Handley Achieves Two Important Credentials

Katie Handley successfully passed her professional engineering exam and can now add the letters “PE” after her name. She is a member of the Water Environment Group and has worked with stream stability and Best Management Practices as related to stream surveys, data collection, site monitoring and design. Other experience includes preparing designs based on ecological engineering principles to alleviate flooding issues.

Along with the PE, Katie has also achieved the designation as Envision™ Sustainability Professional Credential (ENV SP).  Attaining the PE was the natural progression in furthering her engineering career, but she is the first individual at GBA to have accomplished the ENV SP designation.  The ENV SP credential is offered by the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure (ISI) and trains the practitioner to use the Envision™ rating system as a way to apply principles of sustainability to infrastructure projects.

When asked why receiving this designation was so important Handley stated, “I was introduced to Envision^TM through work while we pursued projects with the cities of Omaha and Kansas City, Missouri.  I was extremely excited to see a system that strives to pair sustainability with a broad range of infrastructure projects (airports, dams, roads, bridges, and more).  I think it is highly important that as we work to improve our aging infrastructure system, we make every effort to conserve our natural resources.  Envision™ encourages this way of thinking in order to foster a dramatic change to improve not only the technical performance of a project but also evaluate and improve the social, environmental, and economic aspects.  I’ve always been interested in sustainability from rain gardens to phytoremediation; and I feel like Envision™ takes a new approach to working sustainable practices into projects that would be considered traditional.  I believe that we need to work to develop remarkable solutions in order to enhance our infrastructure and environment for the generations to come.”

Congratulations, Katie!