Civil Engineering Stories

Christopher Hicks ’24 takes a deep breath, sets up his sight, braces his weapon, and fires. For Hicks, the sport of rifle is 90% mental. It’s also long and arduous.

The Chessie Nature Trail, which runs along the Maury River from Lexington to Buena Vista consists of seven miles of level path including several pedestrian bridges. Lawrence Porter ’24 is examining the serviceability of one of those bridges in his 10-week SURI project.

Owen Clifford ’24 first began his journey at Virginia Military Institute on an Army scholarship, but due to medical reasons, he wasn’t able to pursue that specific path. Instead, he turned to the private sector.

Capt. John E. “Ned” Riester Jr. ’78, professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) at Virginia Military Institute, is retiring after 29 years.

Colin Butler ’23 started his research where most research starts — at the drawing board. He conducted a year-long research project on concrete support beams. He presented his findings in his senior thesis titled, “High Strength Fiber Reinforce Concrete and its Application in Composite Beams.”

Virginia Military Institute’s Spring 2023 Engineering Networking & Internship Fair — an engineering-centered event — was held in Preston Library Feb. 14, 2023.

When Erik Gottmann ’25, a cadet at Virginia Military Institute boarded a flight to Austria for a ski trip with his family over winter furlough, he had no way of knowing he and his brothers would be an essential part of a Christmas miracle.

Is it possible to know which country will start the next war? Leon M. Thomas ’22 posed this question as the basis of his senior thesis: “Democracies and Autocracies: Structural Factors that Determine Military Interventions” and presented his findings during honors week, held March 21-31.

Cadets taking Civil Engineering 121, Surveying, took a field trip to McKethan Park before Thanksgiving furlough to practice flying Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs or “drones”) used in surveying and mapping.

“There’s so much knowledge here,” Leon Thomas ’22 commented. “There’s all this different military experience from different branches that you really would never have seen in many other places.”