Brockenbrough's Anniversary Open House a HUGE Success

Last night, Brockenbrough hosted their 55th anniversary party, combined with an open house, showing off the new office.  Well over 100 people came to the Open House, and a great time was had by all!

Many thanks to all our clients, vendors, friends, and anyone else who continues to support us in our endeavors. We had a great time and were pleased to share this milestone with our friends.

Brockenbrough Wins Award for Community Involvement

Austin Brockenbrough & Associates has received the 2010 Employer All Star Community Involvement Award from the Greater Richmond Chamber of Commerce, the Richmond Society of Human Resource Management and the Richmond Times-Dispatch. This award recognizes employers who demonstrate stewardship through volunteering significant time and/or resources in support of charitable organizations, educational organizations, community service groups, and/or significant community projects or programs. The honor was announced during the annual Employer All Star Awards breakfast ceremony at the Greater Richmond Convention Center on May 5, 2010.

About the Employer All Star Awards

The Greater Richmond Chamber, Richmond Times-Dispatch, and Richmond Society for Human Resource Management have been recognizing the best practices of organizations throughout the Greater Richmond Region. The awards program supports the 3 E’s (employment, education and economic development) in building a quality workforce in Greater Richmond and continues to honor achievements of both public and private-sector organizations in workforce best practices.

Brockenbrough Earns LEED® CI Certification

Austin Brockenbrough & Associates is pleased to announce that its new office, located at 1011 Boulder Springs Drive, Suite 200 in Richmond, has earned the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Commercial Interiors (LEED CI) Certification. LEED is the recognized system for certifying high-performance green interiors that are healthy, productive places to work; are less costly to operate and maintain; and have a reduced environmental footprint.

The Brockenbrough office is the first LEED CI project in the Greater Richmond Metropolitan area, and is the first and only private sector LEED project in Chesterfield County. “The LEED CI certification is a validation of Brockenbrough’s ongoing efforts to promote environmental stewardship and create healthy work environments for our employees,” said Carrie Langelotti, Partner of Brockenbrough. “We are proud to have achieved this level of success through our green practices and hope our accomplishments will serve as a role model for the local business community.”

Brockenbrough’s LEED Project Team Administrator was Jed Caldwell, LEEP AP, who remarked, “This project has given me a lot of personal satisfaction. It's not often that I work on a project that has such a direct impact on my everyday life, and it is rewarding to experience the benefits of working in a LEED Certified environment."

The LEED Building Rating System was developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). LEED promotes a whole-building approach to sustainability. The LEED features in Brockenbrough’s new office include:

     • Sustainable Site Development
     • Water Efficiency
     • Energy and Atmosphere Efficiency
     • Materials and Resources Selection
     • Indoor Environmental Quality
     • Innovation and Design Process

The new office also includes the latest telecom technology, underlining the company’s commitment to better serve its clients.

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.

Welcome Ralph Keith

Austin Brockenbrough & Associates is pleased to welcome Ralph J. Keith, PE to the firm as an Electrical Engineer. Ralph has a diverse background including working with Hankins & Anderson, Moseley Architects, and the Navy.

Ralph will be working in the Electrical Engineering division.

Welcome Ralph!

Eppington Plantation Contract Won

We have just won the contract to provide structural engineering services for the stabilization and restoration of the Eppington Plantation in Chesterfield County.

For those of you who don’t know about this site, the Eppington Plantation was built around 1770 and was home to Francis Eppes IV, brother-in-law to Thomas Jefferson.
Following Jefferson’s wife Martha’s death in 1782, two of the Jeffersons' daughters lived here with the Epps family while their father served as the minister to France. Jefferson visited Eppington on several occasions, and during one of his stays he received an invitation from George Washington to serve as the secretary of state.

In 1989, the Eppington Plantation was donated to Chesterfield County, and is protected by a historic preservation easement. The Chesterfield Historical Society and the Chesterfield County Parks and Recreation Department are developing plans to interpret the house. This is where we come in. If you want to read more details, check out the link below.

http://www.nps.gov/history/nr/travel/jamesriver/epp.htm

New Milestone Reached

A big CONGRATULATIONS to Vann Davis on achieving his new status as an EIT! Vann has been with Brockenbrough for 5 years and is an engineer with the Civil Engineering group.

Great job! Next up is the PE exam. Go Vann!

New Promotion

William R. Hermann, P.E., passed the professional engineering exam to earn licensure as a Mechanical Engineer.

Congratulations Will!