CalTrans Staff Augmentation Through CH2MHill
Urban Highway and Drainage Design
San Diego, CA
April 2005 - Dec 2006
After five years traveling about 50% of the time and getting to a point where I would either staff up or go back to production work, I answered an ad for an InRoads Guru at CH2MHill.
It was a bit of a bait-and-switch, as the position they had was a full-time Staff Augmentation position at CalTrans. It would be cool to work at CalTrans, so no problem. I didn't count on CAiCE being such primative software, though. That was rather excruciating.
The first year, I worked with a team in an temporary/construction office right by our I-15 HOV Lane Design Phasing Project (the CalTrans equivalent of Design/Build). My responsibility was the Engineering and Drainage of Design of a Direct Access Ramp at Del Lago Blvd. Really tight constraints and prone to a lot of revisions. I had the north ramp.
My little cubical quad was anchored by Hamed (who had the south ramp) and Debbie and Sara who had mainline geometry. We worked hard, but laughed harder, especially Sara.
My favorite moment there was when I came back after a week off, and there were balloons and knick-knacks congratulating me on the birth of my son. How many moments in life do you get like that?
Runner up moment was winning the District 11 volleyball championship. Saturday mornings working with Hamed, Debbie, and Sara.
In the last six months, I moved to the new District 11 Headquarters and worked on the I-5 widening project, doing intersection layout and drainage preliminaries. My son was part of the original litter of babies at the Day Care there.