Past Awards & Scholarships
The ASCE St. Louis Section celebrates accomplished engineers and projects that highlight the best our region has to offer to the civil engineering profession. These honored individuals are nominated by their peers in recognition of their service and achievements. Nominate a project or colleague whom you believe deserves recognition by ASCE St. Louis Section.
Project of the Year Award
2023 Award - Oglesby Park
Owner: St. Charles County Parks
Contractor: Kuesel Excavating Co.
Consultant: Horner & Shifrin, Inc.
The three-time award-winning park offers shelters, natural surface and paved trails, and a destination playground. The park honors former slave, Benjamin Oglesby, who fought for the Union in Arkansas during the American Civil War before buying St. Charles County farmland to raise his family, partially enclosed in the current 199-acre Foristell park.
2022 Award - Timber Trail to Briar Ridge Channel
Owner: City of Frontenac
Contractor: Ideal Landscape Construction, Inc.
Consultant: EDM, Inc.
The Timber Trail to Briar Ridge Channel project produced an aesthetically pleasing solution to chronic, and often severe, bank erosion and creek degradation in this Frontenac neighborhood. Careful technical analysis, creative engineering, thorough communication, and sensitivity to the impacted residents were all instrumental to making this an outstanding example of civil engineering. This project is making a real difference at the local level, where people live and play.
2020 Award - Belleville Former MPG Site (Remediation of a Former Manufactured Site)
Property Owner: City of Belleville, IL
Project Owner: Ameren Illinois
Contractor: HydroChemPSC
Hydraulics Consultant: Kaskaskia Engineering Group, LLC
Geotechnical Consultant: Terracon Consultants, Inc.
The project consisted of the remediation of a site in Belleville, Illinois between Richland Creek to the west and south, West Washington Street to the northeast, and South 6th Street to the east. The site is approximately 4.2 acres, and remediation was performed to depths of up to about 45 feet. Because of the nature of the contaminants, conventional excavation and disposal methods were selected as the approach for remediation.
The site served as a Manufactured Gas Plant from the late 1860s thru the mid-1920s. This process involved the gasification of coal to produce gases that could be used as fuel for lighting, heating, and cooking; the primary use being street lights. By products were generated from the gasification process and some of these by-products would enter the surrounding soil and groundwater, typically in the form of a tarry material referred to as coal tar and coal tar by-products.
While the property is currently owned by the City of Belleville, as the former owner and responsible party, Ameren was to address and remediate the impacted soils to a level that would permit the City to use the property without the hindrance of any restrictions. While not fully determined, the City’s future use of the property is anticipated to be as recreational or as a park.
2019 Award - Poplar Street Bridge Widening and Rehabilitation
Owner: Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT)
Contractor: KCI Construction
Consultant: HDR, Inc
The Poplar Street Bridge widening and rehabilitation project used innovation and cooperation to improve mobility and solve decades old problems on the Poplar Street Bridge and its numerous ramps. The Poplar Street Bridge is a five span (300’-500-600-500'-265') 2,165' long structure which carries l-64, 1-55 and 1-70 over the Mississippi River in downtown St. Louis and is the primary commuter route connecting Missouri and Illinois. The bridge’s twin Eastbound and Westbound Structures originally designed to carry 4 lanes of traffic each way. It consists of variable depth steel box girders (25' max. depth) with an orthotropic steel deck on a shared substructure. On March 31, 2018, the EB Poplar Street Bridge was successfully moved (slid) 9’ to the south.
The slide took approximately 2.5 hours total using a system of hydraulic jacks located at six piers. This was a major project milestone, a landmark engineering feat, and a significant media story in the St. Louis region. The Poplar Street Bridge was the longest and heaviest existing bridge to ever be lifted and moved in the United States.
2018 Award - S. Sprigg Street Bridge Over Active Sinkholes
Owner: City of Cape Girardeau
Contractor: Robertson Contractors, Inc.
Consultant: Horner & Shifrin, Inc.
Horner & Shifrin completed the design and construction management of a replacement bridge on Sprigg St. over Cape La Croix Creek for the City of Cape Girardeau. The original bridge was constructed in the 1930s, with a cave developing under the bridge by 1991. In 1993, subsurface investigations began for a new replacement bridge, which was constructed in 1995. By 2007, sinkholes began forming, as many as 20 within 1,100 feet of the bridge. In 2008, the US Army Corps of Engineers, St. Louis District, prepared a Task Force Report, which evaluated the sinkholes that affect the road, bridge, rail line, buildings, quarry, cement plant, dairy farm, and utilities.
By June of 2013, four new sinkholes developed at the bridge, destroying the north approach roadway and threatening the structural integrity of the north abutment by exposing piles, requiring closure of the bridge. Sprigg St. is an important route connecting downtown Cape Girardeau with industrial and farming areas to the south. Horner & Shifrin teamed with Stantec and TSi Geotechnical, Inc. for geotechnical investigations and Civil Design, Inc. for survey.
2017 Award - 101 & 107 Frontenac Forest Storm Improvements
Owner: City of Frontenac
Contractor: Ideal Landscape Construction
Consultant: EDM Inc.
The project addresses chronic and often severe flooding in a neighborhood within the City of Frontenac, Missouri. The 101 & 107 Frontenac Forest Storm Improvements project involved enhancing the existing drainage infrastructure in the Frontenac Forest Subdivision. There is approximately 200 acres draining to the problem area. EDM’s work included a hydraulic and cost study to review alternative solutions, leading them to recommend a solution with the least downstream impacts and a cost savings of $250,000 over the most expensive option.
The solution involved conversion of a railroad tie-wall channel to a meandering channel with added capacity, as well as the addition of a 60-inch storm sewer to relieve the existing 48-inch pipe, and a large junction chamber to connect to the 84-inch pipe downstream
2016 Award - Missouri River Wastewater Treatment Facility
Owner: Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District (MSD)
Contractor: Goodwin Brothers
Consultant: Black & Veatch
The Missouri River Wastewater Treatment Facility Secondary Treatment Expansion and Disinfection Facilities project to increase capacity from 28 to 38 million gallons per day (mgd) average and a maximum of 80 mgd wet-weather flow to serve potential commercial, light industrial and residential development planned near the facility. The $94 million project involved new aeration basins, final clarifiers, an ultraviolet light disinfection facility and blower building. These new facilities replaced existing trickling filters with newer technology and increased the secondary treatment capacity. The solids treatment planning resulted in a new solids handling building that consolidated different facilities throughout the plant into one centralized more efficient building that housed new rotary drum thickeners, centrifuges, sludge pumps, sludge storage silos and a truck-loading station. The associated improvements to the solids processing included existing digester modifications as well as a new anaerobic digester.
2015 Award - I-270 Canal Crossing: Renewing Bi-State Mobility
Owner: Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT)
Contractor: Walsh Construction Company
Consultant: HDR
The twin truss bridges that carried I-270 over the Chain of Rocks Canal were built in 1963 by the same firm that designed the I-35W Bridge in Minneapolis that failed in 2007. The bridges serve as a major interstate and St. Louis Area commuter link between Illinois and Missouri, with an average annual daily traffic count of 54,700 vehicles and 20% truck traffic. The bridges cross the canal that acts as a Mississippi River Bypass for all barge traffic traveling through St. Louis. Due to the many impacts to the traveling public, IDOT and HDR worked collaboratively to study and design the replacement bridge in a condensed 24-month schedule. The bridges were completed and opened to traffic in 2014, which has brought new functionality and aesthetic enhancements to a primary gateway between the two states. The new bridge represents the largest steel plate I-girder bridge in Illinois.
Due to the I-35W collapse, HDR also inspected the old bridges annually to ensure that the structural integrity was sufficient during design and construction of the new bridges, identifying rehabilitation requirements to keep the structures serviceable in the near term. Since construction funding was not secured at the time, HDR developed a solution to construct the bridge in phases as funding became available. The Chain of Rocks Canal is bounded by two US Army Corps of Engineers levees. One of the critical pier locations was within the east levee. This required a compromise with USACE to relocate a portion of the levee, which provided a secondary resiliency benefit to the public for flood protection and bridge safety.
2014 Award - Stan Musial Veterans Memorial Bridge
Owner: Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT)
Contractor: Massman/Traylor/Alberici JV
Consultant: HNTB Corporation
The New I-70 Mississippi River Bridge – officially named the Stan Musial Veterans Memorial Bridge – and its corridor were a successful example of multi-state, agency, consultant and stakeholder coordination with more than 30 firms working alongside the Missouri and Illinois Departments of Transportation. The four-lane corridor carries 55,000 vehicles daily between downtown St. Louis and Southwestern Illinois and includes the Tri-Level Interchange, the I-70 Connector and the Missouri North Interchange totaling more than 1-1/2 miles of structure and 76.1 roadway lane miles. Designed in half the time of similar bridges, with a main span of 1,500 feet, the new bridge is the third longest cable-stayed bridge in the United States.
2013 Award - East Riverfront Interlocking, Eads Bridge - East Tower Railroad Span Replacement
Owner: Bi-State Development Agency
Contractor: St. Louis Bridge Construction Co.
Consultant: ABS Consulting Extreme Loads and Structural Risk Division
This project involved the replacement of a deteriorated steel framing grid structure supporting MetroLink tracks crossing through the East Tower of the Eads Bridge East Arcade. The East Tower is located on the river side of the Mississippi River flood wall, near the East Riverfront MetroLink Station in East St. Louis, IL. The tower structure features perimeter masonry walls supported on timber pile foundations. The original span as well as the originally proposed replacement span was supported on the tower masonry walls. Maintenance of the steel span, which was accessible only from the tower interior, would have required construction of suspended steel platforms (galleries) inside the East Tower and underneath the active MetroLink tracks.
The alternate solution featured complete removal of the steel framing grid supporting the railroad tracks and replacing it with a newly constructed lightweight engineered fill material, made of high-density Expanded Polystyrene (EPS), placed inside the East Tower structure, between the existing masonry walls. This is the first use of EPS blocks in support of an active railroad in the region.
2012 Award - Lemay Wastewater Treatment Plant Wet Weather Expansion
Owner: Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District (MSD)
Contractor: Tarlton Corporation
Consultant: Black & Veatch
This $95M project was completed in 2011. The expansion is expected to improve water quality in the River Des Peres and Mississippi River by providing the ability to treat an additional 84 million gallons per day of wastewater during rain events that may have previously been discharged to the waterways without treatment. The project also provides odor control at the plant, not only for the new facilities but retrofitting existing facilities. The project included expansion of an influent pump station, new flow monitoring and diversion facilities, nearly 5000 LF of pipe from 88-inches to 144-inches in diameter, two 35-foot diameter covered grit collection basins, four channel grinders, four 133-foot diameter primary clarifiers with aluminum covers, and a primary sludge pumping station capable of providing 84 mgd of additional wet weather treatment, and a new 132” outfall to the Mississippi River.
2011 Award - St. Louis Harbor Project
Owner: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE)
Consultant: USACE
2006 Award – Lambert Airport Expansion Program
Owner: St. Louis Board of Public Service/Lambert – St. Louis Airport Authority
Consultant: Sverdrup, Parsons, Kwame Joint Venture
2005 Award – Lindbergh Boulevard Tunnel
Owner: City of St. Louis Airport Authority
Contractor: McCarthy/Mosley II, A Joint Venture
Consultant: URS Corporation
The Lindbergh Boulevard Tunnel, located in Bridgeton, Missouri, is a 1,418-foot long cut-and-cover tunnel, which allows Lindbergh Boulevard to cross under Lambert-St. Louis International Airport’s new Runway. Each of the tunnel’s two cells is 46 feet wide and 21 ½ feet high. URS utilized an innovative rigid frame design for the cut-and-cover tunnel, with a composite precast, prestressed box beam/cast-in-place five-foot thick top slab. URS’ structural engineers designed the tunnel for a 1,250,000-pound aircraft plus 100% impact load and about 8 feet of earth cover. The Simplified Racking Method was used to evaluate seismic loads induced into the frame.
A ten-foot-wide utility corridor extends the full length of the tunnel along the east wall, housing conduits and equipment for the tunnel systems. This corridor connects to a 7,200-square-foot ancillary building at the south end of the tunnel which houses the control room, rest room, storage room, electrical room, backup generator room, UPS room, and the battery room. The north and south tunnel portals feature sandblasted, exposed aggregate concrete facades with integral textured accent banding.
The state-of-the art life safety equipment, Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) and automated monitoring systems put the Lindbergh Boulevard Tunnel on the cutting edge of tunnel technology nationwide. This project was designed for the City of St. Louis Airport Authority and is now operated by the Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT). The two-cell tunnel will carry 50,000 vehicles per day with ultimately three lanes of traffic in each direction for northbound and southbound Lindbergh Boulevard, which is a MoDOT principal arterial.
2004 Award – Forest Park Linear Connected Waterway System, Post-Dispatch Lake, and Grand Basin
Owner: City of St. Louis Parks, Recreation and Forestry and Forest Park Forever
Consultant: CH2M Hill
CH2M HILL received the Outstanding Civil Engineering Achievement award from the St. Louis Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers. The honor recognizes the firm’s role in restoring Forest Park, one of the largest urban parks in the United States. In 1904, the park’s defining feature, the River des Peres, was routed underground to make room for the World’s Fair. Ten years later, after a devastating flood, voters approved a bond issue to route all 18 miles of the river that was within city limits underground. Construction began in 1923, and by 1930 the river was flowing through two permanent horseshoe shaped tunnels. Moving the river left lakes and lagoons with no hydraulic connection to each other or the river.
By the 1980s, inadequate maintenance and uncoordinated development led Forest Park’s grounds into disrepair. In 1993, St. Louis voters passed a half-cent sales tax to benefit city parks. Half the funds went toward Forest Park’s restoration. Two years later, after extended consultation with community groups, park users and technical experts, the 67-member committee submitted a master plan. The City Council approved it and construction began. During the master plan and schematic design phase, the project team recognized that the now underground River des Peres historically defined the park’s spatial character of bottomlands, bluffs, and upland areas. However, reclaiming the river wasn’t a viable option because it now flowed through sewer pipes running along the northern and eastern park boundaries. CH2M HILL engineers worked with park architect John Hoal of H3 Studio exploring a way to connect the park’s many lakes and lagoons into one continuous waterway. The design team evaluated how the waterway would look and function during ordinary, drought and flood conditions. One of the challenges to the waterway was the park’s limited slope. While the upstream waterway drops 10 feet, the downstream portion only drops four feet. Despite the small slopes, the design team created rippling streams and waterfall features by using recirculation systems to increase the flow and velocity. The design also reduces dependency on city water. Prior to the renovation, park maintenance fed almost 3 million gallons per day of city water into the many separate water bodies. The design process has decreased city water usage to 1.5 mgd.
Also, the design integrates engineering technology into park aesthetics. Pump facilities blend with the landscape, yet are accessible for maintenance. Extra structural reinforcement enables the natural looking ripples in the streams to withstand heavy flooding. Control structures such as weirs produce picturesque stream ripples and waterfalls. Before renovation a large concrete spillway connected Post-Dispatch Lake to a lagoon. To improve the appearance, the architects split the spillway into two levels of handicapped-accessible footbridges. Long flat rocks serve as weir structures beneath the bridges. CH2M HILL’s work continues although the construction is completed. A team including Cathy Barnett, Mary Lew, Walt Ogburn, and Elise Ibendahl assisted park staff in monitoring the waterway during the 2004 growing season. By the end of the year the team will complete a "Water System Operations Manual" for the City of St. Louis. On the 100th Anniversary of the World’s Fair, St. Louis dedicated the new river and restored park grounds.
2003 Award – Columbia Bottom Conservation Area Phase 1 Project, EDM Inc.
Owner: Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC)
Consultant: EDM Inc.
Columbia Bottom is a 4,300-acre site located in St. Louis County, Missouri, at the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. The site is owned by the Missouri Department of Conservation, and is being developed as a multi-faceted conservation area.
The Phase I project included roadway design, hydrology and hydraulics, wetland mitigation, scour protection, floodplain analysis, design of river structures, and environmental considerations.
The project consisted of the following elements:
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Five miles of asphalt paved access roads
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Five miles of aggregate-surfaced hiking/biking trails
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Two-lane concrete boat ramp on the Missouri River
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Accessible fishing pier on the Missouri River
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Paved boat ramp parking lot
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Accessible viewing platform located at the confluence
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120-foot long accessible boardwalk
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Creation of manmade wetlands
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Paved parking for cars and buses near the Confluence Viewing Platform.
Professional Recognition Award
Presented to an individual with an established reputation for professional service; objective and lasting achievement in improving the conditions under which professional engineers practice; and significant contribution to civil engineering education and guidance of young civil engineers.
2023 - Michael Buechter, P.E., D.WRE, F.EWRI
2022 - Jeffrey Fouse, P.E., F. ASCE
2021 - Randall Perkinson, P.E. P. Eng, F. ASCE
2020 - Elise Ibendahl, P.E., PMP, F. ASCE
2019 - W. Eric Showalter, Ph.D., P.E., LEEP AP
2018 - Robert R. Holmes, Ph.D., P.E., D. WRE, F. EWRI, F. ASCE
2017 - Josephine L. Emerick, P.E.
2016 - Gene L. Rovak, P.E., F. ASCE
2015 - Marsia Geldert-Murphey, P.E.
2014 - John J. Myers, Ph.D, P.E., F.ASCE, F.ACI, F.TMS
2013 - Dr. Narayan Bodapati, Ph.D., P.E.
2012 - Allen Minks, P.E.
2006 - Marie Collins, P.E.
2005 - Sanjeeve Kumar, Ph.D, P.E.
2004 - Robert G. Butchko
2003 - No Award Given
2002 - Phillip Gould, Ph.D, P.E., S.E.
Young Engineer Award
Presented to a young member who has advanced the profession; exhibited technical competence, high character, and integrity; improved member attitudes towards the profession; and contributed public service outside his/her professional career.
2023 - Melissa Rettig, P.E.
2022 - Stephen Noeth, P.E., S.E.
2021 - Kandi Spraggs, P.E.
2020 - Jeremiah King, P.E.
2019 - Jiaman Xu, P.E.
2018 - Siavash Zamiran, Ph.D., P.E.
2017 - No awardee
2016 - Alison N. Graves, P.E.
2015 - Jordan Pettibone, P.E.
2014 - Melantha Norton, P.E.
2013 - Kyle Tabor, P.E.
2012 - Jay Hoskins, P.E.
2011 - Bill Stahlman, P.E.
2006 - Elise Ibendahl, P.E.
2005 - Shawnna Erter, P.E.
2004 - Luis J. Porrello, P.E.
2003 - No Award Given
2002 - Adam Spector, P.E.
Otto Nuttli Section Award
Presented to an individual who has made a significant contribution the knowledge of earthquake engineering or the public awareness of the impacts of earthquakes on the public sector.
2023 -
2022 - Phillis Steckel, P.E.
2021 - Ronald Brendel, P.E.
2020 - Ben Ross, P.E.
2015 - Michael Griffin, P.E.
2012 - Ted Pruess, P.E.
2011 - Greg Hempen, Ph.D., P.E., RG
2004 - Dave Hoffman
1994 - Phillip Gould, Ph.D., P.E., S.E.
Outstanding Faculty/Practitioner Award
This award is made annually for any Faculty/Practitioner Advisor who supports ASCE student chapters and civil engineering students.
2023 - Jalil Kianfar, Ph.D., P.E., PTOE, RSP
2022 - Joel Burken, Ph.D., P.E., F. AEESP