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Meet Stephanie...

Senior Structural Engineer

"The projects are not your typical “cookie cutter” buildings and require our engineering creativity to make sure all code requirements are met."

stephanie-mcavoy

Tell us about what you do!  

I love the people I work with and the projects we get to work on together. The projects are not your typical “cookie cutter” buildings and require our engineering creativity to make sure all code requirements are met. Our structural department works together to come up with solutions to meet our internal and external clients vision for their buildings while keeping everything functional as well, all while working with a great group of people.

What interesting projects have you helped manage?

As a senior structural engineer, I am responsible for overseeing the completion of many projects. I mentor young engineers through the structural design proves. I also coordinate structural requirements for building and site structures with other lead engineer and architects. Some of the largest and most interesting projects I have led include New Embassy Compounds (NEC) for OBO. One of these involved the site structure effort for a major NEC, including perimeter security features, site retaining walls, and other site structures on a site with extreme elevation differences from one end to the other. This effort also included coordinating with our civil department to provide structural designs for multiple underground tanks required for their storm water management design. I worked on the FDA Headquarters Central Utility Plant which was a steel and concrete building with large, heavy equipment on elevated floors. We had to work with mechanical and electrical to provide equipment access removal from the elevated floors of the CUP as well as design custom, built-up, long span structural steel trusses to provide large, open spaces to house the required equipment. More recently, I have been getting into blast designs for multiple facilities to ensure the structural components of the buildings do not provide a failure point in the event of an explosion occurring near the site. These provide a nice change of pace from the typical structural engineering designs we do and require me to work with the structural engineer on the project to ensure requirements are met for the blast loads as well as the structural loads.

How has the work culture changed during the pandemic?

COVID-19 has changed the work dynamic with the majority of my department working from home. Our department has a daily Zoom meeting each morning to talk about work load and any issues that have come up since the previous day. It's not the same as seeing each other in person daily, but it definitely helps to talk to each other like that every day. It was difficult bringing in a new employee last spring after we had all started working remotely. It can be hard to get to know a person without seeing and talking to them in person but lots of phone calls and screen sharing were able to bring him up to speed with our work flow at Mason & Hanger, client specific design standards, and our drawing standards.

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