Steven Eubanks, chief stormwater engineer for the city of Fort Worth, has been named the 2016 Engineer of the Year by the Fort Worth Chapter of the Texas Society of Professional Engineers (TSPE).
Eubanks will be honored during an awards ceremony Feb. 24 at Ridglea Country Club in Fort Worth. Arlington Mayor Jeff Williams, president of the engineering and planning firm Graham Associates Inc., will be the guest speaker.
Other award winners to be recognized at the lunch and ceremony include Garrett Johnston, this year’s Young Engineer of the Year; Scott Scherer, recipient of the Richard Van Trump Award; and Niraj Acharya, honored by the Fort Worth branch of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) as the 2016 Edmund Friedman Young Engineer of the Year.
The TSPE DFW Mid-Cities Chapter selected Carlo Silvestri as 2016 Engineer of the Year and Jacob Reinig as Young Engineer of the Year.
The local ceremony caps National Engineers Week, an annual nationwide celebration of the engineering profession that runs Feb. 21-27. The event is in conjunction with President George Washington’s birthday. Washington is considered the nation’s first engineer, notably for his survey work.
Engineers Week, or EWeek, is marking its 65th anniversary. It was created by the National Society of Professional Engineers as the signature program of the National Engineers Week Foundation, a coalition of more than 70 engineering, professional and technical societies, and more than 50 corporations and government agencies. EWeek is designed to raise public awareness and appreciation of the engineering profession and engineers’ contributions to society.
Before finding his passion for engineering, Eubanks planned to be an architect. He majored in environmental design at Texas A&M University, but then followed a call to become a minister. He spent a year in Milwaukee leading in student ministry, then moved to Akron, Ohio, where he volunteered as a student minister at Kent State University. Needing a full-time job, Eubanks was hired by a consulting engineer as a draftsman.
Eubanks and his wife, Shirley, moved to Fort Worth, where he earned a master’s degree from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. While working on his doctorate, he worked part time for a surveyor and later a small consulting engineering firm. He graduated from the University of Texas at Arlington with a degree in civil engineering and received his professional engineer’s license in 1997.
Eubanks joined the city of Fort Worth in 1999 as the second drainage, or stormwater, engineer. He played a significant role in creating a stormwater utility in 2004 and in developing the 2006 Fort Worth Storm Water Management Design Manual. He also oversaw creation of the city’s Stormwater Master Plan, and in 2015 he was named chief stormwater engineer.
His passion, he says, is in training other engineers. Eubanks has spoken at numerous local, state and national meetings and conferences. He has developed and led workshops and, most recently, developed the Young Engineers Leadership Forum, sponsored by the Fort Worth Chapter of TSPE. He also serves as co-chairman of the Texas Floodplain Management Association’s Stormwater Committee and as education director for the local TSPE chapter.
Johnston graduated from Texas A&M with a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering in 2009 and a master’s degree in civil engineering in 2011. In June 2010, while working on his graduate degree, Johnston accepted a full-time position with Freese and Nichols’ stormwater engineering group. He received his professional engineering license in 2013 and is now working on a variety of stormwater-related projects, including watershed studies, stormwater master plans, and design and modeling of storm drain infrastructure across Texas.
Johnston is the MATHCOUNTS coordinator for the Fort Worth Chapter of TSPE and recently organized a competition at Texas Christian University.
Scherer, also a civil engineering graduate of Texas A&M, is an associate principal at Harris Kocher Smith. He joined the firm in 2014 to open its Fort Worth office, the first office outside the company’s Denver headquarters.
Scherer is active in the Real Estate Council of Greater Fort Worth and has leadership positions in the North Texas Council of ULI (Urban Land Institute) and the Fort Worth Chapter of TSPE.
Acharya earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in civil engineering from the UT Arlington and is licensed in Texas as both a professional engineer and a certified floodplain manager. He is employed with Teague Nall and Perkins Inc. as project manager of the firm’s stormwater group.
Acharya’s involvement with ASCE dates to his time at UT Arlington, where he was a member and officer of the student chapter. He currently is secretary and assistant treasurer of the Fort Worth chapter.
Silvestri has been with Wier & Associates Inc. since 1993. He began his career with the firm working as a civil engineering intern and accepted a position as a graduate engineer after receiving his degree from UT Arlington in 1996. He became an associate of the firm in 2001, a principal in 2004 and president in 2014. He is a licensed professional engineer in Texas, Pennsylvania, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Kansas and Colorado.
Silvestri has extensive experience in civil design, land planning, construction and project management related to water, sewer, grading and storm drainage improvements. His experience includes developing sites for commercial and industrial development in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
Silvestri is a member of the Real Estate Council, ASCE and the TSPE DFW Mid-Cities Chapter, which honored him in 2004 as Young Engineer of the Year. He serves on the board of the UT Arlington Chapter of Chi Epsilon and on the advisory board to the Civil Engineering Department at UT Arlington.
Reinig is a project manager and design engineer with Kimley-Horn and Associates Inc. in Irving. Over the past six years, he has focused on urban roadway reconstruction and paving rehabilitation, intersection improvements, roundabouts, and drainage and utility improvements. His recent projects include John Hickman/Gaylord Roundabout for the city of Frisco, Olympus Boulevard for the city of Dallas and San Jacinto Boulevard for the city of Baytown.
A graduate of the University of Nebraska, Reinig is a licensed professional engineer in Texas and is an Envision sustainability professional certified by the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure. He is an active member of the American Society of Professional Engineers-Dallas Chapter and the TSPE DFW Mid-Cities Chapter, where he is treasurer.