JANUARY SPOTLIGHT
Alex Fickes

Alex is a senior project engineer in our piping division group and has been a part of the JR Merit team for close to three years now. Noteworthy, Alex’s path to construction was nontraditional compared to most. After earning a degree in operations
management from Eastern Washington University, Alex returned to his hometown in Yakima, Washington and began his career in the food processing industry. Over the following four to five years, he worked as a production supervisor, ultimately making his way to operations manager. “During my time in the food production industry, I was actively involved with capital projects on the owner side of things and discovered that I really enjoyed project management and the construction life cycle. Constructing, installing, and improving processes was something I got very excited about and eventually determined it was exactly what I wanted to transition into for my career.”

He first learned about JR Merit through his brother, who is a project manager for a Seattle-based mechanical contractor. “He had a contact at JR Merit who let me know about an opening, and even though it meant I would start from the ground up in a new industry, I knew it was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up on, and I ended up being right! From day one I was immersed in
hydropower projects, piping projects, and structural projects, eventually carving my path more towards the mechanical and piping side of the business. Now I am a working on one of the larger industrial piping scopes that JR Merit has performed, which is awesome to be a part of.”

Alex leverages his operations management degree and past experiences every day at JR Merit. “In my opinion, operations
and production management are remarkably similar to construction and project management. Both have similar levels of complexity, and problem solving but with different end goals. They also deal with a lot of the same challenges from
material pricing and labor shortages to schedule deadlines and customer requirements. I was pleasantly surprised by the similarities and relieved that the learning curve wouldn’t be as steep as I originally thought.”

Referring to the complex aspects of construction, Alex’s start at JR Merit was very eventful. “In my first few months at JR Merit, I was assigned to a valve building project in a remote part of Oregon where the project took place on the side of a steep hill with very little access. Such restraints required the use of a helicopter, critical lift plans, and coordination with several different trades and agencies. Overall, the process was very challenging but incredible to be a part of, especially for just starting out my construction career.”

Alex enjoys the technical and meaningful projects he works on and the team he gets to work with. “Honestly, what I enjoy most about JR Merit is the opportunity to be a part of teams that are tasked with solving and executing some of the most technically
challenging problems that exist in the construction industry. It is very rewarding to see a project go from the estimating phase through execution to closeout, all while simultaneously building relationships with other contractors and customers. At the end of the day, that’s what it’s really all about—the people.”

Looking toward the next five years, Alex is all about building relationships, learning, and continued growth. “I hope to be a successful project manager running large projects on the high-tech manufacturing and semi-conductor side of the business. We have a lot of growth opportunities on the horizon in that sector, and I am grateful to be a part of the team tasked with helping it grow.”

Outside of work, Alex is an avid outdoorsman who enjoys snowboarding, hiking, fishing, and upland bird hunting. He also enjoys an occasional day on the golf course but acknowledges he will not be on the PGA tour anytime soon—and will stick to his day job. He’s also a devoted sports fan and roots for the Seattle Mariners, Seahawks, and Kraken. “I was a three-sport athlete throughout high school and grew up going to Mariners and Seahawk games. I also spent a lot of time in the summer visiting family in the greater Seattle area. Most recently I added hockey to my list of favorite sports to watch and love going to Kraken games at Climate Pledge Arena.”  Alex is also one of four children and is in fact a triplet! ” I have a brother and sister and an older sister, too. Growing up with siblings was great but having two other siblings going through the same stages of life was pretty cool, too. Shout out to my parents for handling the chaos that came along with that!”