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Employment Profiles

Kleinschmidt Associates began in 1966 innocently enough. Dr. R. Stevens Kleinschmidt, a Harvard graduate with a keen interest in hydraulics and hydropower, started the company in Pittsfield, Maine as a local family-owned engineering business concentrating on hydropower engineering and water resource projects. But success brought expansion.

The company's focus broadened in the late 1970s to encompass not only the generation side of energy development but environmental and regulatory aspects as well. Today, Kleinschmidt operates as a multidisciplinary consulting firm employing a host of civil, structural, electrical, and mechanical engineers as well as scientists, planners, economists, and regulatory management professionals. Now an employee-owned corporation with seven offices, Kleinschmidt handles projects across the country.

Still headquartered in Pittsfield, Maine, Kleinschmidt also has offices in Deep River, Connecticut; East Syracuse, New York; Strasburg, Pennsylvania; Springfield, Virginia; West Columbia, South Carolina; and Sacramento, California. "Over the last six years, our success has allowed us to grow regionally, resulting in the development of the other offices," says Susan Ouellette, administrative manager. "The focus now is to continue to expand those offices in terms of staff and capability."

Not surprisingly, hydropower and dam engineering remain the company's stalwart business, and it has received a shot in the arm recently. "The high rise of energy prices last year prompted a lot of hydroelectric owners to revisit the viability of their hydropower projects," Ouellette states. Engineers handle the study, design, and construction phases of hydroelectric projects and also deal with other matters related to operations and maintenance and dam safety. Most work involves improving existing facilities and jobs such as analyzing equipment inefficiency or failure, optimizing water usage for increased energy generation, rehabilitation and modernization of existing structures, and meeting regulatory requirements.

As part of its mission in engineering hydroelectric facilities, Kleinschmidt has provided biological and engineering services for more than 90 dam projects throughout the U.S., including fish passage assessments and designs. This involves incorporating fish passage mechanisms into dams such as fishlifts, trapping facilities, downstream passage systems, and fish ladders as well as barriers and pump-back systems.

In one project, the York Haven fishway was constructed at GPU/Genco's York Haven hydroelectric development on the Susquehanna River in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania as the latest component of a thirty-plus-year effort to restore shad and herring to the Susquehanna River basin. The new facility provides upstream and downstream passage and gives migrating fish access to more than 100 square miles of additional habitat upstream of the York Haven dam.

Following recent trends to address fish passage issues at dams, Kleinschmidt has gotten involved in projects to study the usefulness of old dams, assessing their environmental impacts and determining decommissioning strategies.

Another evolving arena for Kleinschmidt is the electrical deregulation market. This creates new opportunities for energy producers, investors, and financial institutions, and technical consultants often step in to evaluate a project and quantify the value of the generation asset. Kleinschmidt offers specialized technical services to clients involved in the sale, acquisition, and development of energy assets in both hydropower and fossil fuel projects.

As an example of its environmental services, Kleinschmidt cites a renewed focus on basin-wide planning in water resource management. State and federal regulators, as well as a variety of non-governmental organizations, actively promote comprehensive planning and local community stewardship. Kleinschmidt provides both engineering and environmental services to solve land and water resource problems within a watershed or river basin. These services include evaluations seeking to balance multiple uses such as flood control, water supply, water quality, species protection, recreation, and energy production. Kleinschmidt conducts studies related to stream flow regulation, hydraulic and hydrologic modeling, fisheries and aquatic habitat, land use, and wetlands.

With all this work going on, it comes as no surprise that the company's demand for engineers is "pretty strong," according to Ouellette. "I have a few positions we've been trying to fill for several months now." They seek experienced engineers as well as entry-level types, often hiring summer interns. "It's a good experience for those kids to come in and work. And if they really like it, there's often an opportunity for them when they graduate."

For consideration, e-mail a cover letter and resume to Susan Ouellette at Susan.Ouellette@KleinschmidtUSA.com. For more information, visit www.KleinschmidtUSA.com.

A civil engineering graduate from Virginia Tech, Ken Anderson started Anderson & Associates as a surveying business in 1968. He probably had no idea what it would grow into. The employee-owned firm specializes in civil engineering work for institutional, municipal, and industrial clients, operating out of headquarters in Blacksburg, Virginia and branch offices in Fredericksburg, Middletown, and Richmond, Virginia; Greensboro, North Carolina; and the Tri-Cities area of Tennessee. Any engineering entrepreneur would envy such prosperity, but that's not the surprising part.

Anderson wanted to stay on the cutting edge, so while offering the usual engineering services, he also expanded into a high-tech arena the firm calls Creative Services, consisting of services such as website development, computer animation, and GIS. If you think concrete and computer chips don't mix, listen to Courtney Morris, recruiting coordinator: "They interact really well from a business standpoint in that most of our existing clients for engineering are towns, counties and cities, and we get a lot of work for our creative services for those."

For example, several years ago, Anderson & Associates conducted a site selection study for an industrial park in Thomasville, North Carolina. Today, the company hosts and maintains the website it designed for Thomasville's Chamber of Commerce. And years of offering standard municipal engineering services for Montgomery and Rockbridge Counties in Virginia led to the development of E911 and Web GIS systems in those regions.

On the more conventional engineering side, Anderson & Associates provides planning and design for roadways, airports, greenways, and railroads. Utility engineering services include water treatment and distribution, wastewater collection and treatment, telecommunications, and natural gas distribution and transmission. They perform environmental site assessments for water and wastewater projects, site development, coal mine reclamation, and stone quarry operations. Designing industrial developments is also a major activity.

Not surprisingly, a big chunk of work comes from nearby Virginia Tech, where they've worked to update and expand the comprehensive master plan for the 2600-acre campus. At the Engineering and Architecture Building, they designed sprinkler, sanitary sewer, steam, electrical, chilled water, and storm sewer systems. At the Virginia Tech Airport, work included site development for a facility, entrance road, parking lot, and aircraft apron.

Anderson & Associates uses mainly civil engineers, of course, but also electrical, environmental, and structural types. Morris says the firm is trying to build its structural engineering team. As for the company's demand for engineers, "Right now it's moderate. Like everybody, we're feeling the tightness of the economy, so we're not hiring as much as we have in the past." But she adds, "There are a few key positions we're trying to fill." They need a branch manager in Middletown, a water/wastewater project manager in Greensboro, a project manager in Fredericksburg who can do water/wastewater and site design, and a project engineer under that person -- "we're trying to build that team in Fredericksburg."

Besides hiring experienced engineers, Morris says, "We like to bring in people out of school. We like for them to have gotten their EIT or are working towards that. We like to see somebody who has had internships or coops, who has tried to get some experience in the field." With an eye toward project managers, they look for leadership positions prospects may have held in organizations. "We try to look ahead and see how they would be as a leader."

For consideration, e-mail a resume to careers@andassoc.com or mail it to Anderson & Associates, HR Team, 100 Ardmore St., Blacksburg, VA 24060 or fill out an online application at www.andassoc.com.

Progressive Engineer
Editor: Tom Gibson
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©2004 Progressive Engineer