, garbage collected from his parents' Pennsylvania home, surveillance footage, cellphone records, and license-plate readers that tracked his car on a cross-country drive all came together. Timeline of the Killings
4 am Entry
According to the deceased students' roommates, the victims were all asleep or at least in their bedrooms by 4 am, with one exception. At about that time, a DoorDash delivery driver left Kernodle a food order at the house. So, it is likely that Kernodle was the one who was still awake. Her cellphone records also reveal the same as she was still active on TikTok at 4:12 am. Kaylee GoncalvesTwitter
It would be the final interaction any of the victims would have before dying. The driver, who reported the delivery to authorities during the investigation, has been identified, according to police. Around the same time, Goncalves' roommate Dylan Mortensen, who is only identified as "D.M." in the affidavit, claimed to have heard Goncalves playing with her dog in her third-floor bedroom. Mortenson lived in a room on the first floor. Dylan MortensenTwitter
Later, Mortenson claimed she was awakened by what she believed to be Goncalves saying, "There's someone in here." Mortenson claimed that when she heard that someone could be in the house, she opened her bedroom door but was unable to spot anyone. Time of Murderâ4 am to 4:12 am
After hearing what she believed to be someone crying from inside Kernodle's room, Mortenson opened her door and took another look around. According to the affidavit, she informed officers she overheard a male voice say something that sounded like "It's OK, I'm going to help you." Mortenson again went back to her room. Bryan Kohberger was pulled over twice over the past few monthsTwitter
All Murdered by 4:12 am
The voice or the sound of crying could have been that of Kernodle, according to the police, given that her TikTok was in use around about 4:12 am, indicating that she was still awake and was perhaps using it. This is the affidavit's final precise timestamp from the home on the night of the killings. Encounter With The Killer â 4:17 am to 4:20 am
Mortenson told police that after hearing the sound of crying, she opened a door for the third time at an unknown time when she had a terrifying encounter with a masked "figure clad in black clothing," thought to be the murderer. Mortenson described the man as being at least 5 feet 10 inches tall, athletically built, and lacking in significant muscle mass. He had thick eyebrows, and the mask obscured his mouth and nostrils. The description matches Kohberger, who is so far the only suspect in the murders. She was standing in a "frozen shock phase" when the intruder, who Mortenson said she did not know, went right by her, she told police. Both Bryan Kohberger and his father Michael Kohberger told cops that they were coming from WSJ where there was a mass shootingTwitter
Seeing the intruder, a shocked Mortenson locked herself in her bedroom as the man approached the back sliding glass door. The murderer, according to police, then fled the scene. "The combination of [Mortenson's] statements to law enforcement, reviews of forensic downloads of records from [Funke's and Mortenson's] phone, and video of a suspect video as described below leads investigators to believe the homicides occurred between 4:00 a.m. and 4:25 am.," police wrote in the affidavit. Murderer Feels Scene - 4:20-4:25 am
Around 4:20 am, a white Hyundai Elantra thought to be driven by Kohberger was caught on surveillance footage leaving the area close to the dead student's off-campus house "at a high rate of speed." The white Hyundai Elantra that was spotted by the gas station employeeTwitter
According to police, the crimes might have been committed as late as 4:25 am but it is likely that Kohberger killed the four students between 4 am and 4:13 am. Return to Crime Scene
According to the probable cause affidavit, Kohberger's cell phone pinged its location near the student residence at 1122 King Street in Moscow at around 9 am on November 13, just five hours after he allegedly stormed into the building and killed the four students in cold blood. Police believe, Ethan Chapin, 20, Xana Kernodle, 20, Madison Mogen, 21, and Kaylee Goncalves, 21, were murdered in a planned manner, which also involved stalking the victims. Kaylee GonCalves and Madison Mogen were found dead under mysterious circumstancesTwitter
According to cellphone records gathered by the Moscow Police Department, Kohberger left his apartment in Pullman, Washington at 9 am and arrived in the neighborhood of the house between 9:12 and 9:21 a.m. that day. Kohberger not only visited the crime scene but also stalked his victims before killing them mercilessly. Investigators' access to his phone data also revealed that his phone was able to be traced to a location close to the three-story off-campus party home where the students resided at least 12 times in the months leading up to the massacre. Chapin and Kernodle were in a relationship before their deathsTwitter
However, a lot of questions remain unanswered in the affidavit . The murder weapon, a knife , itself is still missing, and authorities have stated that they are actively looking for it. It is also unclear from the documents whether the suspect knew the students before their deaths because neither the materials explain why police weren't notified until nearly eight hours after the killings probably occurred nor any possible motivation in the case. Read more

Bryan Kohberger Killed the Four Idaho Students in Just 13 Minutes: Here's The Timeline of the Horrific Crime

A properly designed VR training program can scale up your workforce with labor at a premium
December 29, 2022
As the year comes to an end, the construction industry’s ongoing skilled labor shortage continues to be top-of-mind for many contractors, with an ongoing need for qualified, skilled craft professionals. In just the last year, the industry faced a significant shortage of more than half a million workers (according to Associated Builders and Contractors ) with an estimated 1.2 million construction workers planning to leave their jobs to work in other industries. In an effort to tackle this industry-wide challenge, Mortenson has developed an innovative, new Virtual Reality (VR) Quality Training Program that not only helps to enhance safety, quality and efficiency on the job site by leveraging new technology in virtual reality trainings—but also helps to better prepare new field employees for the on-site challenges they may face from day-to-day. Multi-User VR Quality Training 
An example of this critical work involves Mortenson’s Wind Energy Construction & Development Group . We have designed a multi-user VR Quality Training Program with 50 phases, drawings and tools that allows new field engineers to virtually move forward and backward in time to help users understand the scale, thoroughness and level of detail required to successfully service wind turbines and understand how to complete complex jobs before ever stepping foot on-site. Implemented by Mortenson’s Quality Director and Quality Managers, the program has successfully trained engineers in various settings and locations for the past year—helping them prepare for their jobs before they are ever come under the pressure of accomplishing complex tasks quickly and correctly. Virtual Reality Training: Challenges & Opportunities
What are the key elements, opportunities and challenges surrounding a successful VR training program? While still very much in its infancy, construction companies across sectors have a great opportunity to engage employees in this type of training to make builders better builders—and thus better companies. To begin, timelines for creating these programs depend upon the complexity of the tasks and training. With our Wind Energy Construction & Development Group training, we spent many months developing foundational tools such as the code to allow us to co-locate several people in the same training environment, and for the training components to be advanced through time. Once that was done, it became possible to focus more on the creation of the models and drawings specific to each training environment. This can usually be done in a couple of weeks. While trying to home-in on the key elements for a program, it’s also incredibly important to capitalize on the strengths of the VR training. Ask yourself “what does this training do that we can’t do via any other medium?” VR excels at providing a realistic sense of scale and perspective, which can be very impactful. We’ve used this so far to help our employees understand how big the scale of the assemblies they need to inspect are, and how they will need to be prepared for those tasks. Another great thing about VR training is its portability. Many of the tasks we need to train on are best done on the actual object. The pre-pour inspection of a complex shear wall, as many of you know, only exists for a brief period of time before it’s covered up. Creating shear wall inspection training allows us to train on a simulation of the actual object wherever and whenever we need to, at a more deliberate and methodical speed than would otherwise be possible. While the key elements are common and opportunities broad, there are logistical challenges surrounding the deployment of a VR quality training program. Many are unfamiliar with virtual reality headsets and need to be trained on how to use them. Additionally, they aren’t always easily accessible — when someone new wants to use the training, we may need to either ship or buy. To help the industry start using VR more ubiquitously, there is a lot more background work that needs to be done by the headset manufacturers to make the devices truly workplace friendly. Much of this work is currently underway, which is encouraging. Moving Forward with a Nascent Technology
While VR quality training is a nascent technology that we’re still figuring out how to best deploy, it has momentum and the potential to benefit the entire industry—not only for improving quality and helping train new employees, but also for ensuring workforce safety by increasing the likelihood that jobs are completed correctly. At Mortenson, we’ve started working on other new training programs for our solar group and are in-progress on a training for the erection process on one of the largest wind turbines available, the Vestas V162. We’re excited about the potential of this type of training and are looking forward to seeing how other industry players start to deploy it. As an Emerging Technologies Developer with Mortenson, Will Adams explores how the intersections of architecture, programming and novel technology can positively impact the rapidly-changing building industry. Will works with customers to help them understand the possibilities of what Mortenson can do for them, create compelling visions, and ultimately bring those visions to fruition through meaningful results. For more information, visit  www.mortenson.com  or contact Will at  will.adams@mortenson.com
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Addressing Safety And the Skilled Labor Shortage Through Virtual Reality

Brent Webb earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Wisconsin in Madison, but life events took him away from the sciences as he pursued a career initially in real estate sales in the Twin Cities and later, in real estate development.

The POWER 30: Brent Webb, Mortenson

Clearway Energy Group provides customers with low-cost, clean power generated by solar and wind across the U.S. The company is a direct-to-consumer company, serving consumers in the United States. The company was formerly known as NRG Energy - Renewable Energy Unit. It was founded in 2018 and is based in San Francisco, California.

Clearway Energy Group

GE Renewable Energy specializes in advanced technology and services focusing on wind, hydro, solar, hybrid power generation and grid solutions that bring sustainable energy to the world.

GE Renewable Energy

Mortenson , GE Renewable Energy partner with Clearway Energy Group to repower 160-MW Texas wind farm

Mortenson, GE Renewable Energy partner with Clearway to repower 160-MW Texas wind farm

Akuo Energy develops, finances, builds and operates renewable energy production facilities worldwide.

Akuo Energy

Taaleri Energia is a renewable energy developer and fund manager investing in utility-scale, wind farms, and solar plants. It is based in Helsinki, Finland.

Taaleri Energia

This transaction marks the beginning of a partnership with Taaleri Energia and Akuo Energy .

Taaleri SolarWind II fund invests in a 336 MW ready to build wind farm in Texas

Silicon Ranch provides customized renewable energy, carbon, and battery storage solutions for a diverse set of partners across North America. Its portfolio includes solar and battery storage systems that are contracted, under construction, or operating across the U.S. and Canada. The company was founded in 2011 and is based in Nashville, Tennessee.

Silicon Ranch

Silicon Ranch Corporation selected Mortenson as the project 's Engineer-Procure-Construct contractor .

Efforts Underway to Hire and Train Local Team Members and Military Veterans .
Silicon Ranch and Mortenson Partner to Construct Solar Project in Jeff Davis County, Georgia for Green Power EMC.

Pype provides software solutions for the construction industry. Pype's products have been used on over thousands of construction projects nationwide using artificial intelligence and machine learning to simplify tedious processes in the planning stages of construction projects. On July 22nd, 2020, Pype was acquired by Autodesk. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Pype

The AES Corporation (NYSE: AES) is a Fortune 500 global energy company accelerating the future of energy. The company improves lives by delivering the greener, smarter energy solutions the world needs. Its diverse workforce is committed to continuous innovation and operational excellence while partnering with our customers on their strategic energy transitions and continuing to meet their energy needs today.

Mortenson

Mortenson provides design and construction services, ranging from pre-design to property and facility management.

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