GBA Tees Up to Support Keep Omaha Beautiful, Inc.

Team members (from left) 
Gary Beck - GBA, Terry Morrison - Ehrhart Griffin & Associates,
Pat Kastl - City of Omaha, and Kurt Hassler, GBA

Dear Gary,

Many, many thanks to you and your company for supporting Keep Omaha Beautiful, Inc. with your sponsorship for our 18th Annual Charity Golf Classic on July 11th, 2011.  The day was a little hot, but everyone had a great time, and enjoyed a fabulous round of golf.  We had 196 players (the most ever) and were able to raise an estimated $32,000.00 for our Keep Omaha Beautiful, Inc. programs. Please share the attached picture with your team members. Again, thanks so much, and we hope that you will be able to come out and play with us again, July 16th, 2012 at the Players Club at Deer Creek.

Sincere Best Wishes,
Keep Omaha Beautiful Staff & Board

GBA's Anne Schroer Honored by KSPE as ‘Young Engineer of the Year’



GBA's Anne Schroer receives the "Young Engineer of the Year"

award from KSPE President Glenn Knak, P.E., Lochner, BWR Division.

Congratulations to Anne Schroer, who has been named “Young Engineer of the Year” by the Kansas Society of Professional Engineers (KSPE). The award is given annually to honor a young engineer for engineering achievements, involvement in KSPE, civic and humanitarian activities, and excellence in continuing education.


A civil engineer and member of GBA's Transportation Group, Anne is a graduate of the University of Kansas. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering in 2003 and a Master of Science degree in Engineering Management in 2010.  As part of the requirements for her Master’s degree, Anne developed the concept of “Sustainable Transportation Optimization,” which uses linear programming to maximize positive sustainable impacts in transportation projects. 

One of Anne's passions is working within the engineering community to help create a more sustainable transportation future. She currently serves as Assistant Chair of GBA’s FocusGreen, a multi-disciplinary team of LEED APs dedicated to achieving sustainability in GBA’s designs and business practices.

Anne also represents the American Public Works Association (APWA) as a member of the 4A Collaborative, a group of planning and design professionals from APWA, APA, ASLA, and AIA committed to promoting sustainability throughout the Kansas City region. In addition, she is a member of the KC Metro Scorecard Subcommittee, which is charged with developing a sustainability scorecard for the Kansas City area. 

Anne's involvement includes membership in the Linking Environmental & Transportation Planning Advisory Group that, through MARC, helped create an action plan and best practices guide for the Kansas City region. The Advisory Group continues to work to develop a clear understanding of what needs to be done to better integrate transportation and environmental planning in the Kansas City region. 

And if all of that isn't enough, Anne completed the Boston Marathon this year in 3 hours, 41 minutes, and 8 seconds (3:41:08), qualifying her for a third consecutive year. That's an amazing average of 8:26 (minutes: seconds) per mile.  Now that's sustainable transportation!     

In the News: GBA Energy Audits Identify Potential Savings as Part of Resourceful Kansas Program

GBA conducts energy audit of United Way Building, Lawrence, Kansas 

The United Way building in Lawrence, Kansas, got an energy check-up earlier this week and the Lawrence Journal-World was there to chronicle the event! Thanks to Resourceful Kansas, an extraordinary program designed to help Kansans implement projects that will save energy, GBA’s Kevin Juhl and Brian Huff conducted the energy audit at no cost to Douglas County, which owns the building. The United Way building houses 21 nonprofit organizations.
 
According to the Journal-World, “What they found wasn’t promising: a heating and cooling system that has been in place since the building opened as a nursing home in the early 1960s.” But Juhl and Huff “were impressed with how the United Way has managed heating and cooling the building with the old system in place” and found energy use “…pretty good, based on national averages.” GBA will take this and other detailed information obtained during the facility audit to develop customized cost and benefit reviews and a prioritized list of energy-saving technologies.

 

The Resourceful Kansas program, which is funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, is designed to promote energy conservation, energy efficiency, and renewable energy throughout the state. Participants attend a one-day seminar hosted by Resourceful Kansas partners GBA, Riley County Public Works, and Kansas State University at the Riley County Public Works facility, where they learn about the types of energy-saving technologies available, tour real-world examples, and learn about sources of capital available. GBA’s team of architects, engineers, and construction managers then conduct the energy audits for a select group of participants and will provide support to help these participants integrate concepts into their own facilities.

 

To date, two seminars have been held at the Riley County Public Works facility with a third scheduled for July 27.  Over the course of the program, at least 120 organizations will attend the seminars and at least 80 organizations will receive energy audits through the program. For more information or to apply for the Resourceful Kansas program, click here.

GBA Selected to Serve as MoDOT BEAP Consultant

Jim Jarrett, P.E.
GBA Bridge Group Leader

MoDOT has selected GBA to participate in the Bridge Engineering Assistance Program, or BEAP as it is more commonly known. This important program provides engineering assistance to local public agencies throughout the state that do not have their own engineering staff to evaluate, prioritize, and develop design solutions for bridge maintenance, rehabilitation, and repair. GBA will be placed on a list of pre-approved BEAP consultants available to provide engineering services for structural analysis and prioritized design of rehab and repair.

Over the years, GBA has worked with MoDOT, KDOT, and with numerous cities and counties to realize savings for their bridge projects. GBA Bridge Group Leader Jim Jarrett, PE, and Bridge Design Engineer Jon Karst, PE, talk about some projects that may have similarities to your projects, with savings that may surprise you! 

Resourceful Kansas Gets a Nod on the DOE's Energy Blog

It turns out there’s more to harvest in Kansas than just wheat and soybeans. At least that's according to a post on the DOE's Energy Blog: Resourceful Kansas Puts Energy Efficient Technology on Display, Demonstrates Cost-Saving Benefits. 

According to public affairs specialist Lindsey Geisler, as one of the windiest states in the country, (Kansas is) a great place to harness wind power. And through the Department of Energy's Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant program, the Resourceful Kansas team of GBA, Riley County Public Works, and Kansas State University is teaching the rest of the state about a wide variety of technologies available. 

Read more about the program on the DOE's Energy Blog or visit the Resourceful Kansas webite. You may be eligible to participate!   

K-7 / Johnson Drive Interchange Receives Outstanding Engineering Achievement Award from the Eastern Chapter of KSPE



A unique interchange at Kansas Highway 7 and Johnson Drive in Shawnee, Kansas, has been honored by the Eastern Chapter of KSPE with the Chapter’s Outstanding Engineering Achievement award for 2011. Partners in the project include the Kansas Department of Transportation (KDOT), the City of Shawnee, Kansas, and GBA. 

The project, which is on schedule for completion in November of this year, will replace a signalized intersection on K-7 at Johnson Drive/55th Street by constructing a modified single-point urban interchange with a large, multi-lane roundabout where ramps intersect Johnson Drive. The project will raise the profile of K-7 over Johnson Drive and will improve K-7 to interstate standards by providing a four-lane divided freeway. Provisions have also been included to add an additional lane in each direction as traffic volumes warrant. Two additional multi-lane roundabouts are being built on Johnson Drive on either side of K-7. 

Accepting the Outstanding Engineering Achievement award are (from left) Howard Lubliner, P.E., project manager, KDOT; Todd Jones, P.E., project manager, GBA; and Doug Wesselschmidt, P.E., Director of Development Services/City Engineer, City of Shawnee.





According to GBA Project Manager Todd Jones, P.E., development along the K-7 corridor prompted the improvements. "The interchange will replace a potentially dangerous signalized intersection that accommodated about 30,000 vehicles each day," Jones said. "During peak traffic, left-turn lane queues backed onto through lanes of K-7, creating safety concerns." When the project is completed, the intersection will handle the projected traffic volume for 2040.

Winners of Chapter awards will be considered for awards at the state level, which will be presented at the KSPE Annual Conference Awards Luncheon Thursday, June 23rd at the Hyatt in Wichita. 

New Interchange at Strother Road and I-470 in Lee’s Summit, Missouri, Receives 2011 Capstone Award for Infrastructure from the Kansas City Business Journal; GBA Part of Winning Project Team

An interchange at Strother Road and Interstate-470 in Lee’s Summit has been named a winner of a Capstone Award in the Infrastructure category by the Kansas City Business Journal. Now in its sixth year, the Capstone Award program honors outstanding real estate development projects and transactions throughout the Kansas City area. According to the Business Journal, a panel of judges reviewed the applications, considering visual aesthetics, new technological concepts, and a project’s relevance to the community. The goal of the awards program is to look beyond dollar figures and square footages and consider how these projects are shaping the community.

Construction of an interchange at Strother Road was a long-time goal, a key component in the City of Lee’s Summit Master Plan as well as in earlier traffic and market studies. An interchange and enhanced local road system was expected to encourage development along the corridor, ultimately serving some six million square feet of office space, 2.5 million square feet of industrial space, and about 2,400 residential units. Based on anticipated land uses, more than 24,000 employees would ultimately be attracted to planned developments within the vicinity of the project daily.

GBA is part of the team that made the Strother Road interchange project a reality, providing traffic engineering needed to complete the Purpose and Need, Location Study, and Environmental Assessment required by MoDOT and the federal NEPA process. GBA also prepared construction plans for about 2.5 miles of local roadways built in conjunction with the new interchange. And because of the close proximity of Jackson County’s Lake Jacomo to the roadway network, extensive hydraulic and drainage studies were completed as well. GBA’s involvement also included input on lane configuration and traffic control strategies for the interchange and designs for traffic signalization, street lighting, pavement marking, permanent signing, and traffic control during construction.