Mortenson, a construction engineering company, donated $50,000 to the Safety and Health Management program. CWU alum and safety director for Mortenson, Nick Cordell, helped facilitate this donation. 

According to Cordell, he wanted to help fund the program to get supplies and other things that they may need.

“It’s important to me that our future safety and health management professionals get a good education,” Cordell said. 

Sathyanarayanan Rajendran, dean of the College of Education and Professional Studies, said this donation can help offset student fees and help with lab equipment, field trips and transportation.

Rajendran said that he is grateful for this donation because it helps alleviate some of the stress of how they are going to fund different things. 

“It’s like you have Christmas multiple times,”  Rajendran said. 

Greg Lyman, department chair for Engineering Technologies, Safety and Construction, said he hopes to continue to collaborate with Mortenson in the future. 

“With this type of donation, we’ll be able to use it on a lot of different things,” Lyman said. “And that’s what makes it exciting.”

Cordell said he hopes this partnership between Mortenson and CWU can help increase the number of students who pick an occupational safety and health major early on in college. 

“Mortenson is a resource for the university, whether it comes to guest lectures or helping out with student development in interviewing skills or building a resume,” Cordell said. 

Before joining Mortenson, Cordell said he got his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in occupational safety and health management at CWU. Cordell said that he had a background in construction growing up. 

“I wanted to make an impact on safety within the construction industry,” Cordell said. 

According to Cordell, his favorite thing about CWU’s Safety and Health Management program is how the program arranges courses that can be applicable to real-life situations in the construction field. 

During his time at CWU, Cordell said Rajendran helped him a lot with his applied project for his masters. 

“He helped me outline what my goals and objectives were and how to incorporate real-life construction challenges into my research topics,” Cordell said. 

Some advice Cordell has for students currently in the Safety and Health Management program is to look into what type of construction work you like and reach out to contractors who fit that description. 

“I think it’s something that students often don’t think of is that contractors are really interested in meeting with the students while they’re in school to help coach them and guide them,” Cordell said.