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Strand News

Greater Bayfield Wastewater Treatment Plant Won ACEC-WI's Grand Award

Strand Associates, Inc., was awarded the Grand Award from ACEC-WI.  The Grand Award honors the exceptional engineering design that contributes to the quality of life for Wisconsin's citizens.  The Greater Bayfield Wastewater Treatment Plant was designed to provide wastewater treatment for the long-term, allowing for growth within the existing service area and expansion of the district's service area.  Since the plant went on-line it has consistently achieved its treatment goals while providing Clean Water for a Superior Lake.  We are extremely honored for this recognition of our excellence in engineering.

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Strand Civil Engineering Firm Is Growing In And Out Of Madison

Article Source: The Wisconsin State Journal
By Marv Balousek

The colorful images displayed Tuesday afternoon on Heather Bartelt's computer screen looked like an ultrasound medical scan, but actually they were from the New Glarus wastewater treatment plant.


Bartelt, a land surveyor at Strand Associates of Madison, had taken the images with a laser scanner and she was transferring the outlines to a plant diagram on a second computer screen to show the precise location of pipes, tanks and other equipment.


The $120,000 worth of hardware and software tools of modern civil engineering used by Bartelt are a far cry from the six rows of drafting tables where similar work was done when Strand Associates chief executive Ted Richards began working at the firm 44 years ago.


Since Richards began as chief executive in 1984, the firm has grown from 49 employees in a single office to 335 employees, including 167 in Madison. It has 10 offices in six states. The company is looking at Arizona, Tennessee and Texas for expansion and its engineers have worked on projects in 48 states. Annual revenue has risen to $50.4 million from $3.4 million 23 years ago.


Strand Associates, 910 W. Wingra Drive, plans a 39,000-square-foot addition to its Madison headquarters that involves removing three houses. Two of them will be moved. The Madison Plan Commission approved the project last week.


Along with the expansion, the firm plans to add 110 employees over the next five years, Richards said.


"I had a vision for what I wanted the firm to be," he said. "You can't be a 49-person engineering firm and do the things we're doing today. To do that, you have to have great talent."


Last week, Strand Associates received the grand award from the Wisconsin chapter of the American Council of Engineering Companies for its design of the Greater Bayfield Wastewater Treatment Plant. The plant was designed to replace plants built in the 1970s and to protect Lake Superior, where treated wastewater is discharged.


Instead of seeking engineers with years of experience, Strand Associates looks for employees among graduates of 15 colleges throughout middle America. Nearly a third of the firm's employees are under age 30 while 20 percent are age 50 or older. The company's turnover over 10 years has been about 8 percent, less than half of the industry average.


The company was started in 1946 by John Strand, a wastewater engineer, and Clayton Ward, a fresh-water engineer. When Ward died a few years later, Strand ran the firm by himself until his death in 1970. Today, Strand Associates has about 60 employee investors.

 
Civil engineering has many disciplines, Richards said.  The firm works on municipal projects including streets, water wells, pumping stations and sewer lines; transportation projects such as highways, bridges and traffic studies; electrical and mechanical engineering; and environmental projects like fresh-water systems and wastewater plants. The firm also employs a handful of architects.


"Every time you get up in the morning, a civil engineer has helped you out," Richards said, adding that engineering has played a vital role in activities like showering and cooking breakfast.


Strand's transportation engineers, for example, helped design Illinois toll plazas and tollway restaurants. They've also worked on plans to improve traffic flow at the Verona Road/Beltline interchange.


While Heather Bartelt works on her computer's laser images, across the room traffic moves rapidly on a redesigned Monona Drive in a video on traffic engineer Eric Hanson's laptop computer. Hanson's virtual Monona Drive still has a roundabout at Pflaum Road, which recently was removed from the plan. Hanson and traffic engineer Jeff Held said the project is in the final design phase.


Richards, 67, who got his bachelor's degree at UW-Platteville and a graduate degree at UW-Madison, started at the company as a hydraulic and hydrological engineer. Stopping by Hanson's cubicle to watch the Monona Drive video, Richards said he's still enthusiastic about his profession.


"It's a fascinating business to get into very complex projects with talented people to solve problems," he said.

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Strand Is Proud to Host Expanding Your Horizons

Expanding Your Horizons (EYH) is a one-day annual conference held at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Approximately 400 girls from south-central Wisconsin attend and become part of many small groups attending an opening session, three career sessions, and closing activity.


Strand has been an EYH presenter for about eight years. Each year the women engineers at Strand organize a presentation and activity to expose the girls to a career in civil and environmental engineering. This year’s activity involved a bridge design. The basic activity was to construct a bridge from materials such as clay, styrofoam, toothpicks, noodles, etc. There were “real world” constraints applied to the project. They had to work with a set budget, environmental and utility constraints, and design standards. Each bridge had to span a river, allow for two way vehicle and pedestrian traffic, provide clearance for boats, and carry applied weight.


All the girls enjoyed learning from the presentation and the activity. Lots of questions were asked and our professional women here at Strand were able to share their experiences in civil and environmental engineering. The women involved with making this year’s Expanding Your Horizons a success include: Jane Carlson, Camille Carlson, Danielle Hruzek, Rachel Lee, Joan Petersen, and Jackie Spoor.


For more information on Expanding Your Horizons visit www.eyh.wisc.edu. The Madison EYH Conference is co-sponsored by Girl Scouts of Black Hawk Council, Edgewood College, Madison Chapter of Graduate Women in Science, and University of Wisconsin-Madison. The conference is part of a nationwide network of EYH conferences supported by their parent organization, the Math/Science Network, www.expandingyourhorizons.org.


Comments from EYH organizer, Heather Daniels, "Wow! What a wonderful day.  Many many positive comments from both the girls and presenters.  Thank you for volunteering your time and energy to inspire 419 young women to look into careers in science, math, engineering and technology."
 

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US Highway 12 Listed in Midwest Construction's Top 20 Projects Completed

Strand was the lead design consultant for the US Highway 12 project, which was listed as one of the Top 20 Projects of 2006 by Midwest Construction Magazine's June Issue.  The ranking was based on projects in Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and eastern Missouri completed between the summer of 2005 and summer of 2006.

US 12 is a major east-west principal arterial route that integrates local traffic into the state and national highway systems. Since construction in the 1920s, US 12 between Sauk City and Middleton has served local residents, farmers, tourists, and commercial interests.

For many years, this 18-mile section of road was able to accommodate the mix of traffic in a reasonably safe manner. More recently, the number of crashes along US 12 from Sauk City to Middleton has been high. Between 1985 and 1996 there were 2,010 crashes - nearly one crash every two days. Thirty people lost their lives during this period.

The corridor improvement involved the conversion of 18 miles of existing, rural, two-lane facility to a four-lane, divided, rural expressway between Sauk City and Middleton, Wisconsin.

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