What is your current position? What are your areas of focus?
Assistant Vice President, Plumbing Engineer - Plumbing and specialty gases for advanced manufacturing and specialty laboratory projects.
What are your career journey highlights?
- Over 28 years of experience in the design and construction of industrial, commercial and multi-family buildings
- Experience includes 16 years of engineering design experience focused on plumbing and fire protection systems and 12 years of construction project management, purchasing, and estimating.
- Project types include advanced manufacturing, BSL3 and BSL4 laboratories, multifamily, office buildings, medical office, hospitals, hotels, dormitories, strip malls, churches, restaurants, mixed use, and high rise buildings.
What first got you interested in the plumbing engineering field?
It's a resilient design trade that is a necessary part of every building. The design procedures are methodical and code driven, so you just learn the principles and follow them.
What are the most exciting or rewarding aspects of your work?
The variety of projects and the design process is what drives me the most. As engineers, we have often 5 to 10 projects that overlap and run 3 to 6 months in the design phase although some do go longer. So the turnover of projects is very active and continually feeds the opportunity to figure out new engineering solutions.
What value have you gained from participation in ASPE Connect?
I'm increasing my involvement in ASPE connect as a contributor to assist others, but in the past, I have gained from it mainly in reading the discussions and seeing the perspective of others for fresh ideas or for confirming my design approach and seeing what others have done.
What are some of the most interesting plumbing design challenges you have encountered?
I worked on a manufacturing plant that had a storage tank that shared fire protection water and process water. It was sized to be 3.5 million gallons and was 114 feet in diameter. The process pumps had to run at low flow and up to 5200 gpm in an emergency. So, that was an interesting design.
What is your favorite hobby or pastime outside of work?
When I'm out of the office I like to ride motorcycles or go fishing. There is nothing better than trout fishing on a quite stream from a kayak or fly fishing knee deep in the water on a camping trip!
Be sure to connect with @Joseph McDonald and say hello!