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Drainage Engineering
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I had a consulting manager at Bentley say to me once, "I had no idea that you knew roadway." I KNOW Roadway really well, but when I'm pulled from my Bentley "day job" to provide consulting services, it's for drainage "hot projects" or to consult with leadership teams to plan OpenRoads Drainage Implementations.
I think I defensively answered "I'm roadway first" (because Bentley Civil is roadway first), but upon reflection I'm not sure that holds up to scrutiny. In the three-way split between Roadway, Site, and Drainage Engineering, Drainage does, in fact, get the edge.
I may be the same sized Big Fish, but the Pond of Drainage Experts is much smaller than the Great Lake of Roadway Experts.
OpenRoads Drainage (it's currently called "Subsurface Utlities") is a full implementation of StormCAD and CivilStorm within the OpenRoads Designer environment. I've been deeply involved in its development and rollout since its early days at Bentley. The Product Manager and I developed most of the training (until recently when I moved to promoting all Engineering Applications).
After getting a full complement of Drainage Training published, I started with Virginia DOT extensively. I developed additional training material per their needs and delivered multiple weeks of training at their headquarters and regional offices. I worked with hydraulic managers to address their concerns (they were less about the software than being able to assure the quality of projects submitted by staff and consultants. StormCAD and CivilStorm are considerably more sophisticated than the software they were replacing. We worked to develop customizations of in-software tools to help flag issues and automate review).
I most recently spent weeks with the Hydraulic Leads at ALDOT, TxDOT, OrDOT, and WSDOT, and a top 5 Design Company going over details of the product's spatial and hydraulic capabilities and how to meet their detailed design criteria (see The Surprise Barrier to OpenRoads Drainage Acceptance).
The last drainage course I authored prior to my current position was Placing a Ditch and Culvert Networks. A direct result of writing that course is a series of enhancements to the software to allow easy layout of ditches whether the terrain reflects the ditch or not. This is an example of where the code was sufficient for "standalone" Haestad workflows, but required enhancements because of the level of spatial accuracy one expects in the OpenRoads BIM/Digital Twin-ready modeling environment.
This is actually a major consideration when implementing OpenRoads Drainage: because you can be extremely accurate spatially (even photorealistically), how much do you let that capacity "distract" you from your contracted deliverables. There is a tendency to chase spatial perfection even though it is not required hydraulically or even contractually. What is the balance? Balancing this question is especially true for agencies setting up their standards.
Professional Experience
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Parsons Corporation
In November 2021, I accepted a position at Parsons Corporation as a Supervising Drainage Engineer.
I specialize in working on large drainage projects using Bentley's OpenRoads Drainage platform. I help teams improve their performance through training, Workspace Setup and finding best practices for meeting drainage and utiltiies modeling requirements.
It's good to back in the thick of production.
Bentley Systems (2008-2013)
Prior to being recruited to join Bentley Systems in 2008, half of my career had been responsible engineering design and half had been developing training, implementing and training InRoads and InRoads Drainage (Storm&Sanitary). Half had been as an employee, half had been as a self-employed consultant.
My role at Bentley initially had been to extend our Training Content available for InRoads and then later to transform how we delivered training: to facilitate remote OnDemand Learning.
Additional major Learning System responsibilities included rolling out OpenRoads Technology, incorporating the Haestad (OpenFlows) drainage software, on-site training and consulting, and managing the Civil Content Development Team.
My current role at Bentley is Blueprints Portfolio Manager for the Design Integration Products (these include the OpenRoads, OpenPlant, OpenBuildings, STAAD/RAM product families and the MicroStation Platform). Our goal is to transform how the spectrum of value - from short job-aids through large Consulting projects - are consumed by Bentley users. Our goal is to dramatically facilitate the consumption of training and consulting - similar to how we transformed the delivery of training from Instructor-required to OnDemand self-service.
I have a Bentley page with more detail.
Please see sub-menus under Experience for discipline summaries and highlights, like
Entrepreneur
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- Category: Skills
I grew up in a culture of building a business.
My dad was always in business for himself, primarily as a General Contractor (housing and offices). I grew up in the culture of providing excellent product and service.
My first engineering job was a three engineer office.
You get a good sense of responsibility for your work and the importance of reputation with this upbringing.
Working at Intergraph Corporation extended the awareness of presence and customer service to a national and global market.
Oklahoma DOT - MicroStation & InRoads Migration
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- Parent Category: Experience
- Category: Projects
Project: MicroStation/InRoads Comprehensive Migration from MicroStation/J
Client: Oklahoma DOT (ODOT)
Prime Contractor: Bohannan Huston, Inc. (BHI)
Primary Collaborators: Janet Griffen (ODOT) and Brad Adams (BHI)
Work Scope: Precursory Education, Needs Assessment, Standards Development ("integers to names"), Software Setup
2002-2003
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