On February 17, 2024, the Pittsburgh Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers hosted their annual Engineers Week banquet at the Engineers Society of Western Pennsylvania in downtown Pittsburgh.  Engineers, award winners, professors, students and student award winners and parents and families were in attendance.  All were greeted at the door by Alma Rettinger, PE, ASCE’s President-Elect, who provided nametags for all attendees.  The banquet started with a social hour from 5 until a bit after 6; that is about when the Emcee for the event, Pat Sullivan, PE used his microphone like voice to ‘recommend’ that people start their trek upstairs to the banquet room.

Once upstairs, Pat, in what has become a tradition at this event, spent ‘about’ 15 minutes talking about whatever he had on his mind…this year it was dress attire! 

 Pat pulled out his bright red sport jacket with his red, white and blue patriotic tie!  Thinking he was the best dressed, he had to give kudos to Dr. Jerry Wang from CMU, who sported a red and black plaid sport jacket with a matching tie!  He also had to close a loose end from last years’ presentation of “Who were they before they became ASCE officers?”, by showing a picture of his lookalike, a University of Louisville quarterback from 2011.  Pat had to embarrass himself, since he wasn’t able to do it last year.  Pat also took credit for working the room during his annual monologue, noting that the Society’s President-Elect, Feniosky Peña-Mora, copied his routine at the recent ASCE Region 1, 2, 4 and 5 conference in Miami, FL!  The attendees got a good laugh from Pat’s ‘antics’!  

As is also his tradition, Pat invited each of the Corporate Sponsors for the Eweek Event to the podium to receive a certificate of appreciation for their gracious sponsorship and to talk about whatever they wanted.   

Thanks again to our corporate sponsors… Anser Advisory, Michael Baker International, Slippery Rock University, and Civil & Environmental Consultants! 

This years’ keynote speaker was Carolyn Sponza, from Gensler.  Carolyn’s

 presentation discussed the design and construction of the FNB Financial Center,

 located in the Lower Hill District, whose grand opening is scheduled for late 2024-early 2025.  Many thanks to her for presenting.

Following a great buffet dinner of Chicken, Italian pasta, prime rib and vegetables and a vanilla cake with chocolate icing dessert (Pat always has the final word with dessert, despite resistance from our Maître de Mike Gaetano of ESWP and Alma, Pat’s special assistant for the banquet), the awards portion of the banquet began.  Pat and ASCE Pittsburgh Section President Bill Trimbath, PE provided the introductions for the award presentations. 

The 2023 award winners are as follows:

The event concluded with a second thanks to our Corporate Sponsors and also to our Gold Sponsor, Honor Engineer Co. and our Silver Sponsor, Transystems.  The event concluded with one of our largest prize raffles ever, which included 8 prizes, and was again was highlighted by the annual humongous CEC food basket.

Thanks to everyone who attended, and we will see you at the next Section event, the Lifetime Member Recognition Banquet, at the LaMont Restaurant in October.

By: David A. Dzombak, PhD, PE, BCEE, BCWRE, Dist.M.ASCE

Summary of ASCE Pittsburgh Section participation in the 2024 ASCE Multi-Region Leadership Conference for Regions 1, 2, 4, and 5 in Miami, Florida, January 26-27, 2024

The ASCE Pittsburgh Section was very well represented at the 2024 ASCE Multi-Region Leadership Conference (MRLC) for Regions 1, 2, 4, and 5 in Miami, Florida, January 26 and 27.  Representatives included Pat Sullivan,

 a Region 2 Governor and Chair of our Section Program Committee; Greg Scott, an EWRI leader and Chair of our Government Relations Committee; David Dill and David Dzombak, current Section Board members; Kaitie DeOre, President of our Younger Members Forum; and Andrew Dawson, Connor Gibson, and Justin Komp, current YMF members. 

The MRLC had plenary sessions for all attendees, and separate sessions and workshops for the different leader groups at the conference. 

 The plenary presentations included informative and motivational talks by ASCE President Marsia Geldert-Murphey and ASCE Executive Director Tom Smith; a thought-provoking talk by ASCE President-Elect Feniosky Pena-Mora on “The Five Ps” for professional and personal success; and a two-part, inspirational talk on “Leader Lessons” by Colonel Aaron Hill, Professor and Head of Civil and Mechanical Engineering at the U.S. Military Academy, and Chair of the ASCE Committee on Education. 

All attendees also experienced a preview of the ASCE-sponsored new Imax movie “Cities of the Future”, which premiered on February 16 in theaters across the country, including at the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh. Our Pittsburgh Section representatives engaged with other ASCE section, branch, and institute leaders in focused workshop and breakout sessions, sharing what we are doing in our section and getting a lot of ideas about new kinds of activities and approaches from others.  The Pittsburgh Section is a leader in a number of ways, such as having five active local chapters of ASCE institutes (EWRI, Geo-Institute, SEI, T&DI, UESI), active engagement with numerous student chapters, and a very active Younger Members Forum.  It is the enthusiastic involvement of our Pittsburgh Section members that makes our Section so vibrant.  Please attend Section events, get involved, and help keep the vibrancy of our Section going!

Pittsburgh, PA -- Seth Pearlman, P.E., D.GE, NAC, has been elected as a member of the National Academy of Engineering Class of 2024.  Pearlman is the North American Director (CEO) for Menard and is on the board of Menard’s global group. He is directly responsible for management and board oversight of Menard USA, Menard Canada, Earth Tech (Florida), Farrell Design-Build (California), and ConeTec.

Election to the NAE is one of the highest professional honors accorded an engineer. NAE members are among the nation’s most knowledgeable engineering experts and have distinguished themselves in business and academic management, in technical positions, as university faculty, and as leaders in government and private engineering organizations. Pearlman is being recognized for ground improvement technologies, geostructural design, and geotechnical construction techniques.

“Being elected to the National Academy of Engineering is an honor, but an honor that comes with a service obligation,” explains NAE President John L. Anderson. “As leading experts in their field, NAE members volunteer their time on initiatives that help guide the development of federal laws and regulations, improve the effectiveness of government programs, shape the direction of research fields and engineering education, and inform public knowledge and dialogue about issues of critical importance,” he noted.

Commenting on the prestigious honor, Pearlman said, “I am surprised and honored that my work has been recognized.  This could only have been possible by the tremendous efforts of all the people that I have been able to work with over the last 40-plus years.  I very much look forward to the opportunity to contribute to the betterment of our collective practice.”

Pearlman has more than 45 years of engineering experience with the last 38 in the geotechnical design and build construction industry.  Pearlman joined Menard in 2003. He is active in numerous industry organizations and served as the president of the Deep Foundations Institute (DFI) from 2006-2008. He has been honored many times. Among his awards are the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Henry Michel Award for Research in Industry in 2015, the ASCE Geo-Institute Wallace Hayward Baker Award for achievements in ground improvement in 2020, and he was elected to the National Academy of Construction in 2022. He has also won several Vinci and Soletanche Freyssinet awards for innovative solutions. Pearlman is a member of the ASCE, the Moles, and the American Concrete Institute. He currently serves on the DFI Scholarship Trust Board, where he helps establish funding for university scholarships. He earned bachelor's and master’s degrees in civil engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. He was honored with alumni service awards from Carnegie Mellon University and the CMU Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. He and his family reside in Pittsburgh.

About Menard

Menard USA is a subsidiary of the Menard Group. The Menard Group operates in more than 80 countries, developing and implementing foundation solutions based on ground improvement and reinforcement technologies. Menard’s proven solutions eliminate the need for the deep foundations traditionally used to support structures. Contact Menard USA at info@menardusa.com or  www.menardusa.com/contact-us

About the National Academy of Engineering

The mission of the National Academy of Engineering is to advance the welfare and prosperity of the nation by providing independent advice on matters involving engineering and technology, and by promoting a vibrant engineering profession and public appreciation of engineering.

Sabrina Steinberg, MPH
Communications/Media Associate
National Academy of Engineering
SSteinberg@nae.edu

By: Shirley Tang

On January 20th, the 2024 Future City Pittsburgh Regional Competition was held in Robinson Township, Pennsylvania. This STEM program involves teams of middle-school students addressing sustainability issues to design and build a future city. This year’s theme was “Electrify Your Future”, with participants tasked to build a 100% electrically powered city with energy generated from sources that prioritize the safety of the citizens and environment. The challenge involved producing a city plan and essay, constructing a scale model of the city complete with moving parts, and presenting their city to the judges.

Eight teams from Western Pennsylvania participated in this year’s Future City Pittsburgh Regional Competition. The overall award went to Fort Couch Middle School, whose team designed a comprehensive city of multiple renewable energy resources, various options for accessible public transit, and a high priority for healthcare access and availability of emergency services. The team will advance to the National Competition in Washington D.C. in February 2024.

The special awards for this year included recognition for Best Use of Green Construction, Outstanding Future City Project Plan, Most Innovative Design of Infrastructure Systems, and many other achievements. Members from the ASCE Pittsburgh Section attended to judge the overall competition and two special awards.

The ASCE Pittsburgh Section presented the special award for Quality of Life, recognizing a team that incorporated concepts such as accessibility, community, and equity within their city design. The award went to Derry Area Middle School, which had an impressive city layout that prioritized accessibility of residents to public services and promoted traveling by foot or bicycle as an energy generation method. This team’s city also incorporated a disaster mitigation plan to address the proximity of their future city to a dormant volcano and to prioritize the safety of the residents.

The ASCE Pittsburgh Section also presented the special award Best Visualization of a Smart, Sustainable City on behalf of ASCE National. This special award was won by The Ellis School which incorporated multiple sources of renewable energy integrated with an AI system to efficiently harness available energy. Their city design also incorporated smartwatch technology to connect residents directly to city resources such as healthcare, community information, and updates regarding energy accessibility.

The event was an impressive showcase of the students’ awareness of the renewable energy sources and technologies that may be implemented in the future for the benefit of our communities. Some recurring solutions included: wind turbines, solar panels, maglev trains, and vertical farming.

This event also aligns with ASCE’s Future World Vision initiative, which reimagines the potential of infrastructure into various future scenarios with a focus on the impact of six key trends. These six trends are: alternative energy, autonomous vehicles, climate change, smart cities, high tech construction, and policy & funding. The film based on Future World Vision research, Cities of the Future, premieres locally at the Carnegie Science Center in February 2024. Read more about ASCE’s Future World Vision Initiative here: https://www.futureworldvision.org/

From Left to Right: ASCE Pittsburgh Members Erin Feichtner, Shirley Tang, Taylor DaCanal, and Kenneth Anderson.

ASCE Pittsburgh Section at Carnegie Science Center Educational Events – By Shirley Tang & Ben Briston

The ASCE Pittsburgh Section recently sponsored and participated in two educational events hosted at the Carnegie Science Center. These educational outreach events brought students in from dozens of local schools to showcase a wide range of STEM topics and engage with professionals to learn about careers in various fields.

In March, the Pittsburgh Regional Science and Engineering Fair (PRSEF) was held to showcase the projects of over 500 6-12^th grade students. A wide range of topics were covered by these students including Biology, Computer Science, Engineering/Robotics, and Medicine/Health/Microbiology.

ASCE Pittsburgh Section representatives participated as Sponsor Judges to present an ASCE Pittsburgh Section award for the Senior Division of the fair. At the fair, judges got an overview of the projects during a poster session and had the opportunity to interview individual students to determine an award winner. The ASCE Pittsburgh Section Selected Outstanding Project Award went to the project Abandoned Mine Drainage Water Bioindicators, for which the student monitored the reproduction rate of Daphnia in water samples to determine the impact of different filtration methods on water pollution and subsequently, the microorganisms’ quality of life.

Many other projects showed the impressive work done by students, including Measuring Exposure to Atmospheric Chemicals Using Passive Samplers: Problems with PFAS, in which the student tracked exposure levels of participants to Per and Polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), which are linked to health issues widely used in consumer products. Another notable project was A Novel Computer Vision Based Device for On-Site Detection of Microplastics in Water, in which the student designed and 3D-printed portable system that detects microplastics using a microscope USB camera and a trained custom computer-vision model.

The students’ interest, creativity, and skillfulness in developing these experiments was very inspiring to see and the event was very successful in highlighting the hard work put in by the participants.

Left, From Left to Right, ASCE Representatives Shirley Tang, David Ulmer, and Ben Briston at PRSEF.

The ASCE Pittsburgh Section also participated in the April SciTech Day, a monthly themed STEM event held at the Carnegie Science Center. The April theme was Earth and Environment as a celebration of Earth Day.  The students were engaged in different booths and activities to learn about various topics such as natural sciences, the importance of pollinators, wildlife conservation, engineering, and mine reclamation.

Above, ASCE Representative Ben Briston discusses his work as a Senior Project Manager at Gannett Fleming with students.

Below, ASCE Representatives Ben Briston, Shirley Tang, Tom Batroney, Taylor DaCanal, and Matt Stevens at the ASCE booth.

Over 600 students from local middle and high schools attended the event in addition to the over 500 visitors to the museum throughout the day. The event was a great opportunity for students to explore different topics with a focus on appreciating, celebrating, and preserving our environment.

The PRSEF and SciTech events were both great events to interact and discuss the field of civil engineering with students. The ASCE Pittsburgh Section appreciates the opportunity to participate in these educational events and engage with students and the public about the impacts of civil engineering in our communities.

By Connor Gibson (2022-2023 Pittsburgh Section ASCE YMF President) and Tom Batroney

I had the pleasure of attending the Multi-Regional Leadership Conference in Charlotte, NC from Jan. 20^th-21^st  alongside fellow ASCE Pittsburgh YMF Board members Daniel Phillips (Past President), Jayne Marks (Treasurer), and Kaitie DeOre (President Elect). I personally had an awesome time attending insightful presentations, networking with fellow engineers, and getting in some ballroom dancing in at the Awards Banquet! The primary purpose of the conference is to encourage collaboration with ASCE headquarters staff in Reston, learn best practices from other sections and chapters, and generally understand how we can make the Pittsburgh Section better for our membership.

Over the course of the two-day conference, we developed three key takeaways and recommendations to the ASCE Pittsburgh Board of Directors for how to improve our Section and increase our young membership and engagement:

Key Takeaway 1: Many Sections and Chapters are struggling with getting involvement from young members and students. To encourage student and younger member participation we need to be a coordinated effort from the Section as a whole including faculty advisors, practitioner advisors, and institutes.

Recommendations to the ASCE Pittsburgh Board:

•  Organize more activities that are low cost and on campus. Free food that’s not pizza and events that are fun are better. Have to go to them. Needs to be more than just YMF hosting events, need institutes, and Section there as well.

•  Develop a shared student engagement calendar for tracking ASCE student activities and section events on campuses. Recommend a single point person who would be in charge of the calendar possibly under the Outreach committee. Updating the calendar will be the responsibility of the current faculty advisors, practitioner advisors, student chapter presidents, YMF, and institutes. Host the calendar on Section website so that everyone can view. Recommend creating the calendar using the Sections gmail address. 

Key Takeaway 2: Our Section needs to focus more on membership transition from student member to Associate member. This transition can be a difficult and sometimes confusing process for early career professionals. This transition is where ASCE loses most of its engagement and membership. Especially when dues increase after the first year.

Recommendations to the ASCE Pittsburgh Board:

• Every year obtain list of graduating seniors from the Universities. Email them about how to get involved in YMF, how to approach their employer about paying for membership when they start their job, and the benefits of early career involvement at ASCE.

•  Considering hosting a “principals” breakfast meeting to discuss the state of the industry and listening to their needs. Invite one or two high level principals from firms to ask them what they need from ASCE and learn how to encourage involvement from their employees, both young and more seasoned.

Key Takeaway 3: More personalized engagement with our young members.

Recommendation:

• Consider reviving member bio templates for highlighting current members to student chapters and the section as a whole. Use these to serve as testimonials for why people should become ASCE members and showing the benefits to students and younger members.

In addition to our recommendations to the board, other fun highlights of the conference included listening to Brock E. Barry give two phenomenal presentations on nonverbal communication and the art of giving an effective presentation. For more information, here’s a link to a video interview from ASCE with Mr. Barry on the importance of non-verbal communication in the workplace.  Also, the Committee on Younger Members round table discussions on topics such as membership, social media networking, and professional development were extremely helpful and provided a great deal of insight in how our local ASCE chapter can better serve and reach out to its younger members. Finally, the presentation on the Charlotte Whitewater Design and Hydrology project was fascinating and shed light on how a few people with a vision and determination can get a project approved, designed, and built in their local community.

Pictured from left to right: Pat Sullivan, Tom Batroney, Daniel Phillips, Connor Gibson, Marsia Geldert-Murphey, Jayne Marks, Kaitie DeOre, and Shirley Tang

Pictured from left to right: Connor Gibson, Jayne Marks, Kaitie DeOre, and Daniel Phillips

Pictured above: All the happy and enthusiastic ASCE Younger Members at the 2023 Multi-Regional Leadership Conference!

PART 2 – A Recap of the Legislative Fly-In and Congressional Visits

Every spring, ASCE holds its Legislative Fly-In in Washington, DC, an exclusive and intensive two-day event providing participants with professional development in honing their skills in the public policy process and advocacy, as well as valuable peer-to-peer networking with fellow ASCE Key Contacts. Members who engage in advocacy aren’t just doing a favor for ASCE— they are also building valuable personal skills that will help advance their career.

In addition to accepting the Outstanding Civil Engineering Advocate Team Award on behalf of the Pittsburgh Section at Thursday’s breakfast, Immediate Past President Jonathan Shimko, and Section PR Chair Jodi S. Klebick spent time alongside Pittsburgh Section members David DiGioa, T&DI Chair, and Greg Scott PE, PMP, Government Relations Chair, participating in numerous events at the 2023 Legislative Fly-In from March 1-3.
A round up of some of those opportunities included a Welcome from ASCE President Maria Lehman, P.E.; keynotes from Administrator Shailen Bhatt of the Federal Highway Administration, and Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation; workshops such as Storytelling Training by Brad Fitch, President and CEO, Congressional Management Foundation, and Storytelling with Local Media by Joe St. George, National Political Editor, Scripps News. Other opportunities included Issue Briefings on: The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reauthorization, Resilient infrastructure, and National Dam Safety Program reauthorization. Additional panel discussions were also held, as well as time given for representatives from each state to network and coordinate their state’s legislative outreach efforts as part of the Fly-In.
A total of ten ASCE representatives from the Pittsburgh, Lehigh Valley, Philadelphia, and Central PA Sections coordinated their outreach efforts for legislative visits. Individuals attended in-person meetings with their respective Representatives and the entire Pennsylvania team attended in-person meetings with legislative aides from the offices of Senators Casey and Senator Fetterman.  The key points the ASCE advocates made with every  Congressional  they made  were:

• Approve a bipartisan FAA reauthorization bill before the program expires on September 30, 2023 which will increase the Airport Improvement Program and eliminate the federal cap on the Passenger Facility Charge, and accommodate alternative delivery and advanced construction methods to expedite projects and reduce costs.
• Support the development, adoption and enforcement of a national model building code as a key method of creating disaster resilient communities; fully fund FEMA’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program; and the reauthorization of the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program and the National Windstorm Impact Reduction Program.
• Reauthorize the National Dam Safety Program through at least 2028; increase its authorized funding to $43 million annually; and remove current statutory limitations on states receiving more than 50% of costs to implement state dam safety programs, which will assist smaller state programs.

PART 1 - Accepting the national American Society of Civil Engineers Outstanding Civil Engineering Advocate Team Award on behalf of the Pittsburgh Section

In the snowy early morning hours of Friday, January 28, 2022, the 447-foot Fern Hollow Bridge located in the busy East End of Pittsburgh collapsed. While thankfully no fatalities occurred, ten people were injured and the incident quickly become a national news story, as it collapsed mere hours before President Biden was scheduled to go to Pittsburgh to talk about infrastructure.

As soon as word broke that the bridge had collapsed, the ASCE Pittsburgh Section jumped into action and had organized its government and media relations efforts within two hours of the event. The leadership team, led by then Section President Erin Feichtner P.E., Immediate Past President Jonathan Shimko, President Elect Tom Batroney, Section PR Chair Jodi S. Klebick Klebick, and Government Relations Chair Greg Scott PE, PMP quickly reviewed the known facts, researched more information, identified a Section speaker, prepared talking points, and crafted an action plan. Jodi began coordinating all responses and Jonathan became spokesperson. Before 9:00 am that morning, the section was organized and already fielding its first media inquiries and skillfully answering questions concerning the bridge collapse. 

The section response team also closely collaborated with ASCE staff in Reston, Virginia and following President Biden’s remarks on the incident in Pittsburgh, began to coordinate local and national requests, ranging from radio, TV, newspaper, and online news outlets like NPR and the New York Times. Because of their quick thinking, and due to the foundational training provided by ASCE and resources inherent in the way the Pittsburgh Section operates, what could have been a weak or poor response from the Section to a tragic local event was transformed into a proactive, coordinated, and professional response by ASCE to a major crisis on a national scale. 

Taylor DaCanal, Timothy D. Stark, George Chammas and Nick Melvin after the presentation at Penn Brewery North Shore.

The Pittsburgh Geo-Institute Chapter held its February 23, 2023 meeting at the historic Penn Brewery. The dinner event was attended by 43 practitioners. The meeting featured G-I 2023 Cross-USA lecturer Timothy D. Stark, Ph.D., P.E., D.GE, F.ASCE, from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, who spoke on “3D Slope Stability Analyses in Practice”. Dr. Stark presented an overview of 3D limit equilibrium slope stability methods, slope width/height ratios where 3D analyses are significant (greater than 6), new 3D software, and four examples of practical uses of 3D stability analyses. In particular, field case histories were presented to illustrate the use of a 3D analysis in inverse stability analyses of slope failures, modeling variable shear strength conditions, accommodating anisotropic geosynthetic reinforcement in factor of safety (FoS) calculations, and slope stabilization techniques using drilled shafts and shear walls. The audience asked many questions throughout the presentation and shared their slope stability experience, which brought a fresh appreciation of the intricacies of slope stability analyses.

By Pat Sullivan March 30, 2023

On February 18, 2023, the Pittsburgh Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers hosted their annual Engineers Week banquet at the Engineers Society of Western Pennsylvania in downtown Pittsburgh.  The engineering community, family members, and friends came out to show their support of the Section’s Award and Student Award Foundation recipients.  Nadeen Agag, ASCE’s newly appointed Deputy Program Director, greeted event attendees and offered lapel flowers to the award winners.  

The banquet started with a social hour, but like all other previous banquets ran a bit long because “Engineers, love to talk, catch up with old friends and meet new people. But the show needed to go on o in keeping with recent tradition, the Emcee for the event, Pat Sullivan, PE used his microphone like voice to ‘recommend’ that people start their trek upstairs to the banquet room.  

Tom Batroney, PE, Pittsburgh Section President, ‘permitted’ Pat to dish out a 10-minute monologue about whatever Pat had on his mind… And this year it was toilet paper! You had to be there. Pat’s monologue also highlighted a pictorial presentation of “Who were they before they became ASCE officers?” that really got the audience engaged! Of course Pat went a bit long….you know how HE likes to talk, but unfortunately no one was going to tell him that he was done! Past Past president and Awards Chairman Jonathan Shimko tried, but to no avail! 

However, ASCE was excited to see four Past Presidents in attendance; Jonathan Shimko, Kemal Nitzik, Bob Dengler … and of course Pat Sullivan! We hope to see (most of) them again soon! ;-)

Corporate Sponsors were recognized with a certificate and true to form, Pat invited them to say a few words about whatever they wanted. Thanks again to our corporate sponsors Anser Advisory, Arcadis, HDR, and Michael Baker International.

Because Pat does not like to sit down, UESI Pittsburgh Chapter Chair Alma Rettinger, PE (Pat’s special assistant for the banquet) implemented some last minute seating changes to allow a few friends to sit together, resulting in Pat sitting at the Arcadis table, where everyone enjoyed a great buffet dinner of chicken, Italian pasta, prime rib, salmon, and vegetables. Dessert was vanilla or chocolate cake with chocolate icing (Pat lobbied hard for this dessert!) Did we mention that Maître de Mike Gaetano of ESWP is the powerhouse behind these events?

Following dinner, the real reason for the Engineer’s Week banquet commenced: To recognize the achievements of projects, people, students, and companies in our Section. This year, Jonathan Shimko, Erin Feichtner, PE, President-Elect Bill Trimbath, PE, and Jeff Argyros, PE did a marvelous job presenting the awards. Thanks for their help!

The 2022 award winners are as follows:

SAF American Bridge Leadership Award  Cain Pfoutz, University of Pittsburgh

SAF Italo V. (Ody ) Mackin Achievement Award  Josephine Reott, Slippery Rock University

Civil Engineering Achievement Award  Fern Hollow Bridge Emergency Replacement Project

Award of Merit  Highland No. 2 Reservoir Liner and Cover Replacement Project

Sustainability Award  Somerset Dam Rehabilitation Project

Service to the People Award  Rick Obermeier

Journalism Award  Margaret Krauss

Young Government Civil Engineer Award  Anna Bennett

Government Civil Engineer Award  Barry King, PE

Young Civil Engineer Award  Erin Feichtner, PE

Civil Engineer Award  Brad Duda, PE

Distinguished Civil Engineer Award  John Yadlosky, PE

Employer of the Year Award  Langan

The event concluded with a second thanks to all of our sponsors, including our Gold Sponsors: Langan, Wade Trim and Civil & Environmental Consultants, Inc. and the prize raffle, which again was highlighted by the annual humongous CEC food basket.

Thanks to everyone who attended, and we will see you at the next Section event, the Lifetime Member Recognition Banquet at the LaMont Restaurant in October.