Featuring Jaime Wallitschek, Project Manager
As Tpac marks 70 years of delivering precast and prestressed concrete solutions, the milestone is as much about the people behind the work as it is the projects themselves. And sometimes, those people arrive with a fresh perspective that challenges expectations.
Jaime Wallitschek, who joined Tpac in January of 2026, didn’t set out to work in construction. In fact, her path started somewhere entirely different: early social media.
“It was actually when MySpace and Facebook started to become popular that I found out what coding was,” Jaime says. “I started coding custom backgrounds and music and animation for people’s MySpace pages. I really loved it.”
Jaime decided that she wanted to be a developer, and wanted to get there as quickly as possible. She completed her entire freshman year of college while still in high school and went straight into her sophomore year after graduation. She had been on track to graduate with a degree in Computer Information Systems at Arizona State University in two years, but decided to add a double major, and that’s where the accounting came in.
“I’ve always been good with numbers, and I knew that if I wanted to help people and manage them, eventually dollars would become a factor in my career.”
Jaime ultimately earned two Bachelor of Science degrees in Accounting and Computer Information Systems (CIS) — all in just three years. Originally planning to become a developer, Jaime’s career took a pivotal turn at a college career fair thanks to a set of well-organized notes and a stranger who noticed them.
“She asked to see my notes and then asked if I knew what project management was,” Jaime says. “I didn’t—but that conversation changed everything.”
She launched her career managing complex software implementations, eventually leading major ERP projects and handling as many as 30–35 concurrent initiatives during her time in consulting. It was fast-paced, high-volume, and, by her own account, something she thrived in. But when industry shifts during COVID led to an unexpected layoff, Jaime found herself at a crossroads.
“I started asking myself what I was actually interested in,” she says. “And construction kept coming up.”
It wasn’t a random idea. As a kid, Jaime remembers wanting a bright yellow hard hat—though she hadn’t necessarily been encouraged to see construction as a path forward. Still, the interest stuck, and when the opportunity at Tpac came along, it clicked.
Today, Jaime brings what she calls her “Jaime brand” to project management—a philosophy rooted in service, not authority.
“I view project management as customer service,” she explains. “I’m not here to tell people what to do. I’m here to help people achieve what they want to do.”
That mindset has shaped her transition into the precast world, where she’s currently managing DOT work and building her knowledge from the ground up—literally. Her first two months included an immersive training experience: shadowing teams across the yard, suiting up in PPE, and learning firsthand how designs translate into physical products.
“I’ve been able to watch our team tie the rebar, looking at how the shop drawings I was getting approved were actually being implemented by the rod busters, and how the embeds are being tied into the rebar cages and what that actually meant in real life. We have a batch plant as well, and I’ve learned all about concrete, how you make it, and the Tpac solution – using multiple chemicals to achieve 28 days strength in 14 days. I’m naturally curious. I want to know what the guys outside are doing.”
That hands-on exposure has reshaped how she approaches her role.
“I am no longer just passing along paperwork,” Jaime explains. “I’m pausing to make sure what’s been designed is actually going to be easiest for the people in the yard to build.”
It’s a shift she embraces—and one that’s made the work feel more tangible than anything she’s done before.
“In programming, it’s an imaginary concept using an imaginary language,” she says. “Here, in concrete, it is a real language with a real product that I can physically see with my eyes. The amount of pride I used to feel when I would implement software was a little abstract. It was dependent on if anyone said ‘thank you’ because there was no physical software to look at. At Tpac, I can go outside at any time and physically see the products that I am helping to develop for not only private companies, but for the state and the DOT. It’s very satisfying.”
Outside of work, Jaime’s an avid gamer and has spent the past 11 years fostering animals through the Arizona Humane Society—currently caring for a nine-day-old kitten that requires bottle feeding every four hours.
It’s a commitment that mirrors her approach at work: hands-on, patient, and deeply invested.