From a high school mechanical-drawing class, to rebuilding bridges and expanding roadways in Vietnam with the Army Corps of Engineers, to spending a decade methodically resolving a municipality’s septic failures, Glenn Gerken has seen the civil engineering landscape from an array of perspectives for almost 60 years.
The ability to evaluate projects from every perspective stems from extensive experience in designing, developing, managing, and leading a wide range of infrastructural initiatives—combined with the insight gained as a company shareholder.
“When you know how to start a job and what it’s going to take to get to the finish line, you can anticipate what you’re going to have to look out for,” he explains. “It makes it a lot easier to manage a job from start to finish.”
In witnessing the industry’s evolution, technology makes for an especially notable shift. Working with the next generation has emphasized how ubiquitous computer-assisted procedures have become—a far cry from the trusty slide rule that took Gerken from classroom tests to live project sites.
One thing that hasn’t changed, though, is the necessity of approaching a project with long-range, careful considerations.
“There’s nothing worse than starting a project, having it all designed and getting ready to go into construction, and then you have 20 people at a town council meeting with a million reasons why it shouldn’t be done there,” he begins. “The last thing you want to do is degrade somebody’s property value or create an inconvenience for people who live there.”
An approach grounded in foresight and meticulous planning yields advantages such as sustainability, reliability, improved safety and cost efficiency over time.
T&M Associates
Middletown
(732) 671-6400
TAndMAssociates.com
