02-24-2021

Celebrating Excellence During Engineers Week

Each year during Engineers Week, we recognize our engineers and technical trailblazers who embody the spirit of innovation and are committed to providing an exceptional work product via our Engineering & Technical Excellence Awards.

We stand in awe of the 2021 winners and thank them for driving innovation, providing inventive solutions to complex challenges, and helping us deliver a better world.

Paul Yim, MICE, MHKIE, Connected Communities, ITS Lead

• He leads the Intelligent Transportation Systems group for our 26-member Hong Kong team; the Parsons name is associated with 75% of Hong Kong’s ITS systems for highways, bridges, and tunnels.

• He has been implementing infrastructure development, traffic management, and traffic operational projects for 27 years;  provides consulting to clients on ITS approaches and technologies.

• He successfully led the deployment of Parsons’ Intelligent Networks (iNET™) to replace Siemens’s Signal System in the City of Macau.

Surbhi P. Ashton, PE, Mobility Solutions, Senior Project Manager

• She has 28 years of multidisciplinary experience managing a variety of transportation and environmental planning and engineering projects.

• She prepared NEPA documentation that led to the approval of the Finding of No Significant Impact for the I-285/I-20 East Interchange Project ahead of schedule, advancing the $600M project to design-build procurement.

• When COVID-19 required social distancing during the East Interchange Project, led the Parsons team in developing and implementing an innovative multi-faceted public outreach approach that offered multiple forms of participation while still following the regulatory framework for public hearings.

Dan Schweitzer, Cyber & Intelligence; Principal Software Engineer

• He is a lead programmer for the PacketWolf™ IR&D project and the main driving force behind the data plane implementation for the product.

• He has made significant contributions to our restricted customer contracts, helping them to consistently earn a 100% award fee; his technical contributions are often called out as key achievements by clients.

• He consistently produces solutions and code that are well thought out and well tested.

Ammar Kanaan, Mobility Solutions (MEA), ITS Technical Director

• He is a leading Intelligent Transportation Systems Specialist with an emphasis on infrastructure deployment, advanced transportation systems design, deployment, and operation and management.

• He is instrumental in promoting and developing intelligent transportation systems in UAE, ranging from R&D and concept development to design and implementation.

• He delivered the $190M ITS2020 project in Dubai on time and within budget despite significant technical challenges and the COVID19 movement restrictions.

Jessica Bennett, PE, CIH, Mobility Solutions, Senior Environmental Engineer

• She is a lead project engineer for the Fayetteville Works Groundwater Extraction Interim Measure, technically led the successful completion of the fast-tracked installation and startup, which allowed the client to avoid high daily penalties.

• She specializes in identifying opportunities to use solar energy and increase sustainability and resilience in the environmental remediation industry; developed a screening tool to evaluate and rank the suitability of implementing solar as part of a proposal for a portfolio of 58 sites.

• She is a key member of the Emerging Contaminants working group at Parsons, striving to keep Parsons at the leading edge of the environmental services market for emerging contaminants.

Jamie Johnson, Missile Defense, and C5ISR, Sr. Software Developer/System Integrator

• He is experienced in the full lifecycle of software development and system deployment, supporting the design, development, integration, testing, and fielding of technical solutions in the most challenging environments.

• He worked with a cross-functional team across both Federal and Critical Infrastructure to support the development, fielding, and HIPAA certification of our DetectWise™ capability.

• He has the ability to research, understand rapidly, design, and develop software solutions to meet operational missions, which has resulted in two Parsons-developed Identity Intelligence capabilities now used by the Army in OCONUS force protection operations.

Bruce Henry, PG, Engineered Systems, Galena Project Manager

• He maintained a record of no recordable safety incidents at the Galena site in Alaska with over 100,000 hours of hard work over six field seasons; resulting in “exceptional” client evaluations.

• He obtained the state’s permission to treat soil at Galena containing low levels of pesticides at a thermal treatment facility in Fairbanks, avoiding millions in transportation costs for disposal to the lower 48 states.

• He worked with the Air Force and the Environmental Security Technology Certification Program in the design and application of enhanced in situ bioremediation and situ biogeochemical transformation of chlorinated solvents.

Janelle Boncal Banks, P.E., P.M.C., Engineered Systems, Project Engineer – Environmental

• She has supported a wide variety of Federal environmental remediation projects, mainly dealing with the remediation of formerly used defense sites (FUDS) contaminated with chemical warfare agents.

• She serves as the lead project engineer for the Spring Valley project in Washington, DC, which involves removing chemical warfare munitions in one of the most influential residential neighborhoods in the U.S.

• Of her initiative, she successfully learned to navigate the Purchase Requisition process with the rollout of Deltek. She developed a how-to manual that is still used today within the market.

Theodosios Skortsis, Mobility Solutions (MEA), Senior Construction Director

• Used a multi-dimensional construction management approach for the 40-km length of Line 1 in Riyadh Metro to efficiently cover 80+ worksites with enormous technical challenges by adding a “breakthrough” way of thinking and ensuring faster completion and minimal disruption to the city.

• Holds weekly mentorship sessions for more than 130 of his team managers and engineers, benefitting their knowledge and careers; the Client was particularly appreciative of the mentoring provided to Saudi engineers.

• Introduced the “The Five Star Safety Award” which finally applied to 120+ construction sites, assisting in the improvement of the project’s safety statistics.

Rasin K. Mufti, Ph.D. Mobility Solutions-VP/Director of Major Programs-MEA

• Dr. Mufti’s career spans academia, private, public, and international organizations in the Middle East and the United States; he has authored more than 40 technical papers.

• He has served as Technical Director, Abu Dhabi Sector Manager, and Director of Major projects in MEA, instrumental in winning important programs in KSA and Kuwait, including the Technical Support Services (TSS) program.

• He is currently working with the Kuwait TSS Program, represents Kuwait at the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) technical committee meetings for rail and land transport, plays a significant part in conveying Kuwait’s positions on various critical transport issues to the GCC Secretariat.

Ravi Vaish, Connected Communities, ParADIM Manager

• He is leading the development of Parsons’ proprietary digital twin solution, ParADIM®, and working with Parsons leadership team across business units on strategic thinking, development, and integration of ParADIM® with Parsons’ core technology offerings.

• He leverages Building Information Modeling, workflow digitization, data analytics, machine learning, and software development to improve conventional means and methods.

• He has been recognized by Microsoft as a Power Platform Champion and has been invited to conferences to present and collaborate with industry leaders and developers, including Microsoft and Autodesk.

Ryan O’Connell, Mobility Solutions, Sr. Engineer

• Led a team that delivered six design packages for the Highway 401 Expansion under budget by 2,900 hours

• Designed four bridges for Southwest Calgary Ring Road, achieving a consensus for his analysis methodology which was used by other teams

• Known for his ability to quickly develop structural models for proposals and explore ideas to showcase Parsons’ understanding of the project complexities

Engineers Week was founded by the National Society of Professional Engineers in 1951 to ensure a diverse and well-educated future engineering workforce by increasing understanding of and interest in engineering and technical careers.

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