Advisory Board

Mission

The mission of the Advisory Board is to help the Civil Engineering Department achieve its academic mission. The advisory board is comprised of practitioners from consulting firms, private practice, construction companies, government agencies and educational institutions committed to academic excellence in undergraduate education. Following are some of the primary roles of the advisory board:

Advise faculty on desired program outcomes, learning objectives, and other educational issues, as constituents representing the community of employers of graduates
Provide advice on the needs of and trends within engineering practice
Provide and access resources for the department, to include serving as a fund-raising body
Help recruit practitioners to support faculty’s needs for adjunct instruction
Serve as industry contacts for faculty
Promote industry support for internship programs
Support department research activities
Serve as a lobby group for civil engineering education causes

Membership

The board shall consist of professionals from all pertinent Civil Engineering disciplines with experience in the public and private sector. At the advice of the department faculty, twelve members were selected and were appointed by the Chair of the Civil Engineering Department for a three year term (renewable).

Meetings

The advisory board will meet a minimum of twice per year, for about one day each time. Prior to each meeting, the Chair of the Advisory Board in close consultation with the Chair of the Civil Engineering Department will issue an agenda for distribution to all board members and the Civil Engineering faculty.

Advisory Board Members

Amoret L. Bunn

Amoret is an environmental engineer with the Ecology Group at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, operated by Battelle. She specializes in integrated risk assessments, ecological risk assessments, and contaminant fate and effects in biological systems. For the last few years she has been part of the risk assessment team for the U.S. Department of Energy's Groundwater Protection Program in Richland , Washington , working on projects with the System Assessment Capability, Characterization of Systems, and Science and Technology's Biological Exposure Studies. She works with many of the projects that monitor the Columbia River for potential impacts from Hanford . In addition, Dr. Bunn prepares information on aquatic and terrestrial resources for the National Environmental Policy Act concerning projects for future nuclear energy production as well as past contamination from energy related systems. Before arriving in the Pacific Northwest , she received a B.S. from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (1986), and a M.S. (1989) and Ph.D. (1992) from the University of New Hampshire.

Todd M. Fratzel

Todd is a Senior Structural Engineer with Ammann & Whitney Consulting Engineers in Boston, Massachusetts . Mr. Fratzel received his B.S.C.E. and M.S.C.E. from the University of New Hampshire in 1994 and 1996, respectively. While at UNH he conducted research on the use of high performance concrete in highway structures as part of his master's thesis. He is a registered professional engineer (structural discipline) in the States of Massachusetts and New Hampshire . His experience has focused on the design, analysis, and rehabilitation of highway and railroad bridges. Mr. Fratzel has been highly involved in the design of numerous complex highway bridge structures for the Central Artery Tunnel Project in Boston with a specific emphasis on the design of curved trapezoidal steel box girder bridges. Currently, he is the lead structural engineer for the design of a sharply curved box girder bridge at Logan International Airport for the Massachusetts Port Authority. In addition, he recently served as the lead structural engineer for the routine inspection of the Sagamore Bridge in Bourne, Massachusetts.

James W. Gallagher, Jr.

James is a registered professional civil engineer with 29 years of experience in water resources and dam engineering. Currently, he is the Chief of the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services Dam Bureau. As Chief of the Dam Bureau he is responsible for ensuring the safety of nearly 3,200 active dams in the State of New Hampshire . He is also responsible for the operation and maintenance of 113 Department-owned dams and 103 dams owned by the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department and for the design and construction of repairs needed on 270 State-owned dams. Before joining the Department of Environmental Services, Mr. Gallagher was a Senior Project Manager at GEI Consultants, Inc. for 12 years, where he was responsible for all of the firm's water resources projects in the Northeast. Prior to that, Mr. Gallagher was an engineer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for 13 years. Mr. Gallagher received a B.S. in civil engineering from Villanova University in 1974, and a M.P.A. in public administration from Harvard University in 1981.

Marya E. Gorczyca

Marya is a Senior Associate and Vice President at Haley & Aldrich, Inc. She received her B.S. (1981) and M.S. (1984) in Civil Engineering from the University of New Hampshire and is a registered Professional Engineer (P.E.) licensed in the State of New Hampshire. In her 19 years of experience with Haley & Aldrich she has been a practicing consulting engineer on a wide variety of geotechnical and environmental engineering projects involving subsurface investigations, foundation design studies, construction oversight, instrumentation and site remediation. Recent project experience has been in the area of deep excavations (4 to 6 levels below grade) for institutional and commercial real estate developments on urban sites with numerous site constraints, and poor soil conditions compounded by the presence of contaminated soil and/or groundwater. These include building developments in Boston, MA such as One Lincoln Street , 131 Dartmouth Street, Atelier 505 and the MERCK research building. She has also developed experience in the area of deep foundation design and installation, particularly for deep rock socketed drilled shafts, at 33 Arch Street, 111 Huntington Avenue, MERCK, and the Caisson Load Testing Program (CLTP), one of the Specialty Testing Programs sponsored by FHWA and conducted for design of the Central Artery/Tunnel (CA/T) project. Ms. Gorczyca's management responsibilities at Haley & Aldrich have included overseeing the Geotechnical Engineering Group for which she was responsible for workload, project staffing, staff development, training, performance reviews and recruiting of professional staff. In addition to other responsibilities for the Real Estate Business Unit she continues to be involved in many of these staff management activities for the Boston office of H&A.

Charles L. Head

Charles has a diverse technical background in the field of groundwater engineering and is a co-founder of Sanborn, Head & Associates, Inc. He has directed or served in a lead technical role for regional, national and international projects involving remedial investigation, as well as design and implementation of remedial actions at industrial facilities, brownfield redevelopment sites, and landfills. He has expertise in numerical and analytical modeling of hydrogeologic systems and subsurface contaminant behavior, and has made presentations at both regional and national conferences on these subjects. He has modeled, designed and directed installation of groundwater supply and dewatering systems, groundwater infiltration systems, and extraction and hydrodynamic containment systems for dissolved and nonaqueous-phase contaminants. Mr. Head routinely serves as lead in presentations and negotiations with regulatory agencies and public groups. Mr. Head has a B.S. in geology from St. Lawrence University (1979), a B.S. in civil engineering from UNH (1983), and a M.S. in civil engineering from Colorado State University (1986).

Dana N. Humphrey

Dana is Chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Malcolm Long Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Maine . He joined the University of Maine in 1986 after receiving his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering (Geotechnical) from Purdue University . He received a B.S. in Civil Engineering from UNH in 1978 and M.S. in Civil Engineering from Purdue University in 1979. Since 1999 he has served as the University of Maine 's faculty representative to the University of Maine System Board of Trustees. He is former president of the UMaine Faculty Senate. He teaches courses in geotechnical engineering, thermal soil mechanics, ground improvement, and advanced soil properties. His research in using tire shreds as lightweight fill, retaining wall backfill, thermal insulation, and drainage layers for landfills has received international attention. In addition, Dr. Humphrey has had major papers and technical reports in this area. He is recipient of the Maine Distinguished Professor Award, Carnegie Foundation Maine Professor of the Year Award, International Tire and Rubber Association Friend of the Industry Award, and Maine Governor's Award for Special Teamwork.

Christopher Kelley

Christopher is a construction superintendent with Skanska USA Building , an international general contractor and construction manager. Mr. Kelley works out of the Boston , Massachusetts office and is currently assigned to the Ray and Maria Stata Center project at MIT. This 230 million dollar educational facility is unique in that the design of the building is communicated to the builder not only with conventional 2-dimensional drawings but also by means of an interactive 3-dimensional computer model. Mr. Kelley is responsible for supervising the exterior envelope construction. He will be the lead superintendent responsible for managing the addition and renovation of the Kingsbury Hall project at UNH. Mr. Kelley has an A.S. in Architectural Engineering from New Hampshire Technical Institute and a B.S. (1994) in Civil Engineering from UNH. Mr. Kelley is a licensed builder in the State of Massachusetts and has a Boston ABC building license.

Duncan C. Mellor

Duncan is the chief engineer and owner of Waterfront Engineers LLC, of Stratham, New Hampshire, a firm specializing in the assessment and design of waterfront structures. Mr. Mellor has a B.S. in Civil Engineering (1985) and an M.S. in Ocean Engineering (1987) from the University of New Hampshire and is a Professional Engineer licensed in civil, structural and geotechnical engineering. Mr. Mellor is typically involved in the inspection, assessment, design of repairs, structure replacement or new construction for piers, wharves, dry docks, bulkheads, quay walls, seawalls, revetments, breakwaters/ wave screens, marinas, waterfront parks, container terminals, offshore structures, intakes and outfalls, bridges and dredging/ beach nourishment projects. He is also a certified commercial diver and performs underwater inspections of bridges and dock structures. Mr. Mellor recently co-authored an ASCE Ports 2004 conference paper on the design and construction of an offshore tower for Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and is a contributing author on a book by John Gaythwaite, covering the assessment and design of marine facilities.

James A. Moore

James is the Assistant Director of Project Development at the New Hampshire Department of Transportation. He earned his B.S.C.E (1969) and M.S.C.E. (1971) from the University of New Hampshire and is a NH Registered Professional Engineer in civil, highway and structural engineering. Mr. Moore has worked for the Department since 1972 and became the Administrator of the Bureau of Municipal Highways, Bridge Design and lastly Right-of-Way before taking his present position in 2002. While in the Bridge Design Bureau he encouraged innovative designs from his staff such as the award winning Scammell Bridge in Dover and the new steel arch bridge in Chesterfield , NH - Brattleboro , VT. He became the team leader for the national High Performance Concrete (HPC) Lead State Team that promoted the use of HPC for bridges and highways. The Department won a national design award of its first HPC bridge in Bristol which as a team effort between the Department and the University. In his current position, Mr. Moore provides technical and administrative direction to the eight bureaus in the Division of Project Development and sits on various committees for the purpose of increasing efficiency within the Department.

Charles E. Pierce

Charles (B.S. 1991) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering at the University of South Carolina in Columbia . After graduating from the University of New Hampshire , Dr. Pierce continued his education at Northwestern University in Evanston , Illinois , where he earned his M.S. (1993) and Ph.D. (1998) in Civil Engineering. He has been with USC since 1998, where he also serves as an affiliate of the School of the Environment. Dr. Pierce has teaching and research interests in geotechnical engineering and construction materials. He has published research on topics that include time domain reflectometry applications in geotechnical and geoenvironmental instrumentation, controlled low-strength materials, and use of recycled materials in civil infrastructure. Dr. Pierce presently serves as the faculty advisor to the ASCE Student Chapter and as a member of the undergraduate program committee. He is a member of the ASCE Geo-Institute, ACI, and ASTM and is active on ACI Committees 229 and 555.

Stephen B. Ransom

Stephen is President and founder of Ransom Environmental Consultants, Inc. As a business owner and entrepreneur, Mr. Ransom has grown and developed the firm over the past 15 years from one office to five with annual revenues exceeding 6.5M. In January 2001, Mr. Ransom led the successful acquisition of Shevenell-Gallen and Associates, Inc., which has been fully integrated in Ransom. As principal engineer, Mr. Ransom offers technical guidance to a staff of engineers, hydrogeologists, geologists, and chemists. Assuming overall responsibility for the quality of the company's work, he continuously monitors the status and progress of all projects. Mr. Ransom has amassed a wide spectrum of project experience that includes facilitating business mergers and acquisitions, as well as serving as an expert witness in complex litigation cases where attorneys need an environmental expert with broad-based technical skills. In addition, Mr. Ransom lends his expertise to projects that involve complex real estate transactions; site remedial action programs; investigations for the assessment of soil, groundwater, and surface water contamination; and compliance audits and permitting for hazardous waste generators. Mr. Ransom has a B.S. in forest engineering from the University of Maine (1980), and a M.S. in civil/environmental engineering from UNH (1983).

Todd K. Walles

Todd is a Vice President at Weston Solutions, Inc. He received a B.S. in civil engineering from the University of New Hampshire and a M.S. in civil engineering from Villanova University . Mr. Walles has more than 18 years of professional work experience managing environmental engineering and construction projects. He is a Certified Hazardous Materials Manager (CHMM) and a Project Management Professional (PMP). He has led and directed multi-disciplinary teams comprised of technical and business management specialists and construction managers. Mr. Walles has assisted in the development and formal training of project managers, while serving as an advisor to many others. He has managed numerous environmental remediation and design-build-operate projects, valued at more than $100 million dollars. His expertise is focused on business development and project management in work areas including: ground water treatment, hazardous waste remediation and redevelopment of contaminated sites. Current responsibilities include managing regional business operations for impaired property development and environmental restoration with special emphasis on integrating human and natural systems, innovative technologies, and sustainable, high-performance solutions.

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