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WA Patriot’s Bonnie Melchior Retires

It is with mixed emotions that WA Patriot announces the retirement of Bonnie Melchior. Bonnie has been a great coworker and committed employee, and she will be greatly missed. We are indebted to her commitment and contributions to furthering our company’s EEO policy and Safety program in addition to countless accounting functions she served. Her retirement is our loss, but a well-deserved respite for her. We know she is eager to catch up on her travels and love of photography, and we wish her nothing but the best in her future endeavors.

On June 18, 2021 our team got together to celebrate Bonnie and others who have retired in the past couple of years, including Carpenters Mark Peele, Dave Seals, Billy Snape and Ken Tepley, as well as Project Manager Mark Zygmontowicz. We want to give all retirees a huge THANK YOU for your service to both Wade Perrow Construction and WA Patriot.

WA Patriot Promotions

WA Patriot promoted Mikhail Balasyuk to Project Manager, Bogdan Tishchenko to Assistant Project Manager, and Zerah Florance and Neil Shaw to Senior Project Managers.

Mikhail interned with WA Patriot in the summer of 2015 until he permanently joined our team in 2016. He started as a project engineer and transitioned to Project Manager soon thereafter. He holds degrees in architecture and construction management from UW, and primarily leads design-build projects for our private clients.

Bogdan Tishchenko was promoted to Assistant Project Manager after serving as Project Engineer with WA Patriot since he was hired in 2017. Bogdan graduated from UW with a degree in Urban Planning & Design, and a Minor in Architecture. He supports our project teams with careful planning, estimating, and in the development of collaboration tools that visually show not tell what we intend to accomplish. Bogdan is also an accomplished photographer capturing the very best of the projects WA Patriot builds.

Zerah joined the WA Patriot team as Project Manager in 2009 and has led some of our most diverse design-build projects. She holds a degree in construction management from UW and a degree in architecture from Washington University in St. Louis, MO. Zerah fosters the development of our project managers and provides guidance on design-build projects.

Neil joined WA Patriot in 2013, and primarily leads our public projects with State and Federal agencies. He holds a construction management degree from UW and serves as a mentor to our Project Engineer/Quality Control team. Neil’s an accomplished PM, Estimator, and trusted team leader.

WA Patriot Safety Stand-Down 2020

WA Patriot held our annual 2020 Stand-Down in September in conjunction with the annual OSHA Safety Stand-Down. This yearly event encourages taking a break to focus on fall hazards and emphasizes fall protection. During WA Patriot’s safety week, our corporate Safety Engineer, Brandon Swaab, visited each project site to discuss the importance of safety and, specifically, fall protection. Each jobsite participated in a discussion regarding site-specific fall hazards and fall protection. The importance of a stand-down is to put an emphasis on the specific hazards that require more attention than others. Having stand-downs shines a light on the hazard at hand and reminds the crew that we must remain diligent at working safely.

WA Patriot’s number one priority and commitment is making sure that everyone goes home safe. #StandDown4Safety

WA Patriot Welcomes New Team Members

WA Patriot is happy to announce the addition of new key team members.

Brandon Swaab, Safety Engineer, is responsible for supporting, managing, and updating the company safety policies and jobsite safety procedures. Brandon graduated from Central Washington University with a Bachelor’s degree in Safety and Health Management.

Bryan Brockman, Quality Control Manager, comes to WA Patriot with a background in quality control on large industrial construction projects. He is an animal lover and volunteers his time at animal shelters, among his many other hobbies.

Kristin Bonney, Project Engineer, has been in the construction industry since 2010, and ran her own residential construction business before coming to WA Patriot. Kristin also has a home-based baking business, where she creates edible works of art for her clients’ birthdays, weddings, showers, parties and more.

WA Patriot is excited about the passion each of these individuals bring to our team.

Serving our Community: Tacoma Rescue Mission

On December 17, WA Patriot volunteers showed their support for the Tacoma Rescue Mission by helping prepare meals and serve lunch to many homeless and low income people in the community. Prep work included peeling two bushels of apples and 50 pounds of potatoes, stocking supplies, dicing vegetables and other miscellaneous tasks. WA Patriot is passionate about supporting the Mission in their devotion to provide life-changing services to the hurting and homeless in Tacoma and Pierce County. Their accomplishments this past year included 304,556 meals served at a rate of approximately 834 meals per day. To learn more about Tacoma Rescue Mission and what they do, or to volunteer, please visit them at http://www.trm.org.

2019 Holiday Party – Another Year of Success

The WA Patriot team celebrated a successful 2019 on Saturday, December 14th at our annual Holiday Dinner Party, which was held at the Pt. Fosdick Antique Airplane Airport Hangar at the Tacoma Narrows Airport. On display were some of the historic civilian aircraft that the hangar regularly displays.

The evening’s program included recognition of this year’s PATRIOT Award winner, Andrew Struthers, who was nominated by his peers for his leadership and growth into a supervisory role. We also recognized our craft personnel with Safety awards for their successes in remaining accident-free all year.

Congratulations to our PATRIOT and SAFETY award winners, and thanks to all for making 2019 another great year!

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WA Patriot Team Members Run for a Cause and Support the 2019 ‘Race For A Soldier’ Event

On Sunday, September 15th, WA Patriot employees participated in the Permission to Start Dreaming Foundation’s annual ‘Race For A Soldier’ 5K and 10 Miler event in Gig Harbor. Our team has been supporting this event for several years through sponsorship, running, and setting up the race route with cones and signage.

CONGRATS to the WA Patriot team members and their families who ran, and a big THANK YOU to the volunteers who organized cone and signage placement along the race route and who assisted wear blue: run to remember in cheering on the race participants along the route. Your support once again helped make this race a successful event.

For additional photos and information about this event, please visit  www.raceforasoldier.org

WA Patriot Celebrates 10 Years

To celebrate WA Patriot’s 10th year, we hosted an open house at our office in June. We were extremely happy to see so many friends, family, and colleagues show up to our event and are grateful for their support. We are looking forward to the next 10 years and hope you all continue the journey with us!

Project Engineers visit MacDonald-Miller’s MLAB

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Mechanical contractor MacDonald-Miller hosted WA Patriot’s PE/QC personnel at their Seattle office to visit their MLAB, a virtual reality room. In the lab, current technologies for construction are put on display with a collaborative space for those involved in the project to participate. WA Patriot PE/QC team members were able to walk through, move, and inspect current and future MacDonald-Miller projects, as well as a current WA Patriot project.

You can find out more about the MLAB on MacDonald-Millers’ News page of their website, in an article written by 425 Business Magazine at https://macmiller.com/425-business-magazine-mlab-feature/

2019 Safety Stand-Down a Success

As we wrap up another Safety Stand-Down Week, WA Patriot would like to thank all of our project teams for making it a great success!

WA Patriot project teams conducted Safety Stand-Downs at our job sites last week in conjunction with OSHA’s Annual National Safety Stand-Down week. Each morning, our crews took extra time for a site-specific safety talk about fall hazards and fall protection. WA Patriot’s Leadership and Safety Committee Members participated by going to each project site and sharing in the conversations on the importance of safety.

Crew members contributed by sharing their perspectives on what makes a safe job site, as well as stories and experiences that now fuel their passion and commitment to improving WA Patriot’s safety culture. At the end of the week, we held a raffle to award individuals with Gift Cards for their contributions in these discussions, and all sites hosted Safety Lunches for their project team members.

WA Patriot is committed to our goal of ensuring that EVERYONE GOES HOME SAFE.