Civil engineers do important work

“Infrastructure projects create jobs for the local economy because they can’t be outsourced. They require community input and have high visibility.”
– Thomas R. Perry, Parsons Brinckerhoff

“The work is very challenging. You have to be creative, ready to take the challenge. We know the work we do will be here for a long time.”
– Dr Anwar Zahid, Arcadis

By Laurel McKee Ranger
Contributing Editor

Years before the 2007 collapse of the I-35W bridge over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, MN, civil engineers worried about our crumbling infrastructure. Our interstate highway system, built largely in the 1950s during the Eisenhower administration, was meant to last at least fifty years, and it has. Now it desperately needs to be repaired, rebuilt or replaced.

But the problems go far beyond roads and bridges.
Our energy grid is inefficient, dams and levees need
to be rebuilt and mass transit is more than ready for
a major overhaul. In 2001 and 2003 the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) gave the nation’s infrastructure a D+ grade. By 2005 that grade had dropped to a straight D.

Anticipating revitalization
President Barack Obama’s plans to revitalize the economy include what is probably the largest public works program since the interstate highway system.
The stimulus package could have a tremendous effect on the construction industry, with hundreds of thousands of jobs created or preserved by the end of 2010. This will be very welcome in an industry that has had more than its share of job losses in the current economic downturn.

Focus on infrastructure at Parsons Brinckerhoff
The president’s plans are welcome news, says Tracey Bessellieu, VP and director of people engagement at Parsons Brinckerhoff (PB, New York, NY). “We’re excited about the focus on infrastructure, and we believe that it will be a huge boost for the industry.”

PB strives to retain employees even in trying economic times. Because of the company’s global structure, professionals can be moved around the world to where they are most needed. PB hires CEs, structural engineers, planners, program managers, environmental and geotechnical engineers, MEs, EEs and power engineers, as well as architects and construction management pros. “We have one of the few woman catenary engineers in the country,” Bessellieu notes. “She mentors and develops more junior engineers.”

PB is committed to diversity from the most senior leaders on down, Bessellieu stresses. “Diversity is part of our hiring and promotional practices,” she says. “We support the advancement of all people within the organization.”

The company has four affinity groups. Its Professional Growth Network is open to all employees early in their careers, while the Black Professionals, Hispanic Resource and Women’s Outreach networks address specific groups. All groups focus on recruiting and retaining diverse employees and helping with career development and mentoring.

Thomas R. Perry, PE: PB business executive and structural lead
VP Thomas R. Perry is the local business executive of PB’s Washington, DC office, and also a lead structural engineer. Transportation infrastructure is a key market for PB in the U.S., he notes. “Our clients include many state departments of transportation (DOTs), municipal government and transit agencies, and our work often involves highways and transit.”

Perry’s background is in bridge engineering, although his recent focus has been on project management and his role in the DC office. “Many state DOTs have been focusing on rehab projects, but with the emphasis on infrastructure in the stimulus and recovery package there should be more work in a variety of areas.”

As business manager of his local office, Perry maintains client relationships, heads up staffing and coordinates with the technical project leads. He also manages and defines the scope of projects and negotiates budgets.

It’s important to Perry to maintain his technical skills, so he recently took on a role as one of the leads on an emergency project: a local bridge that needed a new grating system.

Perry got his BSCE from North Carolina State University (Raleigh, NC) in 1994, and his MSCE from Stanford University (Palo Alto, CA) in 1996. He’s a licensed professional engineer in California, Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia.

He started with PB as a junior bridge engineer in the company’s San Francisco office. “On the West Coast, bridge design is governed by seismic issues; on the East Coast wind normally dictates your design,” he says. He spent five years in the Bay Area designing several bridges and a fiber-optic cable long-haul network, planning where the line would go on the Union Pacific Railroad’s right-of-way.

In 2001 he became a project manager at JLC (Washington, DC), a real estate development firm. “The firm acted as the district’s program manager, hiring engineers, architects and general contractors to design and build recreation centers for DC Park and Recreation,” he explains.

The job helped him understand the local area and gave him project and client management experience and skills. “But I really enjoyed working in transportation and that got me back to PB,” he says. In 2004 he rejoined the company as a lead structural engineer; last summer he moved into his current job as local business exec and this year he was promoted to VP.

“I see the infrastructure package as having not only an economic impact, but a civic one as well,” Perry explains. “Infrastructure projects are good job creators for the local economy and can’t be outsourced. Most require community input and have high visibility, which may help influence youth to go into engineering and renew civic interest in infrastructure. And there will be a big need for engineering skills in the future”

Perry credits a lot of his success to his family and mentors. Growing up in North Carolina, “My parents let me know that I could accomplish anything.”

When he’s not on the job, Perry enjoys time with his wife and young daughter and son. He also works with high school students as a lead mentor with the ACE (Architecture, Construction and Engineering) program, he’s VP of the Architects & Engineers Council of Washington, DC, a member of ASCE, and chair of the PB Black Professionals Network.

Arcadis: a spectrum of CE and construction management
Engineers at Arcadis US Inc (Highland Ranch, CO) work on transport projects including bridges, tunnels, roads and railroads, as well as wastewater treatment, water resources, drainage, levees, dams and land development and design. “We handle the whole spectrum of civil engineering and construction management,” says Cindy Bishop, recruiting director.

Bishop emphasizes that diversity is critical to the success of Arcadis. “We have to provide solutions to clients, and a group of diverse minds comes up with better solutions,” she explains.

Diversity programs are part of Bishop’s recruiting work. The company reaches diverse engineering professionals through organizations like SHPE, SWE and NSBE and through college campus visits. “We also encourage employees to become members of advisory boards at their schools,” Bishop notes. She herself is a member of Women in Engineering Programs at the University of Colorado-Boulder.

Bishop is also excited about the company’s recently launched women’s network, which is its first affinity group. “We already have 200 members at our monthly meetings,” she says. Networking and mentoring were recent topics at the meetings.

When you work for Arcadis, Bishop reflects, you become part of a global knowledge network. “You can be located in Wyoming and work on a project in China. It’s not just local work. It’s where your skill set fits in.”

Dr Anwar Zahid of Arcadis: protecting New Orleans
“Arcadis has three large divisions: infrastructure, program and construction management and environment,” explains principal engineer Anwar Zahid, PhD. Dr Zahid is a PE in the state of Louisiana, and has experience in transportation and bridge projects. He is in Arcadis’ infrastructure group, working on flood protection in New Orleans, LA.

After hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, New Orleans became notorious for its crumbling infrastructure. Levees alone can’t protect the city: Zahid is working on floodgates, precast concrete retaining wall systems and a pumping station that will likely be the world’s largest.

The company has flood protection projects in other states, including Texas, Florida and California, but Louisiana is the biggest to date. “We’re running against a June 2011 deadline to achieve 100-year flood protection,” Zahid explains. “We’re increasing levee height to thirty-one feet and creating concrete walls to help keep water out of the city.”

Born in Bangladesh, Zahid has a 1997 BSCE and a 1999 MSCE from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (Dhaka, Bangladesh) and a 2005 PhD in structural engineering and mechanics from North Carolina State University.

The new Dr Zahid began as a structural engineer with Kimley Horn (West Palm Beach, FL).
In 2007 Arcadis hired him to handle especially challenging projects. “My job has three parts: expanding our practice, mentoring young engineers and developing our group,” he explains. “We have eight to ten engineers in our office now and I have four direct reports.”

Bridge design and flood protection are naturals for Zahid, since Bangladesh suffers from frequent flooding during the monsoon season. Zahid grew up in the capital city of Dhaka, but his grandparents lived in the country and the family had to take a ferry to visit them. “Today they have one of the world’s longest bridges over the Jamuna River,” he says.

When he saw the flood problems in Louisiana caused by Katrina, Zahid was immediately drawn in. “I thought that if I worked on problems here in Louisiana, maybe someday I could bring our solutions back to Bangladesh.

“The work is very challenging,” he notes. “You have to be creative, ready to take the challenge. We know the work we do will be here for a long time.”

Zahid has a medal from the Prime Minister of Bangladesh for graduating first in his university class, and a “young researcher” fellowship from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He’s a member of ASCE and the Louisiana Engineering Society. Although he enjoyed cricket growing up in Bangladesh, today he watches football with his son and daughter.

AECOM welcomes retired techies
Pamla Hoebener, director of human resources for the Austin, TX Southwest and Mountain region of AECOM (Los Angeles, CA), says that last year’s prime goal was improving diversity within the organization. “More than half our hires in 2008 were either female or minority,” she says.

Today the company is also campaigning to lure former techies back into the workforce. “We offer a competitive package for retirees and parents working part time,” Hoebener notes. “Retirees have knowledge and experience that younger workers may not have yet, and that helps everybody.”

Engineer 1 James Suk works on bridge structure
James Suk, an engineer 1 at AECOM, has been with the company since he got his BSCE in structural engineering from the University of California-San Diego in 2007.

“My main responsibility right now is to help design a bridge widening to accommodate a ramp to a new freeway. I also work on cost estimates for budgeting before construction. We just went to 100 percent on this current phase of the project: the full set of plans, specs and estimates,” Suk reports with pride.

With the bridge widening almost completed, Suk will begin work on a new bridge, this one to be cast in place. The procedure is different from pre-cast bridges, which are assembled from parts fabricated off the jobsite. The biggest difference, Suk says, is in detailing. “I’m learning to detail this type of bridge; it’s pretty interesting.”

Suk is of Korean descent. He was born and grew up in Los Angeles and was drawn to transportation and bridge construction simply because it struck him as a good career. Now he knows he loves designing bridges. One recent weekend he worked with students from high schools in Los Angeles and Orange County, designing popsicle-stick bridges for an ASCE-sponsored contest. “We tested for strength and judged aesthetics. It’s to encourage students to try civil engineering,” Suk says.

Suk likes helping young people. While at school he worked with campus ministries, and he went to Mexico regularly to spend time working with orphans.

Has Suk faced any challenges as a minority? “Certainly not at AECOM,” he says. The company has more than 43,000 employees from all over the world and on every continent, “including Antarctica, where AECOM designed the British Science Station.”

He’s received a lot of help from experienced engineers at AECOM. “I realize that what I learned at school can’t compare with actual experience, and it’s been very rewarding being mentored by such experienced people.”

Widening a bridge, Suk reflects, involves a lot of geometric constraints. “Making everything work is a big challenge. It requires a lot of special design.”

Beth Ann Marks manages roadways at LPA
Beth Ann Marks is manager of roadway design at LPA Group, Inc (Columbia, SC), a company that does engineering, architecture and planning for airports, roads and bridges throughout the southeast. She oversees the roadways group in LPA’s Atlanta, GA office and has seven people reporting to her.

“I make sure we meet deadlines, draw up budgets and ensure we stay within them, and make certain our clients are happy. We do airport projects, but we also have thirty miles of sidewalks and a lot of intersection improvements we’re working on now.”

Marks has also worked on roundabout design, road widening, bridges and upgrading of intersections at LPA. “Every day here is different,” she says.

She received her BSCE from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1994 and went to work at the Atlanta office of RBA (Morristown, NJ) as a project engineer for road design, traffic studies and site development. In 2001 she started with LPA as a project engineer, then project manager, and about two years ago she moved up to manager of roadway design.

“I went from just design work to scheduling, budgeting, proposal writing, ensuring the availability of resources and supervising the work.” The client hires the contractor, she explains, “but during construction we may get called in to make modifications.”

Marks says she experienced some challenges as a woman at Georgia Tech, and “Occasionally at public meetings there are still clients I have to prove myself to. But I work with fantastic guys who treat me with respect.”

She loves being a member of WTS, a professional society that was founded some forty years ago to promote the participation of women in transportation. In 2007 Marks received the WTS Georgia chapter’s member of the year award, and was also recognized by her company as employee of the year.

One of the great things in life, Marks reflects, is having a champion at work. “My boss here always has my back. Having someone who supports you is critical.”

Allison Hamilton: solar energy feeds the grid at ODOT
At the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT, Salem, OR), Allison M. Hamilton is a project director in the office of innovative partnerships. She’s developing solar resources on ODOT-owned rights-of-way along Oregon freeways and highways.

“We’re seeking to add value to the existing public asset, the right of way, by developing solar resources that feed the grid during the day,” she explains. “Then we can pull energy off the grid at night for lighting interchanges. Our first project plugged into the grid this past December and provides a third of the electricity needed to
light the interchange.”

Hamilton says it takes some 400,000 KWH a year to light a big interchange, and ODOT consumes more than 45 million KWH annually. The interchange prototype project has 594 solar panels, but a lot more are needed to provide for its full power needs.

“Our goal is to offset all our electricity needs,” Hamilton declares. That can be done with about 120 lane-miles of right-of-way, and ODOT has some 19,000 lane miles. “Theoretically we could generate enough energy for other state needs as well. It represents a huge potential resource.

“We have solar resources equal to Florida,” Hamilton declares. And, in fact, the more temperate climate is more favorable to solar energy generation. “Excessive heat reduces efficiency,” Hamilton notes.

Hamilton got the idea of using solar resources while watching a program on Germany’s use
of highway margins to generate solar power. “Some 14 percent of Germany’s total energy needs are provided by renewable sources. It reinvigorated their economy,” she notes.

Hamilton was already working for ODOT’s office of innovative partnership when she saw the program. She approached her management and the state highway engineer. They were impressed and commissioned her to develop the project using state and federal renewable energy credits and utility incentives.

Portland General Electric owns and operates the facility and sells the electricity back to ODOT. “In the future these types of projects should provide us with below-grid rates for electricity,” Hamilton believes. This project is the first of its kind in the U.S. It won the WTS Portland chapter project of the year award last year.

“Marrying a revitalization of the energy grid and the transportation system would create multiple benefits out of the same dollar,” Hamilton notes. “It’s taking an asset the public already owns and developing it.”

Hamilton has a 1985 BS in civil engineering technology and an AS degree in structural engineering technology from the Oregon Institute of Technology. She started with ODOT that year and worked there until 1989, when she joined Barrett Consulting Group and moved to Guam to work on an island-wide water master plan and on Superfund site controls.

In 1991 she rejoined ODOT, and in 1996 became manager of its statewide transportation improvement program. In her career at the agency she’s held both technical and managerial positions.

Off the job, Hamilton is involved in animal rescue. She and her husband live on ten acres with two rescued dogs that were airlifted out of Beirut, Lebanon.

Ramona Nurel Sanders of the U.S. Department of the Interior
Ramona Nurel Sanders is a platform decommissioning engineer for the office of structural and technical support of the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Minerals Management Service (MMS, New Orleans, LA). It’s her job to make sure that operators’ proposals to decommission drilling platforms in the Gulf
of Mexico meet with regulations.

Sanders checks platform specs to be sure proposed removal methods are feasible, and coordinates with the MMS environmental compliance section to determine if they’re environmentally safe. She doesn’t go out to the actual platform unless an unusual removal method prompts an inspection.

Her most active time is after hurricane season, “when you see a lot of damage.” The department has a new initiative, “Idle Iron,” which involves increasing efforts to remove inactive platforms. “The Gulf has approximately 4,000 platforms and 150 to 200 are decommissioned every year.”

Sanders’ parents were in the military, and she was born in Arizona and lived in Greece for two years, “but our longest stay was in Georgia,” she explains. She has a 2004 BS in math from Fort Valley State University (Fort Valley, GA) and a 2007 BSCE from the University of Nevada.

In school, Sanders had two co-op jobs and an internship with the MMS Gulf of Mexico region, and another internship at Post, Buckley, Schuh & Jernigan Inc (Henderson, NV) where she worked on transportation structures design. In school she was a member of ASCE and NSBE, president of Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority for a year, and made the National Deans List.

“In most of my CE courses I was the only African American and one of only three or four women. CE is a male-dominated industry, but I don’t let it discourage me,” she says. “I just use it as inspiration to work harder.”

Diversity: necessity and opportunity at BNSF
According to Edward McFalls, assistant VP for HR and diversity, diversity plays a pivotal business role at BNSF Railway (Fort Worth, TX). “We consider it a business necessity, a business opportunity, and a moral imperative to capitalize on the uniqueness of our employees,” McFalls explains.

The company has specific objectives for improving the representation of women and people of color in both exempt and union jobs. “We also purchase services from minority- and women-owned businesses,” McFalls says.

“BNSF attends job fairs sponsored by organizations like NSBE, AISES and the Black and Hispanic MBA associations. We have other initiatives targeting HBCUs and Hispanic-serving institutions like the University of Texas-El Paso, Saint Mary’s in San Antonio and Texas A&M-Kingsville. We provide scholarships to several deserving students at those schools.”

Currently, people of color make up about 18 percent of BNSF’s total workforce.

Rhonda Faulkner: assistant roadmaster at BNSF
As assistant roadmaster in the engineering department of BNSF Railway, Rhonda Faulkner ensures that track geometry is in compliance with both company and Federal Railroad Administration standards. “Basically, anytime there’s an interruption in service we take care of it,” Faulkner explains. “I make sure we have the manpower and correct materials to do that.”

She also manages capital and operating budgets and is responsible for materials, claims and safety management as well as resolution of community issues. Faulkner’s team includes six roadmasters, four assistant roadmasters, one division engineer and about twenty scheduled employees. Big projects also involve the transportation, signaling and mechanical departments.

While most of her work is done in the office, Faulkner does get out in the field about 20 percent of the time to make sure the work is being done properly and safely.

Faulkner grew up in Mountain Home, ID and graduated from Boise State University (Boise, ID) in 2006 with a BSCE. She got connected with the BNSF through a Society of Woman Engineers career fair.

It began with a summer internship, and when she finished college she went into the railroad’s corporate management trainee program in San Bernardino, CA.

Faulkner was the first woman manager in the Kingman, AZ office. “The hardest part was the initial meeting, getting everyone’s trust,” she says. “They weren’t used to a woman doing this kind of job. But once you show the guys you can do the job and show them respect, it works out well.”

Faulkner has been in the Kingman office for a year now. She feels at home in her job, and with an eye toward the future, she already has her EIT certification and is working toward her PE.

D/C

Laurel McKee Ranger is a freelance business writer headquartered in Randolph, NJ.

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