November 2010 Virginia Engineers On The Move

November 2010 Virginia Engineers On The Move
 

Michael Baker Jr., Inc. is proud to announce that Katherine Perkins, P.E., William Harris, E.I.T., Brandon Jack, E.I.T., and Robert Redmond, E.I.T., have joined the Environmental Department in the firm’s Virginia Beach office.
Ms. Perkins is a Civil Engineer. She specializes in engineering designs including water and wastewater infrastructure design, pump station design, wastewater treatment plant design, environmental site assessments, stormwater management design, pavement design, dam and marina design, and cost estimating. She received her M.S. degree in Environmental Engineering from Old Dominion University (ODU) and her B.S. degree in Biological Systems Engineering from Virginia Tech.
Mr. Harris is an Environmental Associate. He received his B.S. degree in Environmental Engineering from ODU and is currently working on his M.S. degree in Environmental Engineering at ODU. He was a member of Chi Epsilon, the ODU Chapter of the National Civil Engineering Honor Society.
Mr. Jack is an Environmental Associate. He received his B.S. degree in Structural Engineering from ODU. He was a member of Chi Epsilon, the ODU Chapter of the National Civil Engineering Honor Society, a member of the Order of Engineers, and a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers.
Mr. Redmond is an Environmental Associate. He received his B.S. degree in Environmental Engineering from ODU and is currently working on his M.S. degree in Environmental Engineering at ODU. He is a member of the American Water Works Association and the American Society of Civil Engineers.

Simmons, Rockecharlie & Prince, Inc. is pleased to announce that Adam Sheldon, E.I.T. has joined the firm as a Mechanical Engineer. Mr. Sheldon is a graduate of the Virginia Military Institute and brings over six years of experience in the design of mechanical engineering projects to the firm.

Hurd & Obenchain, Inc. is proud to announce that Benjamin C. Linkous, P.E., LEED® AP, has been elected by the Board of Directors for the position of Director. Mr. Linkous graduated from Virginia Tech with an Electrical Engineering degree. He started working with Hurd & Obenchain, Inc. by interning in the summer of 2000. Other current Directors are Mike Hurd, P.E., J.B. Obenchain, Jr., P.E., LEED AP, Randy Daniels and Mike Sowick, P.E.

Dewberry has promoted Brian Bradner, P.E., CPESC, to associate vice president and office manager of the firm’s Danville office. In his new role, he will be responsible for management of the office’s daily operations and serve a diverse client base that ranges from local municipalities to national commercial clients. He has been with the firm since 1994. With 16 years’ experience, he has been involved in the marketing, design, planning, and construction administration of a variety of projects. Mr. Bradner earned his B.S. degree in Civil Engineering from North Carolina State University.

Baskervill is pleased to announce that:
Connie Frey was promoted to Mechanical Engineering Department Manager. She has worked for the firm for over two years. She holds a B.S. degree in Engineering Science and Mechanics from Virginia Tech; and
Douglass Potts, formerly with Austin Brockenbrough, is CAD manager at Baskervill. He is also a licensed land surveyor and earned his associate’s degree from J. Sargeant Reynolds.

Dennis P. Murray has rejoined Draper Aden Associates as a Business Development Manager for the central and eastern offices of the firm. Mr. Murray has 23 years of business development experience in the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry in both the public and private sectors.
Draper Aden Associates is pleased to announce that:
Patricia Abbott has joined the firm’s Richmond office as a Project Administrator on the Utilities Engineering Team. She has over 10 years of experience in the AEC industry; and
Rebecca Barnett, has joined the firm’s Blacksburg office as an Administrative Assistant for the Site Planning and Engineering team.

Wiley|Wilson is pleased to announce that J. David Roberts, P.E., LEED AP BD+C successfully completed the requirements to earn a LEED AP BD+C accreditation. As Structural Department Manager, Mr. Roberts is responsible for successful delivery of all of the structural engineering services performed in the company’s corporate office in Lynchburg. He received a B.S. degree in Civil/Structural Engineering from Rice University, Houston, Texas.

Clark Nexsen Architecture and Engineering is pleased to announce that Dixit Patel, P.E. has joined the firm as a Senior Electrical Engineer. Mr. Patel has extensive experience in the design of electrical systems and management of various commercial, institutional, educational, residential, data center, healthcare and light industrial projects. He has designed several projects requiring LEED certifications.

Charles Clancy has joined Virginia Tech as associate director of the Ted and Karyn Hume Center for National Security and Technology and research Fellow, National Capital Region Research Development Team. He will be responsible for leading Virginia Tech’s collaboration with intelligence and defense organizations within the United States federal government and will be involved in developing and expanding the university’s role in cyber security research, focusing on critical national infrastructure. Dr. Clancy, whose personal area of research interest is in radio frequency spectrum security, will also serve as adjunct faculty, electrical and computer engineering. His experience includes work as an advisor to the U.S. military’s Communications Directorate in Baghdad, Iraq. Prior to his time in Iraq, Dr. Clancy was a scientist with the Laboratory for Telecommunications Sciences, a federal research laboratory at the University of Maryland, College Park, and was also an adjunct assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering. He received a bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering from the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Terre Haute, Ind., a master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Maryland.
Peter Rim, professor of chemical engineering in the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech, was recently appointed the Joseph H. Collie Professor of Chemical Engineering by the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors. Mr. Rim has more than 25 years of experience in the development, commercialization, and marketing of performance polymer products. He earned a bachelor’s degree in pre-medicine from Penn State University in 1979. He then changed his field of study to polymer science and was awarded his master’s degree and Ph.D. in 1981 and in 1983, respectively, also from Penn State. In 1992 he added an MBA degree in Business from the University of Richmond.
Saifur Rahman, professor of electrical and computer engineering in the College of Engineering and director of the Advanced Research Institute, National Capital Region, at Virginia Tech, was recently reappointed the Joseph R. Loring Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering by the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors. In addition to his research, he developed and teaches an online course on alternative energy. A faculty member since 1979, Mr. Rahman received his master’s degree from the State University of New York and his Ph.D. from Virginia Tech.
The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) has named Srinath Ekkad, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Virginia Tech’s College of Engineering, as a Fellow of the ASME. He also serves as a director of the Center for Clean Coal Energy, part of Virginia Tech’s Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science, and is involved with the College of Engineering’s Global Lab for Thermal Phenomena. Prof. Ekkad joined the Virginia Tech faculty in 2007 after nine years at Louisiana State University and two years as a senior project engineer in the Turbines Department at Rolls-Royce Allison Engine Co. in Indianapolis. He completed his Ph.D. from Texas A&M University in 1995 and his master’s degree from Arizona State University in 1991, both degrees in the area of turbine cooling and heat transfer. He previously earned a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University in India in 1989.
An assistant professor with the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech has won a $403,000 National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) grant to help engineering graduate students develop as reflective practitioners by using e-portfolios that could enrich their own careers. Posted online, e-portfolios can include a mixture of scholarly teaching, research papers, video and links to research-related blogs, podcasts, and PowerPoint presentations to paint a highly personal narrative of a person’s professional experiences, according to Lisa McNair, an assistant professor with the department of engineering education. She was awarded the five-year CAREER grant in September. It is the foundation’s most prestigious award, given to creative junior faculty considered likely to become academic leaders of the future. Prof. McNair, co-director of the Virginia Tech Engineering Communication Center, will team with researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology, the University of Michigan and the University of Texas at El Paso to integrate e-portfolio work into their existing engineering graduate programs. Some of the schools already have burgeoning engineering education programs, as does Virginia Tech. She joined the Virginia Tech faculty in 2005. She previously worked at Georgia Tech as associate director of the university’s communications program. She received a bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English from the University of Georgia in 1983 and 1995, respectively, and a doctoral degree in Linguistics from the University of Chicago in 2002.
William “Rick” Hinson Jr., formerly a principal and project manager for The Structures Group Inc. of Williamsburg, Va., has been named the University Building Official at Virginia Tech. In this newly created position under Virginia’s Higher Education Restructuring Act, Mr. Hinson will oversee the new university program responsible for local enforcement of the Virginia Uniform Statewide Building Code (VUSBC) for construction work on campus as well as the off-site property owned by Virginia Tech. The Office of the University Building Official will review plans for new construction and renovation projects, and will perform construction inspections required by the VUSBC. In addition, he will issue all permits as required by the building code. The Office of the University Building Official was established to improve the university’s ability to successfully manage an aggressive campus building program. Over the next three years, Virginia Tech anticipates spending approximately $600 million on new construction and renovation projects. He received his bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Virginia Tech. He has his professional engineering registration from the Commonwealth of Virginia and holds a number of certifications in code enforcement, including Certified Building Official from the ICC and the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Virginia Tech Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering Rolf Mueller received a friendship award from the Chinese government for his outstanding contributions in economics and social progress. Zhang Dejiang, vice-premier of China, made the presentation to Prof. Mueller during a ceremony in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. Prof. Mueller was also the invited guest at a reception and state banquet of China’s Premier Wen Jiabao to celebrate the National Day of the People’s Republic of China. He was cited for his involvement in the opening of a new international laboratory based at Shandong University in eastern China. He held a professorship at Shandong University before he joined the Virginia Tech faculty in 2008. He has a patent allowed for issuance on a method for frequency-driven generation of a multi-resolution decomposition of the input to wave-based sensing arrays. Prof. Mueller received all three of his degrees from the University of Tuebingen. He earned his bachelor’s in Biology in 1992; his master’s in Neuroscience, Genetics, and Electronics in 1995; and his doctorate summa cum laude in Animal Physiology in 1998. Afterwards, he was a post-doctoral Fellow at Yale University’s Department of Electrical Engineering until 2000. He became a visiting researcher at the University of Edinburgh’s Division of Informatics for a brief period until he started the Biosonar Laboratory at Germany’s University of Tuebingen’s Department of Animal Physiology where he spent three years. He became an assistant professor at The Maersk Institute at the University of Southern Denmark from 2003 until 2005. He received full professor status with his move to the School of Physics at Shandong University, China. While he held this position, he was also appointed as visiting research professor at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York. He has held this dual position until his appointment with Virginia Tech in September 2008.
J. Michael Duncan, Virginia Tech University Distinguished Professor Emeritus of the Via Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, is the 2010 recipient of the G. Brooks Earnest Award and Lecture from the American Society of Civil Engineers’ Cleveland Section. This award is presented annually to an outstanding individual of national and international prominence, and preferably to a member of the civil engineering field. A member of the National Academy of Engineering, Prof. Duncan joined the Virginia Tech community in 1984. He is world-renowned for his contributions to the discipline of geotechnical engineering. His work includes embankment dam engineering, soil shear strength and slope stability, seepage through soils, and finite element analysis for soil structures. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Georgia Tech and his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley.

McDonough Bolyard Peck has announced that the following have earned their Certified Construction Manager certifications from the Construction Manager Certification Institute:
Gene C. Layne Jr., a CCM project manager at the firm;
Daniel B. Mason, a senior engineer at the firm; and
Leon J. Malczewski, a project manager at the firm.

New officers for the Richmond Chapter #141 of the National Association of Women in Construction are: president, Dianne Franklin with RonDi Properties; president-elect, Jennifer Jarrett with Century Construction; vice president, Rachael McKinney with RK&K treasurer, Margarete Culley with Delta Automation; corresponding secretary, Lori Butler with Otto Sales Inc.; recording secretary, Pat Winston with American Coatings Corp. New members of the board of directors are: Carolyn Davis with Hometown Realty Inc.; Gerri Nolan with Keller Williams Realty; Betsye Russell with Construction Management Solutions Inc.; Pamela Stalnaker with Hourigan Construction; and Katie Watts with Kjellstrom & Lee Inc.

Donald J. Sipher, with Froehling and Robertson Inc., has been named president-elect of the American Council of Engineering Companies of Virginia.

Director of the Department of Building Inspections for Chesterfield County, Va., William (Bill) Dupler was elected Vice President of the International Code Council (ICC) Board of Directors. Mr. Dupler is responsible for all aspects of the application of building and maintenance codes and conducts extensive educational programs for code users in Chesterfield County. He has worked in Virginia as a plans examiner, engineering supervisor, deputy building official and building official since 1978. He previously served as Secretary/Treasurer of the Code Council Board.
Guy Tomberlin, Code Specialist for the Fairfax County, Va., Commercial Inspections Division, also was re-elected as an at-large Director. A Certified Building Official who has been active in code enforcement since 1985, Mr. Tomberlin also has served on the ICC subsidiary International Accreditation Service Board of Directors. ##

Previous Month  ------   Virginia Engineers on the Move Archive  -----   Next Month