The Kaiser Partnership
A 15-year trust account, recognized in 2018 by Kaiser Permanente National Facilities Services.
The award that came from the client.
On September 21, 2018, at the Fourth Annual Kaiser Permanente Supplier Forum in Oakland, Don Orndoff, Kaiser’s Vice President of National Facilities Services, presented Athena Engineering with the Exceptional Partner Award. The award was sponsored by NFS — the side of Kaiser that runs the hospitals, not the side that audits the suppliers. It was nominated by Wendell Silang, Chief Estimator at Kaiser Los Angeles Medical Center, who had been working with Athena directly for over four years by that point.
That distinction matters. The Exceptional Partner Award isn’t a supplier diversity award. It isn’t a procurement-checkbox award. It’s the kind of recognition that gets sponsored when the people actually running buildings — the ones who pay the price when an HVAC system goes down at a hospital — decide one of their contractors is worth saying that out loud.
Don Orndoff framed the criteria in the formal language Kaiser uses: a partner who provides “outstanding metrics, tools, and processes that focus on operational efficiencies, proactively positions themselves to strategically respond to the needs of our business, and are dedicated subject matter experts in support of our overall vision and mission.” A lofty list, as Don himself acknowledged. The everyday translation: a contractor whose work makes Kaiser’s facilities team’s job easier rather than harder.
There are very few clients that say what they mean and do what they say. We started doing business with Kaiser in 2011, and after starting with small design-build work, it’s turned into millions of dollars of business each year.
Athena Chiera, accepting the Exceptional Partner Award — September 21, 2018
How a small 2011 job became twenty.
The Kaiser relationship started with a design-build job in 2011. Small scope. One building. The kind of project that either earns the next one or doesn’t. It earned the next one.
By the time of the 2018 award, Athena had completed over 20 projects across the Kaiser system — hospitals, medical office buildings, and laboratories in Fontana, Ontario, Los Angeles, Anaheim, Woodland Hills, and outlying sites. By 2026, the project count is well above 100, and the work spans construction, building automation, retrofits, and ongoing service across the same Kaiser facilities the firm started with.
Healthcare HVAC isn’t easy work. Active hospitals don’t shut down for retrofits. Critical-care units have pressurization requirements that can’t be interrupted. Operating rooms need temperature, humidity, and air-change rates that comply with ASHRAE 170 — and the consequences of getting it wrong show up in surgical outcomes. The mechanical contractors who get repeat work at Kaiser-scale healthcare facilities are the ones who can hold those tolerances while the building stays open.
The difference between recognition types.
It’s worth distinguishing the Kaiser award from the supplier-diversity awards Athena received in the same year — NMSDC, SCMSDC, WBEC-West, all nominated by The Walt Disney Company.
- Supplier-diversity awards are sponsored by procurement organizations and supplier councils. They recognize that the firm is a credible woman- or minority-owned business doing real work.
- The Kaiser Exceptional Partner Award was sponsored by an operations VP. It recognizes that the firm shows up, performs, and makes the hospital system run better.
Both kinds of recognition are valuable. But they’re different signals. The first one opens procurement doors. The second one is what happens after those doors are open — and after the contractor has delivered enough work, over enough years, that the operations leaders are willing to put their name on it.
Where the relationship is now.
Kaiser Permanente remains one of Athena’s most active client relationships in 2026. The work spans the full mechanical and controls scope — design-build for new facilities, retrofits of existing systems, building automation integration, and ongoing service across many of the same buildings Athena originally constructed. The Kaiser CDRP timelapse video featured on the Mechanical Expertise page is one example: thirty-plus rooftop units replaced in a single weekend at the Kaiser Permanente Inglewood Medical Office Building, scheduled around the facility’s clinical operations.
Fifteen years on, the relationship that started with one design-build job is still active. The team that’s done the work is mostly still on payroll. And the operations leaders at Kaiser — including some of the names from that 2018 ceremony — are still picking up the phone when they need mechanical or controls help.
The pragmatic takeaway.
Client-relationship awards say something supplier-diversity awards can’t say. They say the work itself is good enough that the people who use the buildings want to keep using the contractor. That kind of recognition can’t be applied for. It can only be earned by the work — and then noticed by the people who happen to be paying close attention.
Athena’s job is to keep being the kind of contractor that operations VPs want to put their name on. The 2018 award marked one specific moment when that happened. The relationship that produced it is still producing — fifteen years and counting.
Looking for a mechanical or controls partner for a healthcare facility?
Athena Engineering specializes in healthcare HVAC, hospital building automation, and lab pressurization design across Southern California. Email info@athenaengineering.com , call 909-599-0947, or contact us here.
