Nominations Are Open for the Class of 2025
The DBIA College of Fellows is a prestigious honor reserved for the most distinguished professionals in the design-build industry. In fact, only 2% of Designated Design-Build Professionals® are elevated to the status of Fellow. These individuals have demonstrated a long-term commitment to shaping design-build delivery through leadership, mentorship and service.
But that’s just a 30,000-foot view. Strip away the titles and accolades, and what you’ll find are passionate professionals whose careers tell the real story. At its heart, becoming a DBIA Fellow is about making an impact and improving the future of design-build delivery and the AEC industry. DBIA Fellows are the collaborators, the educators and the advocates who’ve helped redefine how we build.
Nominations for the 2025 class of DBIA Fellows are now open. If you know a design-build leader who exemplifies Design-Build Done Right®, consider nominating them for this prestigious distinction. Review the guidelines and start your nomination today.
And if you’re not sure who to nominate just yet, stay tuned. Over the next few weeks, we’ll introduce you to some industry powerhouses. As you read their stories, you might just think of someone whose own journey belongs among them.
Meet Darlene Septelka, FDBIA

It’s not every day you meet someone who helped write the exam for an entire profession, let alone someone who still has the team-building coffee mugs from 1996. But then again, it’s not every day you meet Darlene Septelka, FDBIA. We recently spoke with Septelka, newly retired from the University of Washington, about her career, her legacy and what it means to be a DBIA Fellow.
At one point during our conversation, she reached offscreen and held up a coffee mug. “Oh! Here’s a 1996 cup,” she said, grinning. Emblazoned with the names of Boeing and its project partners, the mug was from a long-ago teaming session. “Some of these companies don’t even exist anymore,” she noted, rattling off a few once-familiar names that have since been acquired, merged or rebranded over the years. It was a perfect Darlene moment: equal parts artifact and anecdote, a tangible piece of the industry’s history and a reminder of just how long she’s been shaping it from the inside.
With more than 50 years in the construction industry, Septelka’s influence has spanned continents, generations and delivery methods. From her early days leading engineering teams at nuclear power plants to her recent years shaping the minds of future construction leaders at the University of Washington, Septelka has made it her mission to build better — buildings, people, processes and possibilities.
Last year, Septelka was inducted into the University of Washington’s Construction Industry Hall of Fame, an honor that recognizes her extraordinary contributions to the university and the construction profession at large. During her induction speech, she held up her old slide rule, a symbol of just how much the industry has evolved from her earliest days to today’s AI-driven tools. She told the young professionals in the room to imagine what they might witness and accomplish in their own long careers ahead. “I told my last class in May, I wish I could trade places with them,” she said. “I would love to witness what’s in store for our industry.”
DBIA at the Core
A charter member of the very first class of Designated Design-Build Professionals® certified in 2002, Septelka has been a staunch advocate for Design-Build Done Right® even before the phrase had a registered trademark. She helped co-found DBIA’s Northwest Region alongside David Mortenson, meeting in their Bellevue office to draft bylaws and assemble a team of true believers.
“We began as a small startup chapter, and now we’re a whole region with active local chapters and real momentum,” she said. “I’m genuinely grateful to have played a role in laying the leadership and education foundations that continue to support DBIA’s growth.”

In those early days, she was the one organizing region events, mentoring young professionals and championing integration in an industry that was still very much siloed. She was also one of the first DBIA-approved instructors and helped craft the organization’s early training materials.
And she’s never looked back.
Though she’s now more in the background, Septelka was deeply involved in DBIA’s early years. She recalls a pivotal meeting in Washington, D.C., where early members of DBIA visited congressional representatives to advocate for design-build as a smarter, more collaborative alternative to design-bid-build. “We talked about reducing litigation, avoiding finger-pointing and, ultimately, saving taxpayers money by building as a team and meeting project goals collaboratively,” she said.
She especially remembers assisting Northwest public Owners as they launched their first design-build projects, including providing training and guidance to agencies such as the Port of Seattle. “Today, I see many of those same Owners as recognized regional leaders in Design-Build Done Right®,” she said.
“The reason I chose DBIA,” she said, “was because it was the only place where everyone was at the same table — the architect, the builder, the Owner. None of the other associations offered that kind of collaboration.”
Boots on the Ground and Chalk in Hand
Septelka’s career is the embodiment of integration. She’s moved seamlessly between industry and academia, managing $2 billion in projects across 15 countries for companies like The Boeing Company, then returning to the classroom to pass on that knowledge.
In 2008, she created the DBIA-approved graduate Design-Build Project Management class at UW College of Built Environments, a program she later handed off to fellow design-build advocate and University of Washington colleague Jeannie Natta, DBIA, in what can only be described as a poetic passing of the torch. “I wanted to make sure the course didn’t just continue; it needed to grow,” Septelka said. “And Jeannie is the perfect person to do that.”
And when it comes to preparing the next generation, Septelka goes beyond just teaching them how to build. She teaches them how to lead. Septelka draws on her real-world project experience to help students and mentees prepare for many of the obstacles in the industry. In a recent op-ed for the Daily Journal of Commerce, she reflected on how far women in construction have come and how far they still have to go.
“We must continue our efforts to encourage more young women to join construction management academic programs,” she wrote.
From Boeing to Beijing

Septelka’s design-build story is international in scope. She’s implemented delivery strategies in Turkey, China, Vietnam and Saudi Arabia, each one requiring a deep understanding of cultural, political and legal differences. Whether ensuring fair labor practices on a site in China or navigating the complexities of private-public partnerships abroad, Septelka’s approach was always the same: listen, adapt and lead with integrity.
Her global perspective also helped shape her views on teaming and Owner readiness, especially in public-sector projects. She was among the first appointees to Washington’s Capital Projects Advisory Review Board (CPARB) project review committee, helping determine whether public Owners were truly prepared to take on collaborative delivery. “It wasn’t about gatekeeping,” she said. “It was about making sure the project would succeed for everyone.”
A Career Built on Purpose
Ask her what she’s proudest of, and she won’t talk about titles or awards. Instead, she’ll tell you about the time she handed out shampoo and candy to women laborers on International Women’s Day in China or the student she recently advised who chose to join a trade union because it aligned with his dream of launching his own subcontracting firm. “People get caught up in titles, but for me, it’s about impact. I’ve always followed what I was passionate about, even if that meant stepping away from something comfortable.”
That clarity of purpose is part of what earned her a spot in DBIA’s College of Fellows in 2022, an honor she sees as a challenge to keep giving back. “Being a Fellow means continuing to shape this industry. It means nominating the next leaders, mentoring the next generation and staying involved even after you hang up your hard hat.”
As she retires from UW and opens the next chapter, one thing is clear: Darlene Septelka isn’t finished building.
