My early reflections regarding CH2M HILL began in 1965. After graduating from the University of Vermont (UVM) in May of 1961 with a BSCE Degree (1of 13 BSCE graduates that year), my long-term working prospects were poor; and my being drafted into the Army prospects were very high. Given this situation, I put my newly learned engineering skills to work and took a job in New York City working as a field engineer for a firm (Spencer White & Prentice) that specialized in constructing the foundations for skyscraper buildings.
After 6 enjoyable months in the Big Apple, it was be drafted or join the Navy time; so I chose the Navy OCS program in the hope that I could better use my civil engineering skills somewhere along the line. After completing OSC and receiving my commission as an ensign in the Navy, my new wife, Carol, and I headed for San Diego, California, where I was assigned the billet of damage control officer on an amphibious landing ship. To make a long story short, after 3 years of active shipboard duty, it was career decision time: ship over and make the Navy my career or depart the service and pursue my first working career love, that being in sanitary engineering.
With Vietnam on the horizon, I decided to depart the service and pursue my first working love. In the early spring of 1965, I applied for employment with a sanitary engineering firm called Cornell, Howland, Hayes, and Merryfield and was, in fact, offered an engineering position with the firm in a place called Corvallis, Oregon. However, I also had applied for a teaching fellowship to pursue a Master’s Degree in sanitary engineering at UVM and was offered that opportunity and thus decided to get my Master’s Degree in civil engineering versus accept a working position at Cornell, Howland, Hayes, and Merryfield. Thus, the 1965 beginnings of my CH2M HILL reflections.
After graduating UVM in May 1967 with a MSCE Degree, my wife Carol, my Vermont-born son Adam, and I headed for upstate New York to work for a sanitary engineering company called Stearns & Wheeler located in Cazenovia, NY. Being a small regional firm at the time, engineers who worked there had the opportunity to do everything from sewer and water system master planning studies, preliminary engineering studies, and actual water and wastewater infrastructure design work. As one of my projects, I had the good fortune to be assigned the design of the City of Cortland, NY’s, advanced wastewater treatment (AWT) plant, which involved enhanced primary treatment, carbon adsorption, and breakpoint chlorination for nitrogen removal.
My involvement in that design work brought me into contact with some senior staff members at Calgon Corporation who at the time had been involved with CH2M HILL at South Lake Tahoe and more currently in the Metro Washington, D.C., area. The water reclamation industry at that time was quite small. I followed with great interest the work CH2M HILL was doing at South lake Tahoe because I was involved with trying to incorporate many of the same AWT unit processes into the City of Cortland, NY, AWT plant design. I must admit by this time in my career, I totally had forgotten about my earlier post Navy employment quest with a firm called Cornell, Howland, Hayes, and Merryfield. However, destiny has a way of catching up with all of us.
CH2M HILL was looking to fill a project manager position in Virginia to help with the final design and construction of a 15-mgd AWT plant (internally at that time called Tahoe East) for a newly created sewage authority called the Upper Occoquan Sewage Authority (UOSA). This project was the first East of the Mississippi project to be undertaken by the now combined CH2M and Clair A. Hill and Associates companies. The UOSA project was to become the firm’s first “foothold project” in the East. It was headed up by Harlan Moyer, and supported by a cast including Sid Lasswell, Gene Suhr, John Filbert, Carl Hamann, and many other “significant others.” Knowing of my work in upstate NY, a senior Calgon staff member suggested to CH2M HILL’s local Reston, VA, office manager, Gordon Culp (son of the South Lake Tahoe Russ Culp), that he contact me to see if I would have any interest in the UOSA project manager assignment.
It is now mid-winter 1973 in Cazenovia, NY; and there have been over 200 inches of snow over the course of the winter. Spring is 3 months away, the high daily temperature is 30 degrees F at best, and I get a call from Gordon Culp in mid-February asking about my interest in relocating to VA to take over his duties on the UOSA project. Being desperate to get away from the snow and cold for a couple of days, I said, “What the hell; let’s check it out.” And a short 1-hour and 15-minute flight to National Airport a week later places me in VA where the temperature is 70 degrees. There is no snow in sight, and spring is in full swing. With this as background, one doesn’t have to be a rocket scientist to appreciate the weather lifestyle benefits of living in Northern VA versus upstate NY.
I was interviewed over dinner by Gordon Culp, John Filbert, and Carl Hamann who asked me all the difficult questions about bar screen, bar spacing, and alike; and they filled me in on the job position. UOSA was clearly a unique client (had no staff initially other than us); and the project consisted of five pump stations, 150,000 ft. of interceptor sewers and force mains, and a state-of-the-art 15-mgd AWT plant to boot. When I got home, my wife asked what I thought about the job opportunity. My reply was the job opportunity was fine, but you should see the weather down there.
Well, the rest is history. In mid-May 1973, I gave up a great little home on 17 acres with a view to die for in Cazenovia, NY. I moved my wife and now two children to Reston, VA, to join the CH2M HILL family of companies (then there was only one even though some Claire Hill folks still thought there were two) and take over the UOSA project from Gordon Culp.
Thirty-three years later, I am still working with UOSA (even in my retired status) and have enjoyed helping the company over the years build its Northeastern and more specifically Metro Washington, D.C./Virginia business base. I can honestly say that over the past 33 years, I have been personally blessed with the best clients one could hope to work for (UOSA, Fairfax County, Alexandria Sanitation Authority, Washington Suburban Sanitation Commission, Fairfax County Water Authority, Town of Leesburg, Loudon County Sanitation Authority, City of Portsmouth, and many others). But my greatest pleasure has been the opportunity to work with those many current, relocated, and some now retired employees who over the years worked in the Reston and now Herndon office. In addition to those named earlier ln this piece, these include current long-time employees like GIenn Rehberger, Dick Dyne, Sheldon Barker, Dale Green, Dick Bedard, Bob Card, Kent Robinson, Bill Dehn, Al Wollman, Tim Gallagher, Bud Ahearn, Bob Chapman, Lyle Hassebroek, Ralph Peterson, and so many others.
Did I make the right decision 33 years ago to leave “God’s country” in upstate NY to fulfill my work life destiny with CH2M HILL??? “Hell yes, folks!!!”