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Can you share your journey and what motivated you to become an engineer?

When I was younger, I was more in tune with math and science classes. In high school, they offered some engineering courses, as well as some CADD courses, so that drew my interest. My dad is also an engineer, so that kind of led me in this direction. Seeing what he did, I figured I’d enjoy it and that I’d be good at it. When I got to Penn State, I chose the major of civil engineering and I liked it the whole way.

Tell me a bit about your experience in school/background and how you came to work at FPA?

So I was on Penn State’s Main Campus for all four years. It’s a pretty big campus, so you don’t see a lot of the same people. But I thought it was kind of neat to meet everyone in my classes and see what everyone is doing. Penn State offered seven different kinds of civil engineering, so it was also interesting to figure out which kind I wanted to do. I had some pretty great professors there. Professor Lauren McPhillips at Penn State taught a water resources class, and when I took it that’s when I knew I wanted to do Water & Wastewater Engineering. That was my junior year. After that, I did an internship in Water & Wastewater engineering, and I really enjoyed it, so I stuck with it. After I graduated, I went back to that same company, where I also worked under Eric Betz [FPA Director of Infrastructure], before accepting a job at FPA. It’s all been pretty great since then.

When I came down to FPA, I met everyone and found that I like the culture of a smaller office where people actually talk to each other. It’s not too big of a corporate feel. Since January, it’s been pretty great getting to know everyone and doing things like company softball or beach volleyball in the summer. It’s all been fun, and I’ve met some pretty great people.

What does your role at FPA look like? What does a typical day at FPA look like for you?

My role here is Senior Staff Engineer in the Water & Wastewater department. Basically, what I do is take designs from my higher-ups and put them together in CADD, or I review the numbers for designs for different projects. What that would look like on the day-to-day would be working on plan sheets, working through calculations, and sometimes field work to go see the plans be constructed.

What types of projects are your favorite to work on?

Since coming to FPA, I went from working on just wastewater projects to now working on stormwater and potable water projects as well. Seeing those kinds of projects is interesting to me because it’s not something I’m used to. It’s a new section of water engineering for me. I work closely with Dave Espejo [FPA Project Engineer] and he introduced me to the permitting and design of some of this work. For the past few months, we’ve been working on these stormwater outfalls. There are calculations to make sure you don’t overload the area that water flows out of, and over the past year we’ve been able to see them constructed. It was interesting to see that all from start to finish.

Have you had any influential mentors or role models in your journey as a landscape designer? If so, how have they impacted your career?

Yes, actually Eric Betz was one of my mentors. We would meet and talk about what I want to do with my career, what kind of engineer I want to be, discussing if I’d rather be in an office designing role or a field person. A combination of both is the right fit for myself, I think. Eric’s mentorship impacted me a pretty great deal by giving me the opportunity to do both. Here at FPA I’m getting more opportunities to see both sides of everything, as far as meeting with clients, seeing construction, and designing some of the work as well.

What are some of your goals and aspirations for your career?

My main goal is to just be a well-rounded, competent engineer that can get pretty much any Water & Wastewater project completed and done right. Some aspirations are to be able to work on the design part, but also interact with clients and municipalities, winning work and building relationships with them and with others who work at the company.

What do you find most fulfilling about this industry?

It’d probably be that it’s not the same every day. If it got too repetitive, I’d get bored. There’s always something new going on, something you don’t have on the schedule, which keeps it interesting and keeps you happy.

What has been your best experience working as a Water/Wastewater Engineer so far?

My best experience so far has come from FPA. Shortly after arriving here and starting my new role with my new team I was given the opportunity to become very involved in all company projects in New Brunswick. I coordinate between our staff and the City for everything we do together. It has allowed me to build relationships with the client as well as learn how to manage information being passed back and forth for dozens of projects.

What do you enjoy most about working at FPA?

I think looking back on where I had worked before, it was a little more corporate in comparison. FPA is definitely more of a family type of feel. People actually like each other here, which is cool. You don’t dread coming to work here. It’s enjoyable to come into the office.

Looking ahead, what excites you most about the future of FPA?

We’re hiring a whole bunch of people, especially in the Water & Wastewater group, and we’re trying to grow pretty quickly. I think we’ve done a decent job of that so far. It seems like there will be a lot more opportunities coming up in the future.

Can you share a fun fact about yourself that your colleagues might not know?

I still play competitive baseball with Ryan [FPA Staff Engineer].