The Audit That Made a Superintendent Cry: LaShira Champion King on Lean, Quality, and the People Inside the System
Release Date: 09/16/2026
The Audit That Made a Superintendent Cry: LaShira Champion King on Lean, Quality, and the People Inside the System
Build Perspectives Podcast
LaShira Champion King never applied to work at Walbridge. She got a call for an internship she had not asked for, planned to be an architect in a black turtleneck, and instead became the company's lean champion because her managing director liked how "our lean champion is L. Champion" sounded in a meeting. Twenty years later she is Director of Quality, Lean, and Innovation at one of the largest privately held builders in the country, and the resident systems thinker in a 110-year-old firm. Carolina sat down with her solo to ask what a quality and lean leader actually does on a job site, and...
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Build Perspectives Podcast
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Build Perspectives Podcast
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Build Perspectives Podcast
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Build Perspectives Podcast
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Build Perspectives Podcast
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Build Perspectives Podcast
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Build Perspectives Podcast
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Build Perspectives Podcast
Recorded live at Advancing Prefabrication 2026 in Dallas, Tim walks the expo floor with James Haas, who leads modular and prefab efforts at Nichiha. (At the time of recording, Tim was also wearing a Nichiha hat. He's since moved on to a new adventure.) The conversation everyone's having at Advancing Prefab this year? Data centers. But not the windowless boxes of yesteryear, municipalities are now mandating warmer, more inviting exteriors, and grid entropy is forcing data centers closer to urban cores where looks actually matter. That's a facade opportunity hiding in plain sight. ...
info_outlineLaShira Champion King never applied to work at Walbridge. She got a call for an internship she had not asked for, planned to be an architect in a black turtleneck, and instead became the company's lean champion because her managing director liked how "our lean champion is L. Champion" sounded in a meeting. Twenty years later she is Director of Quality, Lean, and Innovation at one of the largest privately held builders in the country, and the resident systems thinker in a 110-year-old firm.
Carolina sat down with her solo to ask what a quality and lean leader actually does on a job site, and got a story she did not expect: a burly superintendent, tough as nails, in tears at the end of an ISO audit. Not because of the non-conformance. Because, in his words, "I wish I could describe myself the way you just described me."
That line changed how LaShira does everything, and it is the thread through the whole episode.
In this episode:
- Why the L. Champion story is really a story about systems thinking, and why "there's not a whole ton of us"
- Committees people are voluntold onto and then refuse to leave when their term is up
- Walking into a trailer "like I'm there to give them a root canal," and what changes by the end of an audit
- The 5S study: a 15-minute task that took two hours because nobody could find the drill
- What lean is not: not "do more with less," not a way to cut your job
- Great processes get skipped when the project is going great, and the rework shows up two phases later
- Design for maintenance: the air handler nobody can reach to change the filter, and why closeout thinking should start at the spec
- The zero punch list mindset and the discipline it takes to get there
- The Carolina question: what should the industry be talking about? LaShira's answer is knowledge transfer. We are getting people into the trades. What are we giving them when they get there?
LaShira is a repeat featured speaker at Advancing Construction Quality, September 21 to 23, 2026 in Phoenix. Use code BUILDPERSPECTIVES10 for 10% off registration.
Build Perspectives is co-hosted by Carolina Baffigo and Tim Seims. Each episode is designed to give you immediate value while introducing you to the people broadening perspectives in the construction industry.