Lizzie Blaisdell

Culture:

I chose Degenkolb for two main reasons, the people and the work. My co-workers are fun, helpful, intelligent and interesting people. They are a great resource, particularly when I was first starting and had so many questions. The work is varied and I like that; I have worked on small to large sized projects, new design to historic retrofit. Some project require simple hand calcs while others call for non-linear time history modeling. This is not a stagnant job; I am always learning something new.

The best thing about being an engineer, in particular an engineer who focuses on seismic safety, is that you are creating a built world that is safe for people and helps protect people against a real hazard. At Degenkolb we often go further than protecting against structural collapse, we design to higher levels of structural performance based on the project’s needs. This protects the building occupants (i.e. companies, hospitals and schools) from facing closure after an earthquake, which in turn helps return the community back to normal after a disaster. It feels good to think that the work I do can impact people in that way.

Career:

Here we all get involved in professional and community activities. Engineers Alliance for the Arts is a program that brings engineers into high school classrooms to teach the students about basic engineering principles and to guide them through the construction of a final project: a bridge constructed of foam board, glue, pins and string. I participated in this program last year for the first time and thought it was great. While most of the students didn’t go nuts about engineering, I could tell they gained something from the program and a few were definitely engineers in the making.

I am also involved in the Continuing Education Committee for SEAONC. We organize and plan the main seminars and many of the mini seminars hosted by SEAONC. I enjoy being on this committee because I like to help pick out the seminar topics and also because I get to meet engineers from around the area.

Passion:

For fun I try to take advantage of what’s here in the Bay Area or travel when I can. Outdoors I like to go sailing or hiking. In the city I also like to walk around the different neighborhoods to shop or go out to dinner or drinks. I live between Golden Gate Park and The Presidio so sometimes I’ll go walk around either of those, particularly if I have out-of-town guests visiting. Most of my traveling is to other parts of California, or back to the East Coast to visit my family.

On the job:

In a typical day, I work on two to four different projects. I usually have at least one project that is in construction, so I may need to make a site visit or respond to questions from the contractor. In the remaining time, I work on other projects; this ranges from design, analysis, detailing, meeting with a project team or coordinating with other professions (architect, mechanical engineer, etc). Right now I am working on one main design project, but it is typical to be working on a few smaller ones at a time instead.