Talk about having the inside scoop.
When Tyler Tippetts began the final semester of his construction management career at UNLV, he was presented with an internship opportunity he couldn’t refuse.
It was January 2022, and the UNLV College of Engineering was weeks away from breaking ground on the Advanced Engineering Building — a building he wouldn’t study in, but one that would benefit a generation of students after him.
“I remember when my boss first told me he was going to put me on the Advanced Engineering Building project. It was an awesome moment,” said Tippetts, who then was an intern for CORE Construction, the company that oversaw AEB’s construction.
“I was super excited because a lot of my classes were in the [Thomas T. Beam Engineering Complex], and I studied in TBE-A, the building that AEB ties into,” he said. “It was kind of surreal to be working on the building, and it was cool because all of my friends and classmates, of course, had questions.”
Both as an intern for CORE Construction and as a UNLV Engineering student, Tippetts was there when the Advanced Engineering Building broke ground in February 2022. By the time it hit its next major milestone — when a crane hoisted the final steel beam and affixed it to AEB at a topping out ceremony later that year — he was an official CORE project engineer.
He was there, too, when AEB reached substantial completion in October 2023 and CORE turned the keys over to the engineering school’s dean Rama Venkat, whose vision for the building started it all more than 10 years ago.
Now, as both a full-time CORE employee and UNLV alum, he’s looking forward to celebrating AEB’s official grand opening ceremony on Feb. 23, 2024.
“It’s really cool to immediately give back to the campus that I benefited so greatly from, and the programs I benefited so greatly from,” he said, adding that he’s a third-generation Las Vegan and one in a long family line of UNLV alums.
Creating the Blueprint for his Career
Tippetts joined UNLV as a finance major but fond memories of working a summer job in construction tugged at him, leading him to change his major halfway through his first semester.
“I realized I liked the industry,” he said. “I liked the idea of playing two roles — being on the management side and also being out in the field, not just being at a desk all day. I was drawn to it.”
His fundamentals of construction management course (CEM 100) confirmed that he had made the right choice.
“I had this professor named Charlie Thomas,” Tippetts said. “He was in his 80s when I took his course. Several of my bosses here (at CORE) took classes with him in the 1990s. He was super knowledgeable. He had been in the construction field his entire life, and some of the wisdom he shared in that class is stuff I use to this day.”
Problem-solving Behind the Paperwork
As a project engineer for CORE — a position he transitioned into after receiving a job offer several months before graduation — Tippetts manages project submittals, requests for information (RFIs), and paperwork.
“There’s a lot of documentation to go along with the construction process,” he said.
From paint to steel, from HVAC ducts to concrete, he was in charge of submitting paperwork on every item installed in AEB. And every time builders ran into an issue in the field, he was responsible for submitting an RFI — more than 230 over the course of the project.
“So, if we see a detail that doesn’t quite make sense, or, if we see that it’s not doable, we’ll RFI it,” he said. “A good RFI will almost always include a suggestion. We don’t just want to point out a problem, and not offer a possible solution.”
He also monitored the procurement process, and ensured that workers had the materials they needed on time — a process that became much more challenging with post-pandemic supply chain issues.
“Items that were typically off-the-shelf, or things that you could get in a week or two, were all of a sudden six months to a year out,” he said. “We reevaluated our procurement and tracking process, and streamlined the approvals of the submittals so we could get the material released on time.”
Despite that challenge, Tippetts and his team never wavered on their commitment to delivering the project on time.
“On any construction project, several issues arise where you start scratching your head a little bit and asking, ‘What are we going to do?’ But our team never had a doubt that we’d finish on time,” Tippetts said, adding that seeing the finished product is confirmation of a job well done.
“From the groundbreaking, to the relocation of the existing utilities, to pouring concrete, to watching the steel go up — it’s satisfying watching it go from nothing to something,” he said. “I think that’s the great thing about construction: how obvious your efforts are at the end. It’s the most rewarding feeling.”
Now, he’s most looking forward to seeing students, faculty, and staff in the space — actively using it to conduct research or develop the next big innovation.
“I’m really drawn to the Maker Space,” he said. “I like knowing that current and future students will go in there and build their Senior Design inventions or come up with a solution for one of their student clubs. And, from a purely architectural standpoint, I like the colors in there, and the big folding overhead doors. They’re cool, especially when they’re in motion.”
