2021 Women in Construction: Li Wang VDC, Project Manage, DPR Construction

What was your greatest professional achievement or most notable project in the last 12 months? With the onset of this global pandemic, and with much of my family in China, it made delivering the projects for our life science customers who are involved with developing vaccines even more meaningful and important. I take pride in knowing that these customers’ products will go towards saving our family, friends, colleagues, and neighbors. These technically challenging projects have lasting impacts on the world around us and that was made ever more evident these last 12+ months.

How have you adapted and changed in the last 12 months? In my role the visuals we create are used in a multitude of ways. New logistics plans were updated to visually explain the new procedures for COVID screenings and enhanced safety measures. Additionally, due to travel restrictions it was difficult for project stake holders to be on site, so using laser scanning and 360 photos became essential to understand existing conditions and conducting virtual walks for project meetings.

What steps have you taken to ensure the continued success of your firm? We made great strides in empowering more project team members to be VDC enabled. We worked to train-up team members to be able to utilize and walk through the models during project meetings to address and problem solve any potential issues before they arise in the field. This is really the ultimate goal with VDC for me, to make utilizing VDC on every project the norm for the industry. We can build the project virtually in 3D, coordinate scopes of work, minimize field issues and deliver predictable results.

Starting out in the construction business, who or what empowered you? In finding my path through college and the industry, I was directly influenced by my undergrad thesis professor and PhD advisor, who are also women that specialize in BIM/VDC in the construction industry. BIM/VDC caught my eye for being so different from the conventional way of thinking. As a puzzler and problem solver, it gave me an avenue to visually solve challenges. Every project and every problem is different, I’m continually getting the chance to practice and use what I’ve learned, while simultaneously helping to improve workflows and move the project forward.