The NAU Science and Health Building, Travis's first professional job with Mortenson. Photo by Travis Estes.
NAU Science and Health Building · Travis's first Mortenson project

I am Travis Estes, and I founded Built On Record on a simple conviction: a job is only as good as its record.

I learned that over more than five years at Mortenson, one of the country's largest builders. There I ran document control on a mission-critical data center project that became Mortenson's first start-to-finish Procore job. The road there ran through a custom log home in a Flagstaff winter, a purchasing desk at a homebuilder, and a construction management degree from Northern Arizona University.

Along the way, I built the systems that kept fast, complicated jobs on one current set of facts. Today I build those same systems for contractors, from Arizona and remotely in any state, in tools they already own.

The short version

  • Acting document control manager on many Mortenson projects, including a mission-critical data center project from startup through Phase 1.
  • Mortenson's first start-to-finish Procore project. The job moved from Oracle Unifier to Procore two weeks in, just as Mortenson signed what Procore called its largest deal to date (announced February 2, 2016).
  • Mortenson, 2013 to 2019. Work ranging from rooftop solar to large data centers, including a Facebook (Meta) data center run on Procore.
  • Recruited by Mortenson out of a regional student competition. My NAU team placed second of 12 teams in the commercial building category at the 2011 Associated Schools of Construction regional competition in Reno.
  • An award-winning first project. The NAU Science and Health Building, my first professional job with Mortenson, won a 2016 AZRE RED Award in the Education category.
  • An award-winning design. In 2016, Joanna and I received a Coconino County Sustainable Building Program Award of Excellence for the design of a passive solar cottage in Flagstaff.
  • Assistant director of a trade school. I built and ran its construction trade programs, including solar technician training, for a student body made up mostly of veterans.
  • Procore and BIM 360 expert. Highly proficient in Bluebeam Revu.
  • B.S. in Construction Management, minor in Mathematics, Northern Arizona University. My senior capstone project focused on document control.
  • Sixth-generation Arizonan. Dad, drummer, photographer, videographer, and stroke survivor.

Where it started: a log home in a Flagstaff blizzard

My construction career did not begin in an office. From 2007 to 2009 I was a partner at HME Enterprises in Flagstaff, where I handled dispatch and customer relations for a light freight trucking operation and helped market a retail flooring business. I also worked as a carpenter on a custom log home, shaping logs by hand with chainsaws and drawknives. We delivered that house through a blizzard and record snowfall.

It taught me what every superintendent already knows. Bad conditions do not stop the work. You plan around them, and you keep the record straight.

In 2011 I moved to the buying side as a purchasing agent for Capstone Homes in Flagstaff. I coordinated the procurement of materials, equipment, tools, and subcontractors. I reviewed requisitions, prepared purchase orders and bid requests, negotiated contracts within budget and scope, and worked with quality control and vendors whenever something arrived wrong. That seat showed me how much money rides on a clean paper trail between the office, the supplier, and the field.

Flagstaff is also where sustainable building became part of my work. In 2016, Joanna and I received a Coconino County Sustainable Building Program Award of Excellence for the design of a passive solar cottage in Flagstaff, and I served on the program's Citizens Advisory Committee.

Northern Arizona University

I earned a Bachelor of Science in Construction Management, with a minor in Mathematics, from Northern Arizona University in 2014.

The defining moment came in Reno. At the 2011 Associated Schools of Construction regional competition, I competed on NAU's commercial team, and we placed second of 12 teams in the commercial building category. Mortenson recruited me out of that event. A year earlier, in 2010, I had served as an alternate on NAU's BIM team at the same competition.

I also served as treasurer of the Construction Management Organization, which brought together the AGC, NAWIC, and NAHB student chapters, from 2009 to 2011. Alongside the construction curriculum, I studied electrical engineering and actuarial-focused mathematics, and I finished a mathematics minor. One of my professors told me I was the only CM student who had ever done that. I closed out the degree with a senior capstone project on document control.

The math matters more than it might seem. It is why I read a job file as a data set. Logs, transmittals, and dailies are data, and data can tell you where a job is about to slip.

Mortenson: from recruit to acting document control manager

Mortenson's interest in Reno turned into my first professional job: the NAU Science and Health Building, a five-story, 120,000-square-foot lab and classroom building on the Flagstaff campus. I started on it as an intern in November 2013, and Mortenson offered me a full-time job before I finished school.

On that project I worked under the MEP engineer. I tracked RFIs, managed ASIs, distributed documents, cataloged concrete logs, reviewed subcontractor submittals, ran field inspections and safety audits, and supported the commissioning team at closeout. In March 2016 the project team accepted the AZRE RED Award for Education, and I was there with them.

From there my work ranged from rooftop solar to large data centers. I worked in the field as site lead, in the office building document control systems, and in pre-construction, with rotations through the scheduling and estimating teams.

Mortenson's first start-to-finish Procore project

The work I am proudest of came on a mission-critical data center project. I served as acting document control manager from startup through Phase 1, a role I held on many Mortenson projects.

Mortenson had just signed what Procore called its largest deal to date, and that project became Mortenson's first start-to-finish Procore project. I folded the new platform into the job's existing document workflows while the work was moving, not after the fact.

That experience taught me what most people miss about software. Procore did not run that job's paperwork. People did, with clear rules about what is current, who has the ball, and who received the change. The software made those rules easier to enforce. The same rules work in Google Drive, Dropbox, and a spreadsheet, and that is what I build for contractors today.

Systems that became the standard

Across those projects, I developed and codified document management methods that drew on several software platforms and custom toolsets. They made the systems easier to use, carried them across build teams, and simplified internal audits.

  • A reference for other teams. By 2018, the Standard Work Instructions I wrote for these projects were the quality and lean reference for every project team in Mortenson's Phoenix build group.
  • A document control scheme from scratch. On the pre-construction team for a Facebook (Meta) data center, I drafted and launched the document control scheme. That job also ran on Procore, and Meta's own job postings for data center construction managers list Procore experience as a preferred qualification. My methods often outperformed the existing workflows and were adopted as best practice for other projects.
  • A predictive production model. I designed a Performance Indicator Analysis and Projection Model. It forecast production-rate trends from tracked performance indicators, then modeled the production rates needed to bring a project back on schedule. It was beta tested on the Facebook data center project for rollout across the build group.

In the field as site lead, I inspected materials and installations, coordinated construction services, ran quality assurance and daily log reporting, enforced safety standards, and resolved design issues with the owner and design team.

Building a trade school from intake to transcript

After Mortenson, I served as assistant director of a trade school, where most of our students were veterans.

I developed every construction trade program the school offered, including solar technician training, and I ran those programs day to day.

I also built the school's operating backbone. I set up and maintained the back-end CRM that followed each student through the full lifecycle, from the first marketing contact through enrollment, graduation, and transcript requests. I built all of the school's websites and produced all of its videography.

In many ways, it was document control in another form. Every student record had to be complete, current, and retrievable years later, just as a closeout file has to answer questions long after the crew has left.

Resilience

On March 14, 2016, I had a massive stroke.

I spent a month in the hospital and a year in outpatient recovery. I had to relearn how to walk, how to see, and how to make my voice resonate. Recovery took dedication, but primarily, I have my family and my medical team to thank for my recovery so far. It is still a work in progress.

I also live with trigeminal neuralgia, and I keep going.

Those experiences sharpened something I already believed. Systems should be simple enough to work on your worst day. A process that only works when everyone is at 100 percent is not a process. It is a hope. That conviction runs through everything I build for contractors.

Outside the job file

I am a sixth-generation Arizonan. My family has been here a long time, and Arizona is where I build.

I am a dad, and my family comes first. My wife, Joanna, was right there with me when the NAU team accepted the RED Award in 2016, and she shares the sustainable building award with me.

I am an artist, photographer, and videographer. I shoot stock and wall art photography and make videos, and in every frame I want everything exactly where it belongs.

I am also an accomplished drummer. Percussion has been my main instrument for years, and I produce digital music as well. Drumming is timing and discipline, which is not far from running a weekly open-items review.

And I write and run two travel sites: Travel at My Pace, covering Arizona and beyond, and Japan at My Pace. They come from the same instinct as a good job file: gather the useful details, organize them, and make them easy to find when you need them.

What that means for your job

You do not need an enterprise platform to run your job the way a big GC does. You need one current set, logs that someone keeps up, a record of who received what, and a closeout file built as you go. I have done that on large, fast-moving data center jobs, and I know which parts matter and which parts are overhead.

That is why Built On Record offers three services: job file setup, retainer document control, and closeout support. Your files stay in your account. And if a simple setup is enough for your team to run on its own, I will tell you.

Talk about a live job

I am based in Arizona. If you want a second set of eyes, bring a recent RFI thread and a look at where your drawings live. That is enough for a first conversation.

Write to travis@builtonrecord.com, or start at the Contact page. To see how this site handles examples and claims, read How This Site Is Written.

Write to travis@builtonrecord.com. Based in Arizona, working remotely with contractors in any state.