Austin Brockenbrough & Associates Holds Ribbon-Cutting Ceremony

Austin Brockenbrough & Associates hosted a Ribbon-Cutting Ceremony on Tuesday, March 9, 2010 at 2:00 p.m. at their office located at 1011 Boulder Springs Drive, Suite 200 in Richmond to celebrate their recent move to the Boulders Office Park. Partners of the firm, Bruce K. Sadler and Carolyn B. Langelotti conducted the ceremony and were joined by leaders of the Chesterfield Chamber of Commerce and other civic leaders. This event provided an opportunity to see the new office, meet the staff of Brockenbrough, and gain a better understanding of the engineering services they provide.

The new office is on track to becoming LEED® certified. LEED is an internationally recognized green building certification system that certifies a location was designed and built to maximize energy savings, water efficiency, CO2 emissions reduction, and improved indoor environmental quality. The new office also includes the latest telecom technology, underlining the company’s commitment to better serve its clients.

Brockenbrough Sponsors Popsicle Bridge Contest

150 Middle and High school students from around the area participated in the Annual Popsicle Bridge Contest at the Science Museum, hosted by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and the Richmond Joint Engineers Council (RJEC).

This year marked the15th consecutive year that the ASCE Richmond Branch has hosted the event and had the largest turnout yet. The contest took place during the Career’s in Engineering Field Day, partially sponsored by local firm Austin Brockenbrough & Associates.

As part of the bridge contest, students competed for a variety of awards including the Most Aesthetically Pleasing Bridge and the Most Innovative Bridge. Additionally, one team of students was able to beat the score of a bridge designed by ASCE members for which they received special recognition. Of course, the bridges were also tested to determine the maximum load that each could take before failure. The winners were determined based on an efficiency rating which factored in the weight of the bridge in addition to its maximum load capacity. Many of the bridges achieved loads around 400 lbs which is quite impressive considering that the bridges could only be constructed of standard sized Popsicle sticks and Elmer’s Multi-Purpose Glue.

Twenty-five ASCE members and industry personnel volunteered at the event. In addition to judging and testing the projects, these volunteers also helped educate the students at the event about what it is to work as a Civil Engineer. A special thanks to everyone who volunteered to help with the event, including Brockenbrough's own Mike Howell, who led the event, is a Structural Engineer with Brockenbrough, and also the Education Outreach Chair for the Richmond Chapter of ASCE.

Brockenbrough Hosts Water Quality Seminar

On February 24th, Brockenbrough hosted a technical seminar discussing Storage Tank Water Quality in the new state of the art Training Room at the Brockenbrough office.

This training provided a unique opportunity to offer training to regulatory agencies (VDH), Utility Owners (Chesterfield Utilities Department), consultants (Brockenbrough, WR&A) and equipment representatives (Flomec) together in one room.

The videoconference meeting was conducted by Mike Duer, PE, with Tideflex in Pittsburg, PA, presenting the research behind tank mixing and the engineering solutions to providing complete water mixing and preserving water quality. Currently only general regulations govern tank mixing, thereby making the seminar helpful by providing research and real world examples to support use of mixing systems to improve water quality. Tideflex's passive mixing system brings sustainability to the table with this system as it utilizes the existing energy of the inlet/outlet pipe to produce the mixing effect.

Chesterfield County Utilities Department is considering the use of tank mixing systems for two new elevated water storage facilities, one designed by Brockenbrough and the other by WR&A.

One CEU (Continuing Education Credit) certificate was issued by Brockenbrough to all participants.

BROCKENBROUGH’S COMMITMENT TO SUSTAINABILITY:
The use of videoconferencing demonstrated Brockenbrough's commitment to environmental sustainability as there was no need for the presenter to travel to deliver the presentation. Participants carpooled to the event. Buffet style lunch was offered, washable plates were used and a recycling bin was made available for soda cans.

Brockenbrough participants included Jeff Haas PE (Host), Carrie Langelotti PE (Partner-In-Charge), Nate Mathis PE (Meeting Organizer), Vann Davis, EIT, and Andrew Stewart, EIT.

More regulation guidance from EPA/AWWA Whitepaper can be found at:

http://www.epa.gov/ogwdw000/disinfection/tcr/pdfs/whitepaper_tcr_storage.pdf

Ribbon Cutting for Brockenbrough: March 9, 2010

Please join us, together with the Chesterfield County Chamber of Commerce, for a Ribbon Cutting at Austin Brockenbrough & Associates, L. L. P. on Tuesday, March 9 at 2:00 p.m. Brockenbrough is located at 1011 Boulder Springs Drive, Suite 200, Richmond, VA 23225.

Please RSVP to the Chamber office no later than Friday, March 5 by calling Sandy at 804-748-6364 ext. 2 or by email to admin@chesterfieldchamber.com. Or, you may contact Cynthia Bouvier, Marketing Manager at Brockenbrough, directly at 804.592.3887 or cbouvier@brockenbrough.com.