Awards Banquet

Professional Engineer of the Year 2023

January 29, 2023

Donald G. Anderson, Ph. D., P. E., G. E.

Jacobs Engineering Group

Donald G. Anderson, Jacobs Engineering Group, has been selected as the recipient of the 2023 Professional Engineer of the Year Award in recognition of his outstanding service to the engineering profession and his lifetime achievements in the geotechnical design of numerous infrastructure projects throughout the Pacific Northwest including transportation, water storage and conveyance, wastewater treatment, and environmental restoration.

He has a long history of providing geotechnical engineering leadership and consultation on major projects in the Seattle area, as well as projects across the United States and Canada. He provides specialized expertise in the areas of earthquake engineering and soil dynamics. His work on highway and bridge projects involved geotechnical design of cut and fill slopes, approach fills, deep foundations, spread footings, and retaining walls. His work on port and harbor projects included design of deep foundations, embankment stability analysis, dredging studies, pile installation monitoring, and pile-load testing. His work on water storage and treatment facilities involved determination of foundation support requirements, earth pressures on buried walls, and seismic design criteria.

He has been actively involved in the advancement of geotechnical earthquake engineering and soil dynamics. He participated in the development of seismic ground motion design requirements included in the International Building Code and in United States and Canadian Building Codes. He has been an active participant in community affairs and technical society engagement. He has served as vice-chair and chair of the Seattle area American Society of Civil Engineers Geotechnical Group as well as a board director of the group.

Young Engineer of the Year 2023

Philip B. Yu

Mott MacDonald, LLC

Philip B. Yu, Mott MacDonald, LLC, has been selected as the recipient of the 2023 Young Engineer of the Year Award in recognition of his excellent work as a marine structural engineer working on multiple marine projects along both the east and west coasts, his mentorship of junior engineers, and his service as advisor to the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) University of Washington Student Chapter.

Since graduating from the University of Washington, he has been involved with the Seattle Section’s ASCE Younger Member’s Forum. He served as an At-Large Chair and assisted in organizing the annual Popsicle Stick Bridge Competition and served as the co-organizer and an instructor for the Fundamentals of Engineering Review Course. Later he became the Practitioner Advisor for the University of Washington ASCE Student Chapter and provided academic and professional development advice to the chapter officers. He is an Engineer-in-Training and in the process of pursing a Professional Engineer license in California.

As a marine structural engineer, he has provided engineering services on over 30 marine projects for a variety of public entities along the east and west coasts. From structural inspections, conceptual designs, and alternative analyses to submittal reviews and punch list site visits, he has worked on both recreational and commercial facilities of various sizes, including boat launches, breakwaters, marinas, piers, and wharves. Over the past year, he has assumed more responsibility at his company by being given entire deliverables to develop, junior engineers to lead and mentor, a client to focus on for business development, a university to engage with for recruitment, and an internal training program to conduct focusing on project risk, ethics, and finance.

Kenneth W. Porter Award 2023

Nicole Peden

Davido Consulting Group, Inc.

Nicole Peden, Davido Consulting Group, Inc., has been selected as the recipient of the 2023 Kenneth W. Porter Award in recognition of her many contributions to the education of K-12 students, her service as K-12 Outreach Chair for the American Society of Civil Engineers Younger Member’s Forum; her participation in Discovery Days and the Popsicle Stick Bridge Competition, her development of virtual K-12 outreach events during the pandemic, and her commitment to developing interest in engineering among K-12 students.

Soon after graduation from the University of Washington, she joined the American Society of Civil Engineers Younger Member’s Forum (YMF) and agreed to become the K-12 Outreach Chair during the height of the pandemic. Her goals were to work on rebuilding a network of students, volunteers, and organizations since most museums, schools, and facilities closed and no longer had in-person events. She recruited YMF volunteers to participate in various virtual events. Once in-person opportunities returned, she organized in-person events and recruited YMF volunteers to participate in them. During the summer of 2022, she arranged for YMF to host a rotation during the Museum of Flight’s Fly Forward summer in-person program. For this event, she organized an activity for middle school students to create spaghetti structures and learn about structural engineering basics. Later in the autumn, she arranged for YMF to host a booth at the Museum of Flight’s Back to School Spacewalk for middle school students. The students made marshmallow and toothpick structures and asked questions about civil engineering and the volunteers’ STEM experiences. This event showcased careers in various engineering disciplines. Dedicated to outreach of K-12 students, she is passionate about inspiring future engineers, especially women engineers.

Industry Engineer of the Year 2023

Steven Chisholm

The Boeing Company

Steven Chisholm, The Boeing Company, has been selected as the recipient of the 2023 Industry Engineer of the Year Award in recognition of his many contributions to the aviation industry as a mechanical and structural engineer; his leadership in ensuring the structural integrity of Boeing products; and his contributions to the aviation industry in the areas of safety, regulatory activity, advanced composites, and additive manufacturing.

As Vice President and Functional Chief Engineer for Mechanical and Structural Engineering (MSE), he leads the integration of people, practices, and tools for the MSE function across all business units within the company. He dedicated most of the last 36 years contributing to airplane safety. For more than a decade, he assessed the structural integrity of individual airplanes, reviewed and approved structural repairs, and interfaced with airline customers on maintaining the safety of their airplanes. He led the Federal Aviation Administration-sponsored industry group responsible for publication of industry guidance on mandatory actions for service issues, rulemaking on addressing in-service corrosion, and maintenance programs for addressing the potential for widespread fatigue damage. He led efforts in the industry to continue development of advanced composites and expand their use in airplane structures. He collaborated with external partners, both international and domestic, to explore more efficient airplane manufacturing processes to reduce airplane weight and to expand the ability to recycle airplane components.

He has made an indelible impact in the field of engineering. His technical and business leadership have positioned Boeing for success and helped create a pipeline of future talent for the company. His efforts to advance women have significantly amplified their voices within Boeing and in the industry.

Government Engineer of the Year 2023

Tony Allen, P. E.

Washington State Department of Transportation

Tony Allen, P. E., Washington State Department of Transportation, has been selected as the recipient of the 2023 Government Engineer of the Year Award in recognition of his exceptional career as a geotechnical engineer, his development of standards for geosynthetic materials and retaining wall engineered products, and his participation in the development of improved design procedures for addressing stormwater infiltration.

He is an internationally recognized geotechnical engineer with 39 year of experience in the public sector. This experience includes leading the geotechnical engineering program for the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) for the past 29 years as the State Geotechnical Engineer. He has been a technical policy maker who has significantly influenced both public and private sector geotechnical design and construction practice, both locally and nationally. He led the development of the WSDOT Geotechnical Design Manual that contains engineering design standards and construction specifications. This manual is widely used by local agencies, WSDOT, other state departments of transportation, and the Federal Highway Administration. He has been very active with the American Association of Highway and Transportation Officials leading a committee responsible for development of design specifications for bridge wall and foundation design and leading a second committee responsible for development of a testing and evaluation program for geosynthetic reinforcement products. He developed a research program to analyze the design of reinforced soil structures that use geosynthetic and steel reinforcement. The results were published in a technical paper describing a new, more cost-effective method of designing mechanically stabilized earth retaining walls. His paper won several awards, and the proposed design method has been incorporated into national bridge design specifications.

Academic Engineer of the Year 2023

Professor Pedro Arduino, Ph. D.

University of Washington

Professor Pedro Arduino, Ph. D., University of Washington, has been selected as the recipient of the 2023 Academic Engineer of the Year Award in recognition of his exceptional career as a geotechnical engineering educator, his significant contributions to the development and application of advanced numerical modeling techniques for analysis of soil behavior and the behavior of soil-structure interfaces, and his dedicated efforts as a teacher and mentor of engineering students.

He is a nationally and internationally recognized leader in computational geomechanics. He has been instrumental in the development of constitutive models of soils subjected to earthquake shaking, the development of advanced finite element models for soil-structure interaction, and experiential study of granular soils under complex loading conditions. He has been active in the development of the OpenSees finite element package that has the unusual ability of modeling both soils and structural elements, thus allowing direct investigations of nonlinear soil-structure interaction. He has also been a pioneer in the development of Material Point Method models that can be used to analyze particulate flow slides and to estimate forces due to the impact and damming effects of debris carried by tsunamis.

He has been recognized as one of the best and most popular instructors in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. He is known for his clear and enthusiastic style of lecturing and for being an early adapter of technology in the classroom. He has revamped the graduate soil mechanics laboratory course by installing new testing and automated data acquisition equipment. He also strengthened the graduate curriculum by developing new courses in computational geomechanics and constitutive modeling.

He also has served as an academic leader. He served as Associated Dean of the College of Engineering and as Associate Chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Professional Engineer of the Year, 2022

April 13, 2022

M. Lee Marsh, Ph. D., P. E.

WSP USA, Inc.

M. Lee Marsh, Ph. D., P. E., WSP USA, Inc., has been selected as the recipient of the 2022 Professional Engineer of the Year Award in recognition of his lifetime achievements in the development and maintenance of seismic design procedures for bridges, his design support of numerous Northwest public agency bridge projects, and his contributions to publication of national bridge design guidelines.

As a design engineer at Berger ABAM, he quickly emerged as the firm’s go-to specialist and helped many internal teams perform seismic design and seismic assessment. He became the company seismic specialist and supported all structural practice groups in the firm – bridge, marine, and buildings with seismic design concerns. His work bridges between academic research and design of actual structures. He led the development and delivery of a National Highway Institute course on seismic design of bridges. This training provides critical skill development for application of modern bridge seismic design provisions. He supported the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials in the development of their performance-based seismic design procedures. In addition, he led a team to develop a fully precast bent system to be used for accelerated bridge construction in high seismic regions. This resulted in a demonstration bridge being constructed over I-5 south of Olympia.

He has served as a key design team member providing seismic design criteria and approaches for numerous bridge projects for Washington Department of Transportation, Seattle Department of Transportation, and Sound Transit. He was part of the team that identified and stabilized the West Seattle High Bridge cracking problem.

Young Engineer of the Year, 2022

Amy J. Moore

Flatiron Construction

Amy J. Moore, Flatiron Construction, has been selected as the recipient of the 2022 Young Engineer of the Year Award in recognition of her excellent work as a field engineer responsible for supervising construction work on several major infrastructure projects, her leadership roles in the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Younger Member Forum, and her services as an instructor for the Fundamentals of Engineering Review Course.

Serving as a field engineer for the construction of the Georgetown Wet Weather Treatment Station, she was responsible for planning and completing the concrete work on four buildings, managing steel erection, getting the buildings weather tight, and managing the architectural finish scopes of work. Coordinating with other trades and areas on the project, she created the pour sequence of the walls, procured formwork, and created crane pick plans for formwork installation including some near active power lines. Serving as a mentor to the summer interns, she ensured that they were developing engineering skills such as plan reading, discipline coordination, and craft management. As a member of the ASCE Younger Member Forum, she serves as President-Elect and as past chair of the Popsicle Stick Bridge competition. This is the Forum’s largest outreach event of the year. Typically, over 200 students, parents, and volunteers attend the event to watch bridges built by high school students load tested at the Museum of Flight. As chair of the event, she was responsible for writing the building code, reaching out to high schools, coordinating with the venue, organizing volunteers, and procuring prizes. She volunteered to serve as a judge for the ASCE Pacific Northwest Concrete Canoe Competition. She also volunteered her time to create practice problems and hold a review session with civil engineering students for the ASCE Fundamentals of Engineering Review Course.

Kenneth W. Porter Award, 2022

Steven Evans, P.E.

PACCAR

Steven Evans, P. E., PACCAR, has been selected as the recipient of the 2022 Kenneth W. Porter Award in recognition of his many contributions to the education of K-12 students by showing them the exciting opportunities available in engineering. He has been mentoring Eastlake High School students in the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics Competition for the past twenty years. During this period, he has mentored over 475 high school students. In addition, for the past 18 years, he has been President of the Eastlake Robotics Boosters that raises funding to support the robotics teams.

He enjoys working with the students and believes that there is no substitute for hands-on experience. He conducts training sessions in the fall to ensure all the students know how to use all the tools and machines in the shop safely. This sometimes includes introducing students to tools that are new to them. During the build season, beginning in January, the teams have six weeks in which to develop a concept, design, debug, and have a robot ready for competition. During this time, the teams are divided into groups. Each group is led by a student who has been with the team for one or more years. This provides the veterans an opportunity to lead a small team. His approach is not about the robot. It is about inspiring high school students to become science and technology leaders and innovators. The students are engaged in an exciting mentor-based program that builds science, engineering, technology, and teamwork skills as well as self-confidence, communication, and leadership skills. To publicize the work of his students, he brings his robotics teams to the annual Puget Sound Engineering Council Engineering Fair to display their robots and discuss their experiences with Fair visitors.

Industry Engineer of the Year, 2022

Luis Leon

The Boeing Company

Luis Leon, The Boeing Company, has been selected as the recipient of the 2022 Industry Engineer of the Year Award in recognition of his many contributions to the aviation industry as a materials and process engineer, his technical expertise in metallurgical alloys and their processes, his numerous patents, and his leadership of multiple engineering professional organizations.

He has primarily worked in research, process and product development, and manufacturing and production fields within the Boeing Company. He participated in the design of the first close-coupled aluminum solution heat treatment facility that is used for heat treating precipitation hardening of aluminum alloys. This process was used to produce hardened aluminum components that were used to replace cracking skin components on the B-747 aircraft. He worked as a member of the engineering team that conducted initial design studies that led to the development of the B-787 aircraft. His knowledge of materials processing led to evaluation of alternatives to the current propulsion system major structure design. He oversaw the Propulsion Technology Portfolio composed of enterprise-wide projects. He was responsible for assessing the materials and processes for each project and determining which best met new and derivative aircraft needs. In this role, he provided leadership for applications designed using titanium matrix composites, ceramic matrix composites, polyimides, and high temperature material systems.

He has been an active member of ASM International and Puget Sound Engineering Council (PSEC). He developed the template for PSEC’s student mentor nights that are conducted annually at local universities and colleges to enable engineers of many disciplines to share their career experiences with the students.