Building Bigger, Better, And Safer
Construction Engineers are Engineering’s Bedrock
By Katie McKy
When we were young, we built snowmen and tree forts. Then some of us
grew up to build bigger things. Much bigger things. Contemplate a career
where you drive by an edifice of concrete, steel, and glass and you
say, “I helped build that.” Such are the lives of construction
engineers, whose handiwork crosses continents and stretches skyward,
who graduated from snowmen to skyscrapers, from tree forts to pipelines.
Lamberto “Bobby” Balli,
HNTB
An Indo-Mexi-Spanish-American is how Lamberto “Bobby” Balli
describes himself. He says, “My father is Mexican-American and
my mother is Spanish and Mexican Apache.” Balli’s rich ethic
heritage is equaled by the richness of his career, which has managing
various infrastructure projects in south Texas, such as constructing
and updating parks, railroads, airports, highways, and state and municipal
infrastructure.
And whereas the range and importance of Balli’s work excites him,
all that was bested by a simple index card. “What gets me up in
the morning is when my five-year old is just thrilled that I work in
construction and that I design bridges,” he states. “I carry
with me an index card that he found and used to draw a picture of a
bridge. On the back, he just pretended to write words. He drew the frame
around the words as if that was the plan and signed his name to it and
asked, ‘Is this a good design, Papa? Do you want another one?’
I said, ‘Oh, no, this one is fine.’ He calls it the bridge
to the beach.”
Construction engineering seems to be in Balli blood, for it’s
what his father did too. “My dad operated the oldest Hispanic
engineering firm in the Rio Grande Valley and the second oldest engineering
firm. He always wanted me to stay with his private company,” he
remarks.
But whereas Balli was called to engineering, he was drawn to the public
sector. “My calling was in the public sector, which allowed me
to manage people and projects,” he recalls. “I wanted to
work on projects that help people get their water, get to work, get
the sewage away from their house, and on and on. That’s all civil
engineering. You get to affect people’s lives, in my opinion,
more than other engineering fields. In the public service sector, you
see that benefit sooner. You fix someone’s alley and an 80-year
old woman can now reach her garage. You fix a street and kids can bicycle
down that street again. You see the fruits of your labor. When my dad
wanted me to take over his private firm, I just felt this calling.”
That calling lasted for nearly two decades. “I had 18 years in
the public sector,” he declares. “I started in the city
of Brownsville. In three and one-half years, I became the director of
public works at the age of 24. I was the youngest director that it ever
had. It was a city of 180,000 and I managed 250 people until age 29.
I then went to San Padre Island and then onto San Antonia, where I was
the assistant street and drainage operations manager, managing over
600 people. I liked my job and had gotten married and my wife and I
loved San Antonio.”
Happy in the metropolis of San Antonio, three things tugged at Balli.
“First, we wanted to be closer to home. Second, my father-in-law
was fighting cancer, and third, an old mentor of mine kept pestering
me to come work for him and he finally succeeded. He was the City Manager
for the city of McAllen. McAllen is a progressive city and the city
manager had always tried to recruit me and hired me on for five years
to be its director of public works. In July of 2003, by then I was in
a succession plan to be an assistant city manager,” he remembers.
But then circumstances intervened. “In July of 2005, my first
son was born with a rare adrenal condition that required special attention
from specialists in San Antonio or Houston,” Balli comments. “That
was a crossroad that made me think, ‘We have to move on for the
sake of my son.’ There were no positions in the city government
of San Antonio that I wanted and I started looking on the private side
with companies with which I worked. HNTB gave me the opportunity to
work in a vast field of infrastructure projects. What I saw in HNTB
was the ability to work well from office to office. I liked the atmosphere.
I was hired on five and one-half years ago.”
HNTB operates 65 offices nationwide, has a near century of service and
4,000 employees. Balli joined a corporation that doesn’t simply
seek “A” students. Balli says, “The company looks
for self-starters, for people who can be leaders in the community. HNTB
need engineers who have good, sound judgments. That’s who I hire
today. I wasn’t an ‘A’ student. Being an ‘A’
student puts you in front of the rest, but ‘C’ students
can have those leadership skills and people skills that puts you ahead.”
In keeping with the necessity of people skills, Balli has advice for
those still in school. “Of course, follow the course schedules
that are prescribed for the civil engineering program that you desire,
but you also need to develop or hone your people skills, your ability
to work with colleagues, with clients, and with supervisors,”
he advises. “You need to be technologically savvy, but you need
to know how to do the dance, knowing what makes people tick. Are you
a leader in your community, your church community, your civic community,
and your professional community?”
Balli also urges students to realize how abstract concepts are applied.
“You need to see the value in what you do,” he notes. “You
do that by networking, where you learn from other people and you learn
from your mistakes. Having the desire to participate and be involved
is just as valuable as learning an engineering skill such as MicroStation.”
HNTB has given Balli diverse opportunities to network, lead, and bridge.
“When I was in the public sector, there were few corporations
and companies that provided the whole gamut of infrastructure services,
but HNTB allows me to be a sort of director of public works on the private
side where I can manage projects ranging from airports to rail projects
to drainage to water and waste water to roadways to bridges,”
he explains. “I work on an international bridge right now. That’s
history in the making when you build an international bridge. The other
project I work on is a second bridge to South Padre Island. I was the
director of public works in the nineties and now we’re building
that bridge that we’d always wanted.”
Balli, in both the public and private sectors, has been a frontrunner.
However, eight times, he’s elected to be something other than
a front runner, which has required more moxie than most people can muster.
“I’ve run before the bulls of Pamplona eight times,”
he comments. “My mother was born outside of a little town 30 minutes
outside of Pamplona. She comes from a family of ten kids and the majority
are still in the Pamplona area. When I was a kid, instead of going to
summer camp or Disneyworld, we went to Spain. So, I ran eight times.
I ran with friends and relatives. They showed me how to do it right
and not the tourist way, which is to get in front and stay in front.”
And what advice does the survivor of eight runs have?
“Run really fast.”
Mike Chavez.
Chevron
When Mike Chavez, who graduated from Vanderbilt University with bachelor’s
and master’s degrees in civil engineering, interviewed at Chevron,
the interviewing team didn’t assay his technical expertise. Rather,
they tried to determine how well he’d work with others.
Chavez recalls, “When I came out to interview, I felt like it
was more an interview of personality, sociability, and leadership traits.
If you have a bachelor’s and master’s degrees in civil engineering,
we know you’re technically sound, but we need to know if you can
lead and work with other people. We all work as a team. We have the
‘Chevron Way.’ We look for people with the skillsets to
be good engineers, but also engineers who have integrity, earn a high
level of trust, are diverse in their thought processes, possess ingenuity,
deliver high performance, and are willing to protect people and the
environment. Chevron needs self-starters and stakeholders who work well
with people.”
That collaborative ethos has enabled Chevron to become the second largest
integrated energy company in the U.S., with 60,000 employees based in
over 100 countries. Chevron doesn’t just operate in diverse locations—it
also generates energy in diverse ways. Chavez explains, “We do
energy. We explore, produce, transport, process, and market crude oil
and natural gas. We distribute and transport fuels. We do geothermal,
biofuels, wind, and solar. There are entire parts of the company dedicated
to alternative energy solutions.”
And Chavez designs, builds, and maintains the infrastructure that allows
Chevron to “do energy.” “I am a facility engineer,”
he notes. “Basically, we manage the design and building of new
facilities and are tasked with maintaining them as well.”
That diversity of energy production requires a diversity of construction
engineering. Chavez has enjoyed that diversity and being buttressed
by a program called Horizons, which has helped him to get up to speed.
“There’s a program for young engineers called Horizons.
There isn’t another company that offered me a job that had anything
even remotely compared to this program,” he remembers. “It
is five to six years of your career where you have a rigorous training
schedule. The program puts you in a classroom with professionals who’ve
been doing their work for 20-30 years. You’re also assigned a
mentor who advises you on everything from leadership to technical skills.
You also are given three assignments, where you get to see different
parts of the company.”
You are also given considerable responsibility. Chavez states, “I’ve
only been here eight months and I got to manage millions of dollars
worth of work and manage a team. There’s an immense of responsibility
that you’re given.”
Chavez has also been tendered creative latitude. “You’re
given a large creative window,” he explains. “You find the
answer and go back with that result. It allows for creativity, unlike
a lot of other jobs where there’s a procedure that you don’t
deviate. It’s extremely fulfilling.”
Chavez, in addition to the diversity of work, has enjoyed the diversity
of his colleagues. “I’ve never worked for a more diverse
company,” he declares. “There’s an immense amount
of diversity with people from all walks of life. There are people from
Nigeria and Angola, Kazakhstan, Thailand, and Australia. They come from
everywhere in the world to work here.”
Chavez came to Chevron by way of a friend’s nudge. He remembers,
“I was about to graduate with the master’s degree and I
was ready to roll in the construction industry. I had a few offers and
a friend who worked at Chevron said that I should interview. He said,
‘Just interview and see what you think.’ I came not knowing
what to expect and when I saw the interviewer wasn’t terribly
worried about what I knew and didn’t know, I thought, ‘Maybe
this isn’t a bad place.’”
That different interview intrigued Chavez, as did the company’s
trust in his competence. “The interview started at 10 a.m. and
I left at 4 p.m. thinking, ‘This is something I want to try out.’”
However, when Chavez was young, he didn’t imagine himself hopping
on helicopters to assess offshore pipelines. Rather, he imagined himself
seated at a desk, designing the skins of buildings rather than engineering
their skeletons. “My dad was a contractor. He did masonry. His
dad did that work, too, and I also wanted to do that job. As I’m
first generation in the U.S., my dad said that I was going to be more
than a contractor. So, in high school, I wanted to be an architect.
My dad connected me to a few architects and they advised me that earning
an undergraduate degree in architecture might limit me later, so I wondered
what the next best thing would be. I got into Vanderbilt and entered
engineering because I was good in math and science and in the program,
I knew I that’s where I wanted to be the rest of my life.”
Now that he’s a construction engineer, he appreciates the concern
that Chevron extends to him and all his colleagues. Chavez says, “It’s
a little daunting when you first land on an offshore drilling platform,
but there’s an intense focus on safety. Chevron makes sure that
everyone goes home at the end of the day. I didn’t go out to a
platform today because it wasn’t safe. Safety is what matters
most.”
Luis Valencia.
Weitz
Burger King: That’s how Luis Valencia, a project manager at Weitz,
explains what Weitz does. He explains, “We do construction management
of industrial, government, and military work and high-end commercial.
Our integrity separates us. We respect the clients’ needs. We
listen to them. We’re like Burger King. You order what you want.”
So, whom does Weitz hire, to maintain that integrity? “I look
for someone who’s hands-on and willing to take on the challenge,”
Valencia answers. “They also need to have a good core background.
They don’t have to be college-educated, if they’re hands-on
and have worked up the ranks. Perhaps most important, they need to have
core values and be an honest person. I’ve dealt with people who
don’t seem to have a backbone and squirm. You have to respect
yourself and when you do, 99% of the time you’ll respect others.”
When Valencia arrived at Weitz, he found plenty of people to respect.
He recalls, “When I first got here, a lot of people had 15-25
years of tenure. I found personal growth because the people here are
experienced and responsible. I worked at another company where I was
just a number.”
Part of that Valencia’s personal growth has been the responsibilities
that he’s shouldered. He says, “I’ve been here six
years and have gotten the chance to take on a lot of responsibilities.”
And the biggest part of earning that responsibility has been his effort.
Valencia states, “I hustle and bustle.” Valencia hustles
and bustles in myriad ways. He notes, “I supervise and oversee
each project. I’m a special projects director. I oversee multiple
projects and project managers. I’m not in the trenches as much,
but oversee them from the financial side, which includes the billing.
I deal with the clients and do some cold calling, looking for new work.
I call past clients and keep rapport with them. With this company, about
60% of our work is with past clients. We negotiate work more than hard
bid our work. A client comes back to us and says we have this project
and can you give us a budget, as opposed to 20 companies making a bid
and the lowest bidder gets the project, which means typically that they
forgot something.”
One thing that Valencia doesn’t forget to do is to balance work
with play. “I like to go fishing for redfish. You have to be real
patient and dedicated. I can stay out there a long time.”
And Valencia carries that tenacity to work. He remarks, “I’m
more determined than most. I’ll do whatever it takes. When growing
up, I played a lot of competitive tennis, where it’s all or nothing:
either you make it or you don’t.”
To make it, Valencia earned a bachelor’s degree in building construction
from the University of Florida. However, rather than erecting buildings,
Valencia figured he’d become a dentist. “When I got out
of college, I was going to dental school. I always liked working with
my hands and creating stuff. I didn’t like dental school, so I
asked, ‘What can I do?’” Valencia decided to dream
big by building big and he hasn’t regretted it. “I like
looking at the things we’ve built, things that will be there for
your kids and grandkids to see. It’s a monumental aspect of what
I do,” he reports.
If you also want to dream big and build big, Valencia has some advice.
“Don’ t come up with any excuses. Hit every challenge straightforward.
Don’t hold grudges. Whatever you color or ethnic background, just
deal and move forward,” he advises.
As Valencia moves forward, he does so as a family man, with a four-year
old daughter, a two-year old son, and a wife in nursing school, but
he actually calls upon his “punky” past to soothe his children
to sleep. He says, “I was in a punk band in college. I played
lead guitar. I still play guitar. I make up songs for my kids. That
puts them to sleep. I teaching my daughter to play the violin. When
she was born, I bought two of them, one for her and one for me!”
Francoise Y. Gamble,
Flour
As Fluor circles the world with 46,000 employees in 60 offices on six
continents, so does Francoise Y. Gamble, a senior design engineer for
Fluor. “My function changes depending upon the product that I’m
assigned to complete,” she explains. “I’ve been a
design engineer, a computer applications specialist, an estimator, structural
lead specialist, project engineer, and engineering manager. My latest
assignment was the world’s largest polysilicon project in China.
That’s a piece of what goes into solar chips. I’m currently
assigned to as a design engineer and mining and metal consultant for
an ore project in Australia.”
Gamble likes to circle the world. She says, “I like that we’re
worldwide. I also like the safety here.” Safety is key when one
considers that Fluor undertakes problematic projects. “What Fluor
does well is to assess and mitigate risk,” she explains. “We
embrace risk and mange it and deliver the best projects safely, on schedule,
and in budget. We don’t just take the easy jobs. We like the difficult
ones. You get to work on the toughest, most complex projects.”
Gamble mostly works with tough stuff: steel and concrete.
She states, “I work mostly on industrial structures, such as steel
and concrete. I build the factories and the foundations that go under
them. We do that with a computer program. As a lead engineer, I oversee
that effort and take care of budget and cost and coordinate with other
offices.”
But because Gamble lays foundations, she typically isn’t there
to see the culmination. “Most of the time, I don’t see the
finished project,” she remarks. “I do see pictures. Nowadays,
every day, we take photos and post them on the Website and so I get
to see it progress from dirt to concrete being poured and it’s
cool to know your part of that.”
Gamble also derives deep satisfaction from knowing that she’s
a part of the end product of the factories she helps build. “I
worked on a pharmaceutical project. That’s a clean facility and
what comes out of that is the drug. I’m a part of those products
that help so many. It’s cool to consider that part of my job,”
she declares.
If you consider working for Fluor, Gamble offers insight into what Fluor
values. “In the structural engineering department, we look for
highly technical skills and high understanding of engineering concepts,”
she comments. “We also look for good communication skills because
if you don’t have that talent, you won’t stay for long.
That applies to teamwork, too. Both are integral to being an engineer.
You have to talk to designers and other professionals.”
To prepare for the challenges of engineering, Gamble urges students
to concern themselves with more than grades. “If students look
at what it takes to pass the class, they might be more concerned with
getting the grades than the content of the class,” she advises.
“When they crunch those numbers, they have to understand the concepts.
That’s what will make them succeed. Sometimes we have to send
them back for more education.”
Gamble also suggests that engineering students practice collaboration.
“Engineers are not known for their good communication skills,”
she reports. “Take classes in public speaking. It’s great
that you’re good with math and science, but get a rounded education.
Communication is becoming more important because you often talk to people
who don’t speak English. You have to be precise. We have people
from all different countries in our offices.”
Fluor’s size means myriad slots for engineers. “Fluor also
looks for talented people in all fields and we select the strongest
candidates overall. As long as you re flexible, there are a lot of job
possibilities. You can start off in structural and end up in procurement,
sales, or construction.”
Gamble came to Fluor by way of the U.S. Military Academy, where she
earned a bachelor’s of science degree in civil engineering, and
the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, where she was an assistant operations/construction
officer, as well as a platoon leader in the U.S. Army. She also earned
a master’s of science degree in structural engineering at Auburn
University.
The rigors of West Point and Auburn prepared Gamble for the perpetual
change of Fluor. She states, “I’ve been here for 19 years
and I’ve learned to always expect changes. Change is a constant
here. I like the change. I’ve always been challenged here. That
appeals to me. Challenge is why I went to West Point and why I came
here.”
And Fluor continues to challenge Gamble away from work.
“I visit middle schools and talk to kids. I’ve done the
Discover E Program, where we speak about engineering. Every time I speak
to the kids, I talk about something different, but it always comes back
to why do I do it. I tell them how exciting it is and I give them a
hands-on activity. It gets them involved and thinking about engineering.
I’ve also been involved with United Way. I’ve been on committees
and done the Loaned Executive Program, which is where Fluor pays our
salary, but we’re given to the United Way. I did that for one
year. I’ve done Habitat for Humanity. It’s fun to get up
on the roof and hammer some nails. For some reason, in engineering,
we don’t get to do that job. Wherever we work, we try to make
people’s lives better in those communities,” she remarks.
Making people’s lives better is why Gamble became an engineer.
“If you want to be part of the solution, you should go into engineering,”
she advises. “Plus, if you start off in engineering, you can be
an astronaut. It gives you more options in the future. You can always
earn money and you’ll have a diversity of choices, so the career
opens up the world for you. No matter what your level of experience,
there are opportunities at Fluor. You’ll do great and have great
experiences here.”
Lamont Johnson,
BE&K/KBR
With 57,000 employees, KBR is big enough to serve the world. Lamont
Johnson, chief project engineer at BE&K/KBR, says, “KBR is
a global engineering, construction, and services company supporting
the energy, hydrocarbon, government services, and civil infrastructure
sectors. The company offers a wide range of services through its downstream,
government and infrastructure, services, technology, upstream, and ventures
business segments.”
And what does Johnson do? “I work for BE&K, a wholly owned
subsidiary of KBR, that specializes in power projects,” he explains.
“I am the chief project engineer at a coal-fired power plant Flue
Gas Desulfurization project in LaGrange, TX, for which I am the main
point of contact for all issues or concerns and the liaison between
project design, procurement, and the construction staff performing the
installation.”
As chief project engineer, Johnson gets to engineer many projects. He
notes, “This sector is fast paced and allows an individual to
get involved into a wide variety of areas. One day I may investigate
rebar design, and the next I might review nuclear detection devices.
Every day brings a new challenge or opportunity.”
He also gets to engineer projects of jaw-dropping size. “The most
surprising facet of the projects for me is the financial aspect,”
he comments. “It always piques more interest when you tell people
that you work on a $300 million dollar project, or in some instances,
a project over one billion dollars. It still surprises me to see the
massive amount of money and the amount of people required to complete
an industrial project.”
KBR is able to complete its massive projects because of the quality
of its people. Johnson explains, “I love our people and company
culture. KBR is a company built on a foundation of rich history and
success. Our culture is a unique differentiator that cannot be replicated
and of which we are proud. Our employees embody a driving spirit and
pride that attributes to KBR’s success. Our people are the backbone
of our organization that enable us to provide the high-quality services
and products that our clients have come to expect from KBR through the
years.”
Johnson also loves how tangible his successes are at work. “The
coolest thing about my work is to see the final product,” he reports.
“I can actually see a major operating facility rise up out of
the dirt that didn’t exist a few years earlier. For example, when
I first arrived at one project in Georgia, there was only a dirt road
with an old couch in the middle that led to a couple of hundred acres
recently cleared of trees and brush and had a small creek on the property.
When I left the jobsite three years later, there was a paved road that
led to two major operating facilities and a bridge that allowed for
train engines to travel into the facility.”
Johnson earned his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering
from Florida A&M University and an MBA from Mercer University in
Macon, GA. He came to KBR by way of an internship.
He remembers, “I actually was not familiar with this sector until
I participated in an internship program with the company. I spent three
summers working in various areas of the business and became intrigued
by this sector of engineering. It was the large-scale projects that
required many people that attracted me to this sector.”
And he’s stayed with KBR due to the ways that KBR cares for its
employees. “KBR values its people,” he explains. “One
way the company demonstrates that quality is by providing continuous
training and education. For example, we have numerous hours of training
classes onsite, which allow craft employees to learn skills such as
construction math, blueprint reading, rigging, welding, and electrical
installation. Employees have opportunities to enhance their skills,
which may lead to more responsibility, productivity, and possibly higher
pay. BE&K provided tuition reimbursement for my MBA courses while
I was working at a jobsite in Georgia. My supervisor and co-workers
were supportive in this effort and encouraged me to pursue my dream.”
KBR actively recruits its quality employees. Johnson notes, “Recruiting
and retaining the best and brightest talent is a top priority for KBR.
Highly skilled and experienced individuals who embody KBR’s commitment
to discipline, accountability, transparency, and financial responsibility
are integral to KBR’s overall success.”
And Johnson has advice for those contemplating a career in engineering:
“I advise students to go into a field that they think they will
truly enjoy. Most people spend a good portion of their day at work,
and are much more productive and effective if they enjoy what they do
for a living. Also, I would advise them to treat every day as a learning
experience and ask questions. There are many senior engineers and construction
managers who will retire in the near future. It will benefit the generations
that follow if we take full advantage of their expertise and knowledge
base. Some young engineers may ask what characteristic it takes to become
successful in this industry. If a young engineer or construction manager
enjoys new challenges, has a willingness to learn, and has the ability
to work well in a team environment, then they can be successful.”
