WW Chapter Presents Risk Management is a Team Sport

THIS EVENT IS SOLD OUT!

How early alignment and shared accountability turn uncertainty into informed decisions? This session explores how Design-Build delivery enables teams to actively manage risk through early alignment, shared accountability, and integrated decision-making. Drawing on owner, designer, builder, and trade partner perspectives, the panel illustrates how risk is collectively mitigated, not transferred, when teams collaborate early and use common tools. Attendees will gain practical insights into aligning priorities, improving predictability, and reducing late-stage surprises.

Join us for an informative session focused on practical, real-world approaches to managing risk as one integrated team.

Learning Objectives:

1. Understand how Design-Build assigns risk to the party best positioned to manage it
2. Identify tools that support early risk identification and transparent decisions
3. Describe how early team integration and shared accountability create a collaborative environment that supports informed, unified decision‑making throughout the project.
4. Hear from our expert panel how project risk decreases when performance, cost, and constructability are evaluated together.

About the Speakers:

Julia Doerner
Account Executive
McKinstry Co., LLC.

Julia Doerner is an Account Executive with McKinstry in the New Construction Mechanical and Plumbing division. She spent the first 10 years of her career as a design engineer, working for multiple design-build contractors in the Pacific Northwest as well as a brief stint as a design engineer for a consulting A/E firm, and has been with McKinstry since 2017.

In 2020, Julia transitioned from engineering into a Preconstruction Manager role, where she helped lead the preconstruction phase of complex design-build projects for clients including Amazon, Microsoft, Expedia, and higher education institutions. She now focuses on supporting customers at the earliest, conceptual stages of new projects. Leveraging her extensive technical expertise and collaborative approach, Julia works to ensure project success for all stakeholders from initial concept through design and construction.

Jeannie Natta
Director of Major Projects
University of Washington Project Delivery Group

Jeannie Natta is the Director of Major Projects for the University of Washington Project Delivery Group and has worked at the UW for over 15 years. She is a DBIA Fellow and the Vice Chair of the DBIA Western Washington Chapter Steering Committee. Prior to her work at the UW, Jeannie spent 10 years in the electrical trade, as a commercial electrician, and 12 years as an educator in university residential life programs. Jeannie draws upon her varied career background to manage projects for the University.

Seamus Kelly
AIA, LEED AP
Principal

Séamus is an architect with a passion for crafting inclusive and high-performing educational environments from early childhood learning through higher education. He specializes in integrated project delivery, including progressive design-build and GC/CM models, and is skilled at managing collaborative teams and processes to create well-crafted learning facilities that support student development and well-being, provide reliable and efficient operations for decades, and enrich the local community. As a project manager, Séamus aligns the design effort around client values and goals, with unwavering commitment to budget and schedule performance. Projects like Blakely Elementary School, UW Bothell Innovation Hall and Washington School for the Deaf demonstrate the exemplary, award-winning results that serve as a national model for design.

Séamus has worked with multiple institutional clients on creating more inclusive restrooms, and to broaden thinking on inclusive design as a member of Mithun’s gender equity taskforce. He enjoys participating in community design-build projects and pro-bono efforts like the Quilcene Education Pavilion, Cascade Bicycle Club headquarters and creation of a natural play structure at Hilltop Children’s Center. Seamus is also a periodic speaker, sharing lessons learned from projects and studies at educational and design-build conferences and events.

Community: Association for Learning Environments (A4LE), Member; Design Build Institute of America (DBIA), Member

Paul Winfield, DBIA
Project Manager
Hensel Phelps

Paul Winfield, DBIA, is a Project Manager with Hensel Phelps specializing in design-build delivery for complex research and higher‑education facilities. He has helped lead multiple design-build projects, including Caltech’s Resnick Sustainability Center, an 80,000 SF hybrid mass‑timber research and education facility delivered through progressive design‑build and ultimately achieving LEED Platinum certification, and the Caltech Chen Neuroscience Research Building, a 145,000 SF research facility also delivered under progressive design‑build.

Across these and other projects, Paul has guided multidisciplinary teams through early design development, target value design, procurement, BIM coordination, construction, commissioning, and owner move‑in. His work emphasizes collaborative teaming, transparent communication, and early issue resolution to support efficient, value‑aligned delivery.

In addition to his design‑build experience, Paul’s background includes alternative delivery aviation projects, electrical engineering with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Hydroelectric Design Center, and leadership roles as a U.S. Army engineer officer. He is a DBIA‑certified professional and holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering.