News 17Dec

December 2017

Iowa Recognizes Several in their County Engineers Association

By Brian Keierleber, PE
Buchanan County, Iowa

The Iowa County Engineers Association (ICEA) held our Winter Conference on December 5-7 in Ames. This completes a major stretch of history as the future conferences will be moved to Des Moines and held in the Veterans Memorial Community Choice Credit Union Convention Center.

For some of us older engineers this is a hard move as a lot of memories are left behind. Friends that are no longer with us are remembered in Ames, but we’ll make new memories in Des Moines.

A very interesting Keynote Speaker opened our conference. Jim Olsen is a retired Operator from the CIA. Jim told how he was recruited and stories of the Farm in Virginia. It appears to be dramatically different than the farms in Iowa or the one I grew up in South Dakota. He told of raising a family while being an undercover operative in Europe. And when he was outed, the risk it placed on his family in.

In addition to concurrent sessions on Bridges, Human Resources, and Pavement Management, discussions were held on the upcoming Federal Funds Swap. It is occurring much more rapidly than I expected: they should be in effect next October.

Several members of our county engineer community we recognized for exceptional contributions to the profession:

Todd Kinney, PE, Clinton County, received the Outstanding County Engineering Achievement
award from ICEA Vice President Jon Burgstrum, PE.

Dan Ahart and I received Special Service awards from ICEA Vice President Jon Burgstrum, PE.
We’re all grateful for this recognition and for the camaraderie we have in our profession.

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