UC alumnus uses construction industry expertise to give back

Kuhn is the founding member and executive vice president of Sevan Multi-Site Solutions, a construction project management organization that has worked with the likes of McDonald’s, Walgreens, and Starbucks. A passionate advocate of the benefits of the UC co-op experience, Kuhn has employed and provided invaluable career opportunities to more than 20 UC co-op students. In 2019, he was honored with the CEAS Engineering Technology Award for his contributions both to his field and to his community. 

As distinguished as Kuhn has become in his professional career, he has never forgotten his roots and his personal mission to provide for his community. This desire to give back culminated in Kuhn combining his professional expertise, entrepreneurial passion, and faith into founding ShareBuilt in 2022. 

"The goal of ShareBuilt was to establish a system where design firms and contractors can see nonprofit projects in their area — which they otherwise wouldn’t know about — and then be directly connected with those organizations,” Kuhn said. “Through this approach both the contractors and the nonprofit organizations benefit.”

ShareBuilt provides project promotion through social media and their website to raise awareness among various construction project bidders to try and encourage competitive bids and ultimately give nonprofit organizations access to the lowest project costs possible. 

ShareBuilt also provides clients with a Project Shepherd, a volunteer construction manager that guides the client through their project at no charge. Clients would otherwise pay two to four percent of their project budget to secure the services of an owner’s representative to oversee their project.

In the short time they’ve been established, ShareBuilt has already been the catalyst behind several community projects, ranging from construction projects for schools and churches to providing home renovations for disabled residents that would otherwise be unable to afford them. 

“ShareBuilt is certainly an opportunity for me to utilize my expertise from construction from all these years, starting back from my time as a UC student,” Kuhn said. “But more importantly, I just think it’s our duty, no matter what faith or background you come from, to give back our treasure and our talents whenever we can. It’s easy for people to just write checks and hope organizations can handle their own issues alone, but sometimes giving our time, talents, and ourselves can be far more impactful.”