By Christopher N. Dunn, P.E., D.WRE and Dawn R. Palma

Personnel

HEC has made a number of personnel moves since our last newsletter. To keep this article to a manageable level, we decided to highlight the permanent staff who have joined HEC since that last newsletter. As you can see it is a long list and we are thrilled with our good fortune.

  • Brennan Beam – Brennan joined HEC in March 2019 as a Hydraulics Engineer and is working in the Water Resource Systems Division (WRS). He formally worked in the Omaha District.
  • Jason Petersen – Jason arrived at HEC in November 2019 as our Management Analyst. His previous experience included a serving as a Budget Analyst with Sacramento District (SPK). He is also retired from the Air Force. He is a member of our Executive Division.
  • Michael Neilson – Also from SPK, Mike joined HEC in January 2020 and has been working as a Hydraulic Engineer in the Water Management Systems Division (WMS) helping us with CWMS and water management data systems.
  • Alexander Davis – Alex comes to us from the Nashville District and started working for HEC in March 2020. Alex has been working with the WMS team as a Hydraulics Engineer.
  • David Ho – Another SPK transplant, David has been working for HEC since March 2020. He too is a Hydraulics Engineer and splits his time between the Hydrology and Statistics Division (H&S) and the WRS Division. He is surviving being pulled in two directions.
  • Matthew Bizieff – Matthew came to HEC as a Budget Analyst from the California National Guard. Matthew is also an Army veteran with multiple tours in Afghanistan. He joined HEC in August 2020 and has fit in nicely with our Executive Division.
  • Richard Nugent – Coming from New York District (NAN), Richard started with HEC in September 2020. He is an Economist within the WRS Division and has taken on several key roles including the Team Lead for HEC-FDA.
  • Joshua Willis – Josh formerly worked in the Fort Worth District (SWF) office as a Hydraulics Engineer. In April 2021, he took on that same role with HEC. He currently works in the H&S where he is a key member of the HEC-HMS team.
  • Natalya Sokolovskaya – Natasha joined the HEC-HMS team in June 2021. She is also working on her PhD from Villanova University in Philadelphia, PA.
  • To help ensure HEC maintains our software coding skills, HEC hired three University of California at Davis computer science graduates. Each worked for us as students for several years before they became permanent full-time employees in October of 2021. We are learning from all three. They are:
    • Neema Nejad – working for WMS.
    • Nick Van – working for H&S and
    • Zach Morris – working for the Hydraulics Division (HYD)
  • Nickolas Lutz – Another Economist, Nick joined HEC from the Louisville District. He began working with HEC in October 2021 and he works for WRS and among other projects is our NSI (National Structural Inventory) champion.
  • Linda Nguyen – Linda joined the Executive Division in December 2021 as an Office Automation Assistant. We look forward to a long career with us.
  • Evan Heisman – Our most recent hire is Evan Heisman who came on board in January 2022. Evan is working as a Hydraulics Engineer in the WRS where he is supporting several studies and working hand-in-glove with the HEC-WAT team. Evan formerly worked for Walla Walla District (NWW).

HEC-Re-Organization

For a myriad of reasons, HEC recently reorganized. We have created a fourth technical division called the Hydraulics Division (HYD) and changed the Hydrology and Hydraulics Technology Division to the Hydrology and Statistics Division (H&S). Our other technical divisions, Water Resource Systems Division (WRS) and the Water Management Systems Division (WMS) have remained intact. HEC keeps our Executive Division as well. Now that we have a 4th technical division, we needed to hire a 4th Division Chief. Kristy Riley was recently selected as the Chief of the Hydraulics Division. Before becoming the Division Chief, Kristy was a Hydraulic Engineer and Project Manager within WMS; a more thorough description of Kristy’s background can be found in our last newsletter. Matt Fleming, Chan Modini, and Lea Adams are the Chiefs of the H&S, WMS, and WRS Divisions respectively.

A very quick synopsis of each Division follows:

  • Hydrology and Statistics: H&S focuses on the development, training, support, and implementation of HEC-HMS (Hydrologic Modeling Systems) and HEC-SSP (Statistical Software Package) software. Of course, their efforts spill over into many other activities, but their primary focus is the health and feeding of those two pieces of software. Several articles are included with this newsletter.
  • Hydraulics Division: The primary responsibility of the Hydraulics Division (HYD) is HEC-RAS (River Analysis Systems). An article of some of their advances is included with this newsletter.
  • Water Management Systems Division: WMS is known for the creation, maintenance, support, training, and enhancement of the Corps Water Management System (CWMS) and the data component or the Water Management Enterprise System (WMES). However, WMS also has the responsibility for several other tools such as HEC-DSS, HEC-DSSVue, HEC-ResSim, HEC-FIA, and HEC-MetVue, which is described in this newsletter.
  • Water Resource Systems Division: WRS connects the engineering tools with the USACE planning program. Many of the tools created, maintained, supported, and enhanced by WRS are used throughout USACE to make economic and/or environmental decisions. Some of these tools include: HEC-FDA, HEC-WAT, and the suite of HEC-EFM tools.
  • Executive Division: We have several administrative support positions assigned to the Executive Division, including Administrative Officer, Budget Analyst, Management Analyst, Executive Secretary, Office Automation Assistant, and of course the HEC Director. The staff assigned to the Executive Division support all of the technical divisions to help keep the business of HEC moving along.