The Delaware Council of Engineering Societies announced that R. David Charles, principal at Duffield Associates, Wilmington-Pike Creek, was named 2015 Engineer of the Year.
This comes after the fast-track effort to repair the bridge won another top engineering honor.
Charles will be honored at a banquet on Feb. 26 at Bella Vita at Cavaliers Country Club.
Young Engineer of the Year is J. Michael Reimann of Becker Morgan Group, which has Delaware offices in Dover and Newark.
Charles, a geotechnical engineer who has been with Duffield Associates for 33 years, discovered a problem with a bridge on Interstate 495 near the Port of Wilmington.
The bridge was closed down and a massive project to temporarily repair the structure was launched. It was later discovered that fill dumped in the soft soil under the bridge contributed to piers moving out out of alignment.
The work was completed ahead of schedule and eased bottlenecks that continued throughout the summer on the busy route between Washington and New York City.
That I-495 project won a top engineering award from the American Council of Engineering Delaware. The winner was AECOM, formerly URS, which operates an office in the Newark area. That award was announced in December. Click on the highlighted link above for the full list of winners.
The American Council of Engineering winners will also be honored at the dinner.
