When Kimley-Horn set his sights on the Pacific Northwest five years ago, the person leading the effort was obvious. Jody Walker Belsick had made a name for himself in Las Vegas before joining the firm to launch offices there and in California. Scott Colvin, Executive Vice President of Kimley-Horn, looked at Belsick’s track record of winning work, building a brand, recruiting key partners, integrating a workforce and running a great business and applied it to Seattle in 2020.
“Not many will take on that kind of challenge,” says Colvin. “She said she would.”
It’s been a busy few years. Belsick is now a senior vice president, and Kimley-Horn has four offices in the Pacific Northwest employing more than 125 people.
The move to a new area has been “extremely rewarding” for Belsick. Creating an entirely new team allowed growth opportunities for many, and also meant that those he left behind in Las Vegas could step into bigger roles. “Growth is really good for all of us,” he says. “I’m a firm believer that magic happens when we step out of our comfort zone.”
Belsick began his career in Las Vegas in 1997. He then opened his own company, Walker Engineering, in 2003, which he ran for 13 years before joining Kimley-Horn in 2016. During along the way, Belsick says there’s a payoff to exploiting opportunities. Trusting his instincts has led him in the right direction. “I’ve worked hard to be so lucky,” he says. “Every experience throughout my career has led me to what my role is at Kimley-Horn. It’s still rewarding every day. It’s all perspective, and I hope young engineers know that it just keeps getting better.”
Belsick’s accomplishments and dedication to advancing women in the construction industry have led ENR Northwest to name her the 2024 Legacy Award winner.
Belsick managed the Kimley-Horn team at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas for the NFL’s Raiders.
Photo courtesy of Kimley-Horn
This Sports Life
Belsick first met Kimley-Horn when the company began looking to grow its footprint in the Las Vegas area. Her experience in the region, portfolio of successful projects and stellar reputation in the industry made her the obvious choice for the job due to the company’s entrepreneurial mindset. But the many resources at the disposal of a large company allowed it to take on projects that it could not have if it worked on its own. Case in point, along with his work at Northwestern, Belsick leads the Kimley-Horn National Sports Task Force. He got his start in sports with the 2015 expansion of the NHL’s Vegas Gold Knights and then led the Allegiant Stadium effort for the NFL’s Raiders, his flagship project.
Marc Badain, former president of the Las Vegas Raiders and now with Oakview Group, worked closely with Belsick at Allegiant Stadium and Raiders headquarters. Belsick led the Kimley-Horn team that handled the civil engineering and the myriad of subcontractors that went with it. Badain worked more with Belsick in solving transportation problems. “I look at it now three or four years later, it’s probably one of the best stadiums in terms of entry and exit in the country,” he says. “Some of it is the location, but it was all done on purpose and with Jody’s help.”
“You ask her to do something, and she does it, there’s no drama, no headaches, no need for follow-up. She’s a solution seeker.”
—Scott Colvin, executive vice president of Kimley-Horn
Colvin says Belsick isn’t shy about leading, but he’s also not afraid to be vulnerable. “I was in the early Raiders talks and I saw her throw herself out there, challenge like crazy, read the room and then come together with a better solution,” he says. “That’s Jedi mind trick stuff. It’s this cool way he’s been able to do it with multiple teams, multiple times.” He credits her with an innate ability to zoom out and see the big picture and zoom in to drive the little things.
When it came time for Badain to start working on another sports project along the Strip, he says Belsick was the first person he called. “Beyond work ethic and work product, when you’re doing projects like these it requires good sleep and an understanding of personalities, both volatile and non-volatile,” he says. “Jody has a great way of interacting with all of our staff and vendors and subs. She’s always very easy to work with, very nice, very efficient. You ask her to do something, and she does it, there’s no no drama, no headaches, no need to follow up. She’s a solution seeker.”
Belsick says he didn’t want to add sports to his resume, but once he got involved in the world, he was hooked. The challenge of intense timelines and camaraderie appealed to her. “It’s funny now, I can’t imagine my career without sports,” he says. “It’s a fun and rewarding part of my career.”
Belsick led the project for City National Arena, the practice facility of the Vegas Golden Knights hockey team, in Summerlin, Nevada.
Photo courtesy of Kimley-Horn
Empowerment of women
Another key part of her career is ensuring that the next generation of female engineers can build on her achievements. Belsick is a mentor in the Kimley-Horn Women’s Leadership and Women in Sports Design groups, and has helped develop a series of speakers on women’s leadership. Having speakers come in helps others see the path and challenges they face. “It’s important for all women to dream big,” she says. “Women can do anything they set their minds to, that was something my mother taught me, and that includes being an engineer.”
Helping others see things in themselves drives her. “Of all the things she does well, I think she’s most passionate about seeing others succeed and grow in this industry,” says Colvin, “especially women. She loves mentoring. She takes that extra time to get to know the individual personally and understand their goals and passions and then navigate a plan and a path to make it happen.”
But it’s not a one-off conversation. Belsick spends face-to-face time with those he mentors and is with them along the way, often beaming with pride when they succeed.
This focus on the individual has contributed to Belsick’s ability to grow teams. “She leads by example with her team and her work ethic,” says Colvin. “She cares about her team. She has that ability to listen and work with a team to find a better solution. I think that’s rare.”
Belsick was tapped to lead transportation planning for the Super Bowl in February at Allegiant Stadium and was a key reason Kimley-Horn won the Las Vegas Formula 1 Grand Prix project.
Belsick attributes the success of Allegiant Stadium to the work of a true team, willing to sink or swim together. “I love the phrase ‘teamwork makes the dream work,'” he says. “I know it’s corny, but I really believe it. That project really taught me the value of that.”
“Growth is very good for all of us. I’m a firm believer that magic happens when we step out of our comfort zone.”
—Jody Walker Belsick, executive vice president of Kimley-Horn
Solving challenges is what continues to drive her. Surrounding herself with people “better than me”, to improve herself and keep the bar high, she wants to keep learning. “The day I know everything is not good,” he says. “It motivates me to learn new things every day.”
Going through the recession with your own company in 2008 was a challenge. It taught him to adapt and be agile. It forced her to learn the value of relationships. “That taught me to be well-rounded, going through the recession,” he says, adding that he also went back to school to get his MBA. “I always want to understand all aspects of a project and pivot when the economy turns.”
Jody is a “problem solver,” says Jackie Frank, a retired former Costco vice president of real estate. “Once I could define a problem or a need, Jody would pool her resources to address the need.” Belsick was so thorough and efficient in helping Costco embark on a major acquisition of a logistics company with hundreds of properties that needed to be analyzed, that Franks says, “The effort was so positive that Kimley-Horn left involve in many of our major distribution facilities. across the US”
Frank says Belsick was able to help Costco with planning and land use questions while preparing for public hearings and zoning issues, all in addition to the civil engineering field he brought that included developing a higher of sustainable design within landscape architecture.
Belsick awaits the unknown. She really appreciates hard work and being open to new opportunities. She says she never could have predicted she would own her own company, work at Kimley-Horn or be a key player in the world of sports. “There’s more, and I can tackle anything that comes my way,” he says. “I look forward to the things I don’t know are coming to me.”
