PHOENIX, AZ McCarthy Building Companies Inc. hired Nayan Bhakta as a Preconstruction Manager for the Southwest division. His primary focus will be on solar projects.

In this position, Bhakta will play a key role, providing nearly a decade of experience working on utility-scale solar projects ranging from $5 million to $600 million. He will work closely with the preconstruction director and the estimating team to provide preconstruction support for utility-scale solar projects, including overseeing design and procurement activities, energy production evaluations, as well as overseeing the coordination and development of all quantity surveys and pricing comparisons. He will also assist the project team in prequalifying subcontractors and suppliers.

Prior to joining McCarthy, Bhakta managed solar projects for Gehrlicher Solar America Corp. in Tempe, Arizona, and Chevron Energy Solutions in San Francisco, California. His versatile experience includes managing cost estimates and budgets, generating scopes of work and project schedules, and engineering front-end design of photovoltaic power plants.

"Nayan has a wide array of experience on solar projects that will make him a stellar addition to our preconstruction team," said Scott Canada, Director of the Renewable Energy team at McCarthy. "His ability to understand the planning, engineering and construction sides of solar projects will aid in the planning process and lead to quality projects completed on time, on budget and to the satisfaction of all parties involved."

Bhakta earned his bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Arizona.