Oneida Engineering Solutions (OES) recently welcomed Todd Matheson, PE, as a new Transportation Services Manager. Matheson will be based out of the Madison office and his focus will be to grow the transportation design and construction services statewide for OES.

His responsibilities will include business development, staffing, and project-related duties.

Matheson was previously the Project Development Chief for the Wisconsin Department of Transportation (DOT), Southwest Region, in Madison.

Carson, California

The Center for Creative Land Recycling (CCLR), in conjunction with U.S. EPA Region 9, and the California Department of Toxic Substances Control’s (DTSC) Office of Brownfields is hosting the California Land Recycling Conference (CALRC). Attendees will hear about the wide array of funding, resources, and peer learning opportunities that are available to support them on their land reuse journey. The CALRC is a prime event for those looking to build the community’s capacity for land revitalization or wanting to prepare for the influx of funding. The in-person conference takes place June 21-23, 2022 in Carson, California, and offers a full lineup of timely and trending land reuse topics, from affordable housing to vapor intrusion.

CALRC – https://www.cclr.org/events/upcoming-events/california-land-recycling-conference-2022

Pictured (left to right): Craig Thompson, Secretary, WisDOT, Don Miller, PE, OES Senior Transportation Engineer, Matt Kunstman, OES Transportation General Manager, Benjie Hayek, OES Transportation Construction Engineer and Supervisor, and Paul Hammer, Deputy Secretary, WisDOT.

Oneida Engineering Solutions (OES) was awarded the Wisconsin Department of Transportation (WisDOT) Secretary’s Golden Shovel Award at the March 4 luncheon during the 2022 Annual Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) Workshop & Networking Summit, held at the Ingleside Hotel, Pewaukee, WI. WisDOT Secretary Craig Thompson presented OES with the award.

WisDOT is committed to equity and the promotion of DBE participation and utilization in contracts. The Annual DBE Workshop and Networking Summit is geared toward firms looking to engage, better understand, identify barriers, and gain resources to successfully contract with the state.

The purpose of the Golden Shovel awards is to recognize DBE firms and industry leaders for their outstanding contract and project performance during the year, as well as program participation, and to highlight individuals, organizations, and groups instrumental to the success and progress of the DBE program.

“Benjie and I thoroughly appreciate the opportunity WisDOT awards us to help the WisDOT DBE Office with their programs,” said Don Miller, PE, OES Senior Transportation Engineer. “We do this by sharing our knowledge and expertise to help DBE’s in the State of Wisconsin develop their businesses to improve their skills, capacity, competitiveness, and profitability.”

Award nomination criteria includes:

• DBE-certified firm, consultant/contractor, whose quality of work is demonstrably superior;
• Contractor or consultant firm who support the ideals, efforts, and goals of the DBE Program via support, involvement, engagement, or advocacy; the support must be beyond meeting participation;
• Contractor or consultant firm whose workforce demonstrates diversity in its staff and or workforce that exceeds the diversity of the community, state including TrANS program participation, or utilization;
• Prime contractor or consultant who subcontracts to DBE firms absent DBE goals and/or provides supportive services to help remove barriers to participation such as mentoring and technical assistance;
• Progressing DBE firms – DBE-certified firms who have worked on WisDOT contracts for less than two years who demonstrate the positive image and values of the DBE program as characterized by WisDOT staff, primes, or formal stakeholder organizations; and
• Individuals, organizations, groups, and agencies who have demonstrated notable support of the WisDOT DBE Program principles.

Oneida Engineering Solutions (OES) and Kraemer North America have been honored with a 2021 Outstanding Highway Construction Award for Excellence in Large Structures from the Wisconsin Transportation Builders Association and Wisconsin Department of Transportation for the rehabilitation of the STH 23 Wisconsin River Bridge in Sauk County, WI.  Congratulations to Terry Weiss, OES Project Engineer, Rebecca Frank, OES Inspector, and the OES team!

This 7-span, 990-foot steel girder bridge project includes a new deck, bearings and bridge painting.

Located adjacent to the Frank Lloyd Wright Visitor Center, the bridge is in a popular tourism and recreation area for canoes, kayaks, and swimming. To ensure a safe river bottom free from construction debris, sonar scanning and a dive team verified a complete cleanup.

Because of the river’s high and low water variances, Kraemer NA accessed all work from the top and didn’t use a causeway or barges. They engineered a different deck pour sequence approved by WisDOT Bureau of Structures, requiring girder tie downs at the abutments, allowing them to work from the top with a linear pour sequence. Because of the tight schedule to reopen to traffic, decking needed to be completed throughout the winter. Kraemer NA worked continuously through snow and cold to stay on schedule.

After the bridge deck was completed, the contractor used temporary signals to open the bridge to one-way traffic during the painting of the steel girders. To minimize traffic congestion, the contractor initially was to paint a quarter of the bridge at a time. However, in a partnership between WisDOT, OES, and Kraemer NA, traffic staging was modified to drastically reduce the completion date. With close traffic que monitoring, after the girder’s south sections were sand blasted and prime coated, the single lane was extended to the length of the bridge. This allowed the contractor to have multiple operations and crews working on the underside of the entire bridge. The staging changes resulted in the work being completed 5.5 weeks ahead of schedule, reducing long-term traffic impacts and engineering costs.

TOP PHOTO, left to right: Rebecca Frank, OES Inspector; Terry Weiss, OES Project Engineer; Jim Simpson, WisDOT Project Manager; Harry Weiss, Kraemer NA Superintendent; Chuck Philipp, Kraemer NA Project Manager

OES provided project management, construction inspection, and materials certifications for the construction of two new bridges in Black Earth, WI. The bridges had been damaged by heavy rains and flooding in August 2018. The flooding had damaged underwater sections of the west bridge, and the north bridge pier had collapsed into the water. The contractor successfully minimized impacts to the creek itself during removal of the damaged sections, as Black Earth Creek is a valued resource for trout fishing. The new bridges were completed on November 14, a mere eight weeks after the start of construction.

The project received the 2018 Annual Award for Outstanding Highway Construction Project for Excellence in Small Structures from the Wisconsin DOT. The OES project team (Terry Weiss, Jim Soehnlein, Curt Neuhauser, and Steve Norin) is very pleased to have worked with the contractor, Kraemer North America, to help the Black Earth community recover from the flooding.

pictured from left: Greg Brecka, WisDOT; Terry Weiss, OES; Charlie Schneider, Dale Kehoe, and Josh Dvorak from Kraemer NA; Steve Krebs, WisDOT; Pat Goss, WTBA.

OES is excited to announce we are approved under the Minnesota Unified Certification Program and continuing our company’s growth. As a Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE), we quality for DBE credit for engineering and consulting services on USDOT-funded projects.

OES looks forward to working with our Midwest neighbors to provide superior transportation-related engineering services to MnDOT!

Have questions or want to learn more about OES’ services? Contact Dale Chlebowski, PE at dchlebowski@oesllc.com or (608) 243-6474

With over 30 years of combined construction and engineering experience, Benjie offers an extensive range of knowledge regarding methods and materials, heavy equipment, design and standard specification requirements, quality assurance and quality control, community relations, and environmental stewardship. She approaches each project with a complete understanding of the scope of work, budgetary constraints, and strategies to implement cost-saving measures while providing expertise and flexibility to achieve customers’ desired results.

Benjie has worked closely with the Wisconsin DOT, Wisconsin DBE Support Services, local governments, and private companies. She has consistently completed projects on time and within budget and has achieved award-winning project status and recognition by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources for project compliance and innovative implementation of environmental protection.

Please join us in welcoming Benjie to the OES team!

Contact: Benjie Hayek | (414) 607-6799 | bhayek@oesllc.com

OES is excited to announce that we are now approved by the Texas Unified Certification Program. As a Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE), we quality for DBE credit for engineering and consulting services on USDOT-funded projects.

With an existing Oneida ESC Group office in San Antonio, OES looks forward to expanding into Texas to provide superior transportation-related engineering services to the state.