It’s the gratitude season, which always reminds us to take a moment and reflect on all that we’re thankful for. At VPCS, we never take for granted how lucky we are to work with such wonderful people – that includes the good folks here at our own company as well as those who serve our client districts and those who work for our partner organizations. It’s a great time of year to acknowledge our blessings and focus on some of our goals for the new year. Here’s how a few of our staff members put that thankfulness into words:
Jennifer Gibb: Gratitude is a practice I prioritize every day. I am blessed to have such abundance – family, friends and colleagues, along with the trusted partner relationships that VPCS has been building for nearly 30 years. I am grateful to play a role in that legacy each day. I feel lucky to be a mom, a friend, a colleague and a partner in this industry. Our clients and vendor partners make our work not only possible but deeply rewarding. Their collaboration and dedication make our projects smoother and more successful, and I am continually appreciative of their support and the strong connections we share.
Ashley Del Rio: I am incredibly grateful for my wonderful VPCS team – for their support, collaboration and effort. I am especially thankful for all the opportunities I’ve had in my first year here and I look forward to further expanding my skills. I am also beyond thankful for my amazing husband and our two wonderful boys. I am excited to discover what lies ahead, both professionally and personally.
Angie Ramich: I am grateful for a healthy, positive working environment where we are blessed with wonderful clients, co-workers, peers and partners. And, of course, my family – my three adult daughters and my partner, Rick. (I’m even grateful for his horrible Dad jokes.) In the new year, I’m looking forward to reading more books, making more quilts, enjoying time with friends and family and seeing my girls continue to live their best lives.
Daniel Stevens: I’m grateful for the mentorship and employee development I receive at VPCS. I’m also grateful for my family. In the new year, I’m looking forward to beginning construction work in one of our districts.
Christine Scheffer: I’m grateful for our staff and their dedication to VPCS. I’m also thankful for my family (both the four-legged and two-legged kinds), our safety, our health and the love we share. I’m looking forward to learning new things that I can apply at work and at home so I can continue to create a great work/life balance.
Jake Jurgenson: I am grateful to work with all the incredible people here at VPCS, each of whom puts in such impressive effort. The fact that we like hanging out with one another is icing on the cake! Of course, I’m also very thankful for my family – immediate, extended, distant or friends-as-family. They all motivate me, inspire me, frustrate me and make me laugh. In the new year, I’m looking forward to more RV trips with the family, and my son moving up to high school!
Louann Carlomagno: As a lifelong learner, I’m grateful for the understanding I’ve gained at VPCS about how best to serve school districts from a facilities perspective. And, as always, I’m thankful for my parents, who taught me how to be the very best person I can be. While both have passed away, their memory lives on in the actions I take and the person I have become. Looking ahead to 2025, I’m excited to travel with my husband, Brian, while celebrating our 40th wedding anniversary!
Jonette Johnson: As I come up on my one-year anniversary with VPCS, I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to work with some pretty amazing people. I am also grateful for the time I have with my family and friends. Time goes by so quickly and it is easy to forget that we are not always guaranteed more time. In 2025, I am looking forward to continuing to learn more in my position along with spending time with my family and friends.
Felicia Silveira: I am thankful for my colleagues, who make every day a fun adventure filled with laughter! I’m also celebrating my first year of being married to my partner of seven years! And I’m grateful for the health of my doggy, who has connected me with some of my closest friends through many trips to the dog park. In the coming year, I’m looking forward to getting outside more, checking out some new camping spots, learning new recipes and practicing my DIY skills around the house.
Nick Olsen: I am new to VPCS and am grateful to join a company that’s so family-oriented. I’m also thankful for my wife and three (soon to be four) kids, and our amazing extended family who are always so loving and helpful. I’m looking forward to making great new memories at work and at home.
Melanie Griffiths: I started a new role this year that places me in the main office interacting with everyone and all the teams. I am so grateful for such amazing co-workers and their support during the transition to this new role! It has been just a great experience so far. My family and friends are what I am most grateful for outside of work. Each day brings something new.
Eric Onick: I am grateful to be working for amazing clients alongside all my hard-working VPCS colleagues. “The Van Pelt Way” is not just a slogan. It’s a testament to the pride and compassion we bring to every facet of our work. I’m truly grateful to be able to be part of such a great organization! I am also grateful for my amazing wife, wonderful kids and loving family. It’s a blessing to have the life that I do.
Kelli Van Pelt Jurgenson: I’m grateful for challenges. That might sound strange, but every time we face a challenge, we get the opportunity to work with our colleagues and clients to find solutions. Challenges seem insurmountable when you are facing them alone but once you ask for help or collaboration, you realize that none of us are alone. I’m also incredibly grateful for my kids and husband, who exemplify the motto of “work hard and be kind.”
It’s no secret that public schools are generally underfunded. That’s true around the country and it’s true right here in California. PreK-12 and community college districts throughout our state are always on the lookout for new funding sources to improve the educational opportunities they offer students and to maximize the positive impact they make on communities.
This November, California voters will get the chance to weigh in on Proposition 2, a statewide measure that, if passed, would issue $10 billion in bonds to pay for school facilities improvements. Of that amount, $8.5 billion would be allocated to PreK-12 schools and the remaining $1.5 billion to community colleges.
Here are just a few reasons why we strongly support Proposition 2:
It focuses on facilities. Public schools’ built environments are often the last thing to get funded by districts’ general budgets. Alongside local matching funds, Prop 2 would help modernize existing buildings and construct new ones where needed. That means updating and upgrading the structures – with new roofs, lighting, HVAC systems, technologies, etc. – that house our state’s learners, ranging in age from 3 to 24+ years old.
It addresses deferred maintenance. Just like homes, schools need regular upkeep to stay in good condition. Many of California’s school facilities have been standing for decades … some for more than a century. Districts can address small issues as they arise, tightening a dripping faucet here or slapping on a coat of paint there. But larger capital improvements require more significant influxes of cash, which is what bond measures like Prop 2 are designed to provide.
It supports student achievement. Improving school facilities is a way to bolster student performance, as it provides safer, more nurturing educational spaces. Bonds help raise the quality of school facilities so that they match the quality of school programs.
It replenishes depleted bond dollars. In 2016, California passed Proposition 51, which made much-needed matching funds available to public educational districts. The good news is that voters in our state understood the importance of school funding in 2016 and Prop 51 money was put to very good use. The bad news is that eight years have passed and our schools need a new funding source to continue improvements.
It complements and strengthens local bonds. Since public school districts need to match state funds with local funds, there are many local bond measures also being voted on in November. Throughout California, there are 267 unique school funding measures on local ballots, including 252 PreK-12 bond measures (totaling $39.3 billion) and 15 community college district measures (totaling $10.6 billion). Of those, ten VPCS client districts are hoping for voters’ yes votes:
East Side Union High School District: Parcel Tax Measure N ($49/parcel)
Lemon Grove School District: Bond Measures EE and CC ($30 million each)
Milpitas Unified School District: Bond Measure Q ($2.2 million)
Napa Valley Unified School District: Bond Measure B ($230 million)
Paradise Unified School District: Bond Measure G ($43 million)
Piner-Olivet Union School District: Bond Measure K ($29.5 million)
Plumas Lake Elementary School District: Bond Measures D, E and F ($18 million each)
Shaffer Elementary School District: Bond Measure W ($2 million)
Windsor Unified School District: Bond Measure V ($122.5 million)
Wright Elementary School District: Bond Measure X ($29.2 million)
It strengthens communities. Strong public schools with vibrant facilities and campuses are at the heart of strong communities. Supporting school bonds is another way to support the places where we live and work; a way to invest in the present as well as the future.
Please join us in voting YES for Proposition 2 and YES on your local school bonds during this election season.
At VPCS, we continue to enjoy steady, carefully managed growth as we approach our thirtieth year in business. Just a decade ago, we had ten active clients. Today, we’re supporting nearly 25 PreK-12 districts throughout California and boast an employee roster of more than 50 talented professionals. Those numbers will only increase as we maintain our strategic momentum.
We recently made some personnel adjustments on our leadership team to accommodate this expansion. First, Kelli Van Pelt Jurgenson and Eric Van Pelt both now hold the title of executive vice president, continuing to collaboratively guide the company towards its future. We could not be in better hands.
Additionally, these valuable team members have been promoted:
Christine Scheffer to Vice President of Operations. One of our first-ever employees, Christine Scheffer has worn a lot of VPCS hats over the years. The bulk of her responsibilities now focus on HR and finance, which are key functions as we continue to add to our employee roster. “Our company culture has become so well defined in recent years,” said Christine. “Now that we have more than 50 employees, it changes things – not only with regard to how we adhere to California employment laws, but it means that more of our people can specialize. When we were a smaller operation, our people wore a lot of hats. Now we can focus on specific roles, which helps us do an even better job for our clients.” Christine has recently added some credentials next to her name, having secured PHRca (Professional in Human Resources – California) and SHRM-CP (Society for Human Resource Management Certified Professional) certifications. “Studying for these certifications has given me important new tools that help ensure we’re complying with state regulations now that we’ve grown to the 50+ size,” she said. Kelli Van Pelt Jurgenson sums up how valuable Christine is to the company by saying, “Christine is our unsung hero. She does things every day that support every single person in this company.”
Jennifer Gibb to Vice President of Business Development. In her time with VPCS, Jennifer Gibb has made an indelible mark on our business, helping to broaden our reach into new districts and new regions throughout California. “I’m really proud of how successful we’ve been in recent years to bring our specific brand of customer service – what we call the Van Pelt Way – to so many new communities around the state,” said Jennifer. “As we continue to grow, and grow thoughtfully, I’m looking forward to helping our executive leadership meet this company’s expanding goals. Plus, we’re always mindful about supporting our own employees as we add to the roster, managing growth in a way that supports our clients and personnel equally.” Kelli Jurgenson noted that Jennifer possesses particularly valuable relationship-building skills, both within VPCS and in the industry, which makes her especially good at her job. “Having someone who is so future-minded be involved in the discussion about the company’s strategic trajectory is going to be so important going forward,” said Kelli.
For the past few months, it’s been our distinct pleasure to welcome three young interns to the VPCS ranks, all up-and-coming professionals we’ve been proud to involve in our work. But our 2024 interns are not the only ones who have learned from the experience; we’ve also gained an enormous amount from them. “Talking with our interns about what they’re studying in school really helps VPCS understand what’s being taught – and, in some cases, what’s not being taught – in the programs training the next generation,” said Vice President Kelli Van Pelt Jurgenson. “It gives us a better understanding of how to prepare our youngest employees for success.”
We chatted with our three 2024 interns – Olivia Schultz, Christopher Escalona-Barragan and Gabe Cabezas – to hear how they’ve spent their summers.
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Olivia Schultz
A rising junior in the undergraduate architecture program at the University of Tennessee, Olivia pursued her VPCS internship to learn more about the structural side of the built environment. “I decided to do this instead of an architecture internship because I’ve been learning a lot in school about design choices, but I realized I wanted to understand more about how buildings are actually built,” she said.
Olivia worked on a variety of projects as part of VPCS’s Napa Valley USD assignment. “It’s been so interesting going to job sites and assessing what’s needed, then looking at the design plans to see what solutions the architects are proposing,” she said. She was also involved in both ends of the moving process, helping pack up classrooms at the start of the summer and then moving things into newly renovated spaces in time for the start of the school year. “When it comes to understanding what VPCS does on a school site, I’ve gotten to see the before and after, which is really cool,” Olivia reported.
Olivia plans to add an extra year to her studies and graduate with degrees in both landscape and traditional architecture. In both contexts, she is drawn to the idea of sustainable design. “I’m really interested in the idea of making buildings – including schools – that last longer,” Olivia said. Kelli Van Pelt Jurgenson thinks Olivia’s a natural. “Her assistance in the design of a new office space for district maintenance staff was very helpful to our team,” noted Kelli.
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Christopher Escalona-Barragan
A 2024 high school graduate, Chris also worked with the Napa Valley USD team, which is especially meaningful because it’s the district he grew up in. “I got connected to VPCS through a mentorship program at Vintage High School that matched students and graduates with local companies offering different internships,” said Chris. “I’ve really liked working here because it’s given me a lot of behind-the-scenes knowledge about what actually goes on when something’s getting built.”
Throughout the summer, Chris shadowed other team members just to observe and help however he could. “They gave me work to do and I just got it done,” he reported. Kelli, who also oversaw Chris’ efforts, agrees that he’s a great team player. “He has such a positive attitude and is always willing to pitch in,” she said.
Chris has a bit of industry experience working construction at his uncles’ Napa winery, although this has been his first exposure to construction management. The internship was well timed, since he is beginning a CM program at Santa Rosa Junior College this fall. “I’m definitely drawn to the ‘numbers’ side of this business; that’s more up my alley,” said Chris. “And I’m learning that there’s a lot of paperwork involved in construction management, which can be a lot of hard work. But it’s fun seeing it all pay off at the end of the project. That’s a good feeling.”
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Gabe Cabezas
Gabe has been part of the extended VPCS family for most of his life, as his father, Cesar Cabezas, has worked for the company for more than 20 years. “The whole time I was growing up, it’s almost been my calling to work here,” said Gabe. “I’ve always listened to what my dad has said about what he does for a living and it piqued my interest from an early age.”
His assignments this summer confirmed that he wants to end up in this industry when he starts his career. He’s spent the summer supporting the Pleasanton USD team and says he’s learned so much from everyone he’s worked with. “It was something different every day from going on site walks to organizing work files in the office,” he explained. “I really loved it.”
With his internship wrapped up, Gabe is returning to Jessup University, where he’s studying business with a focus on project and construction management. “This internship has been so helpful to get that first-hand experience to go with what I’m learning at school,” he said. “I hope to come back and work here full-time some day. The Van Pelts are just amazing people.”
Over VPCS’s nearly 30-year history, our clients have come to expect a certain something – a level of service, an attention to detail, a human touch – that they might not find anywhere else. Our colleagues and partners have known us for decades by this same reputation. To those of us on the inside, we call this certain something by its name: the Van Pelt Way. Our co-founders, Mark Van Pelt and Mike Van Pelt, are justifiably proud of this company philosophy and how it has helped distinguish us in our industry. They’re also pleased that our deep bench of future VPCS leaders embraces it just as fervently. Here are a few of Mark and Mike’s thoughts on the subject:
Q: How would you describe the Van Pelt Way?
Mark: It’s actually defined in a manual we give to every new employee. In that document, we say that the Van Pelt Way is our “foundational ethos – rooted in integrity, transparency, professionalism and service” – and it’s what sets our company apart. We like to think of it as our secret sauce.
Mike: It’s about doing whatever it takes, which is often about relieving issues for clients in ways that our competitors wouldn’t necessarily think of as part of their duties or contract. It’s when we step up and say, “We’ll take care of it.”
Mark: That’s right. “Whatever it takes” has become our motto.
Q: How did the Van Pelt Way come to be?
Mark: Mike and I have always had this kind of work ethic and we’ve both just developed it over the years. Once we started VPCS, we realized that we had an advantage over our competitors because we came from the general contracting world. That means we don’t just know how to manage construction, but we also know how to build buildings. So that’s part of how the Van Pelt Way emerged because we can step in to handle a wider variety of problems that come up on projects.
Mike: Exactly. In the early days of our company, we realized that clients sometimes struggled with issues during the construction process. And we saw so many of our competitors saying, “Just let ’em struggle.” They didn’t want to go outside the parameters of their contracts. But we knew that if our clients were successful, then we’d be successful. It just became part of our routine to do whatever we could to support our clients’ success. Now it’s second nature for everyone on our team.
Q: Can you share a couple of examples of how you’ve gone above and beyond in service to a client?
Mike: There are hundreds of them. One that always come to mind for me is the time when construction caused a traffic routing pattern at an elementary school to change right before the start of the school year. Parents had been using the same drop-off pattern for decades and we knew the new parking lot and site work might be confusing on the first day of school. So a bunch of us from the VPCS team grabbed flags and put on vests and helped direct traffic. Nowhere in our contract did it say we had to do anything like that, but it just seemed like an easy way to help the district.
Mark: I’ve got another first-day-of-school story. We’d finished a new classroom building at an elementary school and in the early morning hours on that first day, a drain line backed up and flooded the playground. The district called its maintenance team to come deal with it but they weren’t going to be there for hours, which meant possibly delaying the first day of the year at that school. So our project team ran to Home Depot very early in the morning and bought a bunch of brooms and other equipment and cleaned the whole thing up before the start of the school day. It was like it never happened. No other CM or PM in this business would do that.
Mike: How about the time when I went with a client to a rock quarry an hour’s drive from his district to help him pick out a piece of stone that he wanted to use for the front office desk at the new school we were building for him? There I was, picking out rocks because that’s what my client asked me to do. That district ended up with a beautiful desk!
Mark: Or the time when a client from a small district was going on vacation and asked me to sit at her desk while she was gone. She didn’t mean do my PM work from her office at district headquarters; she meant do my job and do her job. Because she didn’t just oversee the facilities department – she was also in charge of food service, transportation, custodial services and a million other things. It was actually a blast; I loved it. And we had that client for more than a decade after that, so it’s the kind of stuff that pays off.
Q: How have you managed to honor the small company ethos as the company has grown?
Mark: We’re really careful about training new people so they understand how we do things; we also have regular all-hands meetings where the whole team comes together to share ideas and stories about how to do the job while also delivering great service. Looking ahead to when Kelli [Van Pelt Jurgenson] and Eric [Van Pelt] take the reins, they’ll continue to cultivate the Van Pelt Way too, and they’ll be surrounded by others we’ve brought on board who are just as committed to it. It’s important that we keep this part of our DNA because that’s what sets us apart and makes us successful.
Mike: It’s true. It’s the only way Mark and I have ever worked; it’s the only way we’ve ever done things since we started VPCS; it’s the only way Kelli and Eric have ever seen things being done. And as new employees come on board, it doesn’t take them long to figure out that we run things differently than other companies. The Van Pelt Way is pretty built in around here.
