Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Bucks arena

Young engineer adds to impressive résumé

- JAMES B. NELSON

There were a lot of happy faces in the crowd of workers that watched the first massive steel truss being raised into place high above the new Milwaukee Bucks arena last week.

Perhaps none more so than Ellen Becker, a 24-year-old engineer for Mortenson Constructi­on who’s been a key player in the structural steel phase of the $524 million project. Becker offered a simple explanatio­n for how she was feeling while watching the 23-ton piece dangle above the arena bowl.

“Pretty excited, pretty excited,” she said.

Becker then resumed fielding questions from reporters covering the event, a milestone that will culminate with the “topping off” ceremony in late summer.

Mortenson, the arena constructi­on manager, has put Becker in the spotlight during this phase of the project, a role she’s handled with ease and profession­alism.

After all, she’s working on her second major sports facility since graduating from the University of Colorado in 2014. The first project was the $1.1 billion U.S. Bank Stadium, the new home for the Minnesota Vikings, which opened last fall.

“I really like the complexity, and I really like sports projects because the public is generally super excited about them,” Becker said.

Home is Sedalia, a Colorado town “with more horses than people,” Becker said, adding that she has owned a horse since she was 10.

Young engineers get a variety of experience working

for Mortenson. And they learn about life on the road as they move from project to project.

In the case of Becker, who travels with her thoroughbr­ed horse Ty, it means calling the Milwaukee area home for a year or so.

Becker received two weeks notice that she would join the Milwaukee team.

“It’s all about adaptabili­ty,” she said of the itinerant life.

Becker worked on the team handling the heating and cooling systems for the Vikings project. In Milwaukee, it’s structural steel, and then she shifts to working on the scoreboard, another important part of the Bucks project.

“She been given a lot of responsibi­lity,” said Angie Helfert, who is Becker’s supervisor. “She started out on the Vikings project, and she’s taken that experience and transferre­d it to this project.”

For the Bucks arena project, women make up 33% of the full-time project management and engineerin­g jobs, said senior marketing manager Bridget Slack. That’s higher than average. College-educated women accounted

for 15% of engineers working in industry, according to a 2016 report by the National Science Foundation. Becker works with Merrill Iron & Steel, a Schofield company that supplies the steel that frames the arena, helping coordinate finances, production, transporta­tion and then installati­on. The project requires 7,673 main structural steel pieces, such a beams and columns, and more than 6,000 smaller pieces.

Standing in the stadium bowl, she pointed to one of the boom lifts raising iron workers in baskets several stories above the ground.

“Yeah, I go up there too if I have to take a look at something,” she said.

Giving young engineers a variety of experience­s is a critical strategy for a large company such

as Mortenson, a privately held company that employs about 4,000 people around the country.

“What we like to do is give them a well-rounded background, so they have a good understand­ing of all of the trades,” Helfert said.

Becker said she wants to learn all the parts of large stadium projects. Her goal: oversee constructi­on of a new NFL stadium.

“I’m at the point of my career where you want to to learn every aspect” of constructi­on, she said. “I want to fill bigger and bigger roles as my career goes on.”

The aggressive timetable of the Bucks project — the goal is to be open in time for the fall 2018 NBA season — means the steel must be set with no delays. That’s so walls and the roof can be installed in time for interior work to begin in November.

“The success of this project runs through the structural steel,” Becker said.

 ?? MIKE DE SISTI / MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL ?? Ellen Becker, a project engineer with Mortenson Constructi­on, the constructi­on manager for the new Bucks arena project, talks to the media last week when the first roof truss was being raised. For more photos and video of the constructi­on, go to...
MIKE DE SISTI / MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL Ellen Becker, a project engineer with Mortenson Constructi­on, the constructi­on manager for the new Bucks arena project, talks to the media last week when the first roof truss was being raised. For more photos and video of the constructi­on, go to...
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