It is always nice to hear about unsung heroes.

Sir Thomas Peirson Frank, a civil engineer, was the coordinating officer for Road Repairs and Public Utility Services for London from 1939 through 1945. He was knighted in 1942 for his direction of the repair services that enabledandnbsp;Londonandnbsp;to carry on in spite of heavy air raids. He is credited with having deployed teams of “rapid response” that repaired upwards of a hundred breaches in theandnbsp;Thamesandnbsp;wall, thus preventing low-lying areas of London from being flooded during German attack in World War II, an achievement that, for reasons of protecting “the public’s morale,” was kept secret during theandnbsp;war.

Nice work, Sir Frank.

Congratulations to Gayle Baker, PE, on obtaining her license to practice as a Professional Engineer in the State of Illinois!

Gayle works in our Agricultural Group on a wide variety of projects and started working for Maurer-Stutz this year. andnbsp;Gayle previously worked for theandnbsp;Natural Resources Conservation Service. andnbsp;Prior to that, Gayle received her Bachelor’s of Science degree in Agriculture and Biosystems Engineering from Iowa State University and was the co-author on several published papers.andnbsp;Congratulations again to Gayle on this achievement!

The City of Washington has been hard at work on their recovery work from last year’s tornado. Maurer-Stutz has also been busy in the area by performing over 90 separate structural damage consultations related to this storm.

Maurer-Stutz is pleased to announce our continued involvement with this recovery by providing engineering services to the City of Washington for their upcoming project to restore roadways that were damaged during the tornado.

Restoration work is anticipated to include replacement of damaged sidewalks, curb and gutter, pavements and other items in the right-of-way. andnbsp;Funding for this project is provided from the Tornado Relief Funding Program as administered by the State of Illinois.

Congratulations to the City of Galesburg on their recently finished structure replacement of the County Line Road Bridge over Cedar Creek Tributary. andnbsp;Maurer-Stutz provided planning and design phase services for this project.

The structure was in need of replacement due to the poor condition of the timber substructure and its low live load carrying capacity.andnbsp; The existing precast concrete deck slab structure was 33’-11” long and 22’ wide. and roadway frequently overtopped at about a 10 year flood event.andnbsp; The roadway was raised to prevent overtopping to above the 20 year flood event.andnbsp; The challenge was to provide a profile and structure to meet the design criteria with the most economical design.andnbsp; The replacement structure is a 68’-2” long and 24’ wide deck beam bridge with open spill-through abutments.

Congratulations to the Peoria Park District for a successful opening of their recently completedandnbsp;Rock Island Greenway Knoxville Crossing over Illinois Route 40. andnbsp;Maurer-Stutz is pleased to have been a part of the project by providing engineering services during design and construction.

The Park District has been keeping a blog for the project that details the process to date. andnbsp;They have also updated their trail map with this project.

More information about the event may alsoandnbsp;be found from WEEKandnbsp;andandnbsp;WMBD.