College of Engineering News • Iowa State University

Making All the Pieces Fit


“Ahead of schedule and on budget.”

Ken Sorensen loves to say those words. And, as vice president and general manager of Mortenson Construction’s Minneapolis Operating Group, Sorensen is particularly pleased that Target Field , the new $545 million ballpark for the Minnesota Twins, was finished in January—nearly three months ahead of the targeted completion date and well before the Twins’ 2010 home opening day game on April 12.

“We are extremely proud of this accomplishment,” says Sorensen, a 1976 Iowa State construction engineering graduate. “Target Field is a real gem. The Twins played in the Metrodome for about 25 years and now are playing outdoors on natural grass in the heart of downtown Minneapolis with a great view of the city skyline.”

Detailed from the inside out

Mortenson faced some unique challenges with the project. Target Field’s eight-acre site is small by baseball standards. Also, it was squeezed in by a parking ramp, the Hennepin Energy Recovery Center, an interstate highway, railroad tracks with frequent freight traffic, light rail tracks, and two city streets.

Given these constraints, construction had to be done from the inside out, with cranes and other materials situated on what would become the playing field. To complicate matters further, the field had to be cleared by June 2009 to ensure the grass would be ready for opening day. Consequently, everything had to happen on a very precise schedule.

Sorensen credits the overall team effort by the principals for the project’s success, including the Twins’ owners, architectural design firm PopulousHennepin County, and his own Mortenson engineering team. “Everyone approached the project in a collaborative way,” he says. “We communicated openly and frequently about issues and dealt with things as they came up. We also put tremendous effort into the planning, with very detailed critical path schedules.”

One tool Mortenson uses in projects such as Target Field is virtual design and construction (VDC)–basically a multidimensional modeling system used to plan and build the project in a virtual environment before crews start actual construction.

“Modeling helps us understand exactly how to build the project and how to make all of the pieces fit together,” Sorensen explains. “We had three people on-site for this job just to coordinate the VDC. Through the models, we’re able to identify challenges and adjust schedules before problems occur.”

The technology has played a key role in helping Mortenson become one of the largest sports-facility contractors in the country. Since the late 1980s, the company has built about 40 major-league and university sports venues, including the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis, the Sprint Center in Kansas City, the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, and the University of Minnesota’s new football stadium.

Building beyond the ballpark

Sorensen, who led the sports side of the company’s business prior to assuming management of the Minneapolis office in 2006, first joined Mortenson as a project engineer in 1985. But he started his construction career in Iowa at a somewhat smaller scale, first with a Sioux City firm and later with his family’s business in Clinton.

“It was quite a leap from single and multifamily homes,” Sorensen says. “But I thought it would be good for my career, plus my wife is from the Twin Cities, and we wanted to live here.” So while his first project was a $40 million resort hotel in Naples, Florida, Sorensen and his family were soon back in Minnesota.

During his 25 years with Mortenson, Sorensen has worked in various capacities on both the construction and preconstruction design sides. He has especially enjoyed projects in the Twin Cities where he gets to see the day-to-day progress, as well as the finished facilities in use. The Minneapolis Central Library and a major expansion to the Minneapolis Convention Center are among his favorites.

In his current role, Sorensen provides leadership for all commercial work out of the Minneapolis office, which includes the upper Midwest. While sports venues tend to get the most publicity, Sorensen points out that the largest parts of the firm’s business lie in the corporate, health care, and higher education markets—including the new chemistry building at Iowa State.

A major aspect of Sorensen’s job involves promoting Mortenson’s expertise and developing business relationships that help the company win new contracts. For example, the company’s strong reputation in transportation design and historic building renovation, combined with its success working in the community, led to Mortenson’s recent selection to renovate Minnesota’s Union Depot in downtown St. Paul.

Building relationships first

While challenging, high-profile projects are definite career highlights, Sorensen says that working with talented people and watching them grow in their roles and responsibilities is one of the most satisfying aspects of his job. And a lot of those talented people, he adds, are graduates of Iowa State’s construction engineering program.

Fittingly, then, Sorensen has some simple advice for prospective engineers: get as much exposure as you can to all aspects of the industry and find something you really like doing.

“If you enjoy what you do every day,” he says, “you’ll do it well, and things will work out for you.”

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