Mary Ellen Copek, the senior human resources officer for Sukut Construction Inc., was honored this month as recipient of the 2009 Excellence in Human Resources Transformation Award by the Orange County chapter of the National Human Resources Association.
Copek, holding the unique title of Talent Director, was recognized for her ability to create strong human resources and learning functions within Sukut while preserving the unique culture that sets the company apart.
“Mary Ellen’s accomplishments were significant enough for her to be in contention for this award with her peers from much larger, multi-national companies,” said Sukut President and CEO Michael Crawford.
Sukut, which employs more than 300 people, is one of America’s premier heavy civil engineering contractors with extensive operations throughout California and currently expanding to Nevada, Arizona, Wyoming and Utah.
“Mary Ellen’s innovations at Sukut have helped us recruit top talent and retain a well-trained and highly motivated workforce,” said Crawford.
Copek, who began at Sukut in 2004, introduced professional interviewing and hiring techniques to insure the selection of new hires that were best suited to the available jobs. She responded to the company’s need for more project management staff by tripling the number of Project Managers in four years.
One of Mary Ellen’s most important roles has been the establishment of Sukut University, the centerpiece of Sukut’s employee training and education program. It is one of Sukut’s most significant strategic business initiatives.
Copek designed a curriculum for project management personnel, taught by in-house experts, which significantly reduced the time required for project engineers to be ready to run projects independently.
Crawford credits Copek’s accomplishments with helping to make Sukut one of Orange County’s top 10 places to work in 2008 and 2009 as determined by the Orange County Register and Orange County Business Journal.
Sukut Construction is California’s largest mass excavation and grading contractor and has moved over a billion cubic yards of earth. It is ranked within the top 400 largest contractors in the nation. It is also among the nation’s top 10 storm and floodwater systems contractors, and is the California’s #1 landfill constructor.
Sukut’s expertise ranges from highway construction to residential grading to wastewater management systems. A partial project list includes the construction of four, 60-acre wastewater treatment ponds holding more than 1 billion gallons for the Los Angeles Sanitation District and a seismic retrofit of the San Pablo Dam for the East Bay Municipal Water District. It is also charged with site development for a section of the U.S.-Mexico border fence and is widening a 1.3-mile segment of State Route 76 in Fallbrook and straightening its alignment.
