Few people know that Chris Kirch is still working at the same place he worked in college.
“I grew up in the Valley and went to school at NAU and I was in construction management,” says the president of Kitchell Contractors. “Kitchell had a project at Flagstaff Medical Center, so I had the opportunity to intern with Kitchell.”
Kirch says that internship was a game-changer for him.
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“To have that hands-on, boots-on-the-ground experience while I was in school led me to discover my true passion for construction,” he says.
Today, Kirch has followed that rare path of internship to company presidency. After going to work for Kitchell straight out of Northern Arizona University, Kirch worked in the Las Vegas and Texas markets before coming home to Phoenix and being named president of Kitchell Contractors in 2023. And Kitchell CEO Wendy Cohen even referenced Kirch’s internship when naming him company president.
“As someone who has lived this industry since he started as a laborer on one of our hospital projects, Chris understands first-hand how to meet the challenges of increasingly complex projects while mobilizing teams to perform at the highest levels,” she said.
That early experience working on the Flagstaff Medical Center project has allowed Kirch to build a solid foundation in the healthcare construction space — and it has impacted him personally.
“What’s really interesting is all of my children have been born in hospitals that Kitchell constructed,” Kirch says. “Our two oldest were born at Sunrise Hospital in Las Vegas and I was actually working on the hospital when they were both born there. Our youngest was born here in the Valley at Dignity Health Mercy Gilbert Medical Center and we had just finished Mercy Gilbert a couple years earlier.”
But healthcare isn’t the only construction sector Kirch has impacted. He has also worked on Native American gaming and higher education projects — all sectors Kirch says is the backbone of what Kitchell does here in the Valley. Now, Kirch has set his sights on utilizing technology to strengthen Kitchell and the company’s construction processes.
“In my career, I’ve seen technology grow at a pace that is unbelievable,” he says. “When I started, we were posting changes on drawings by hand. Now, it’s all done electronically. The speed of how technology has affected the industry is unbelievable and the changes are coming faster and faster. We’re just scratching the surface of the impact technology will have.”
Today, Kirch says artificial intelligence will change the industry in positive ways.
“From a safety standpoint, there are opportunities to review and look at the construction site and utilize AI to pick up on safety violations or infractions,” Kirch says. “It’s also used to review documents and contracts. And AI is able to do all those things at light speed.”
