Civil engineers hard at work building, behind the scenes
Published 5:42 pm, Friday, June 7, 2013
Most people are familiar with the work of civil engineers, since we see evidence of it every bridge and building we pass.
But civil engineers are behind the prep work, too. Before a bridge was built, civil engineers designed and implemented roads, water supply and sewage systems. Before a building was erected, civil engineers stabilized soil and established water drainage.
Civil engineering, said to be one of the oldest disciplines of engineering, crosses both the public and private sectors. Projects in the government sector range from the municipal level to federal, most recently via the rehabilitation of aging infrastructure across the nation.
In private industry, the oil and gas sector is a significant employer of civil engineers.
Fluor Engineering manager Jim Wilkins said Fluor is working on several projects relating to the oil and gas industry in terms of site preparation for future facilities.
In this case, civil engineers are working along the Gulf Coast and in the wetlands to provide soil stabilization for facility foundations and solutions for potential drainage issues.
"That's the front stage of a project," Wilkins said. "After that, structural engineers design the actual structures, whether it's steel, concrete or multi-story."
Structural engineering is a subset of civil engineering, Wilkins said. It's one of approximately 20 specialties a civil engineer may consider for a career, including water, construction, environment and transportation.
While Fluor might be more known for oil and gas, it also has an active industrial and infrastructure division. Wilkins said it's finishing work on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and recently was awarded the bid for the new Tappan Zee Bridge in New York.
"There are so many different aspects to civil engineering," Wilkins said. "That's why I chose it. It's one of the most interesting disciplines."
Wilkins said that civil-engineering graduates come out of school with the basics, but it's the employers that provide industry-specific knowledge.
"The new grad is well-equipped to check existing structures, and understand how everything works, but it takes time and experience to actually begin designing structures," he said.
Even so, the doors are open for civil engineers of all levels seeking work in Houston.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects demand for this occupation will grow 19 percent between 2010 and 2020.
Wilkins said the number probably is higher than 19 percent, something Calvin Ladner of LJA Engineering in Houston agreed with.
"We're going to need a lot more than that to make everything work out," Ladner said. "There are a lot of projects coming out, both new and rehab."
LJA Engineering, working on a project involving improvements to the Loop 610, is even bringing current university students on board as interns to help carry the workload.
"They've had CAD courses; they've had basic math, science and engineering courses; but civil engineering is so broad that very few (schools) touch on every area," Ladner said. "During school, they have probably figured out what they want to specialize in, or they come out and gravitate toward a certain discipline. Then, for the most part, that's where they stay for the duration of their career."
It's a career with longevity, Ladner said, even though it comes with the natural ebb and flow of most industries.
"Things were slow in 2009, 2010 and 2011," Ladner said. "It picked up in 2012, and 2013 is looking even better. Civil engineers like interesting projects, and we've got a lot of those right now."