Engineering Solutions & Construction Management, PLC expanded its Harrisonburg-based company to Charlottesville just last year. The expansion also meant bringing on new staff. Two new structural engineers joined our team in the new Charlottesville office in June 2015: Benjamin Griffith and Tom McLaughlin.
Benjamin, born and raised in Tennessee, graduated from Tennessee Technological University. He obtained his Engineering in Training license this past January.
“Now I am on the long road to becoming a Professional Engineer,” says Benjamin. Joining Engineering Solutions was just one new change for Benjamin.
“I graduated, got married, and moved to Charlottesville all within a month,” Benjamin explained, “It’s been a very busy time.” He and his wife enjoy spending time outdoors. One of their goals is to visit every national park in the United States. They’ve already hit a few, including Yellowstone, Glacier, Mammoth Cave, and the Smokey Mountains.
When asked about his new position at Engineering Solutions, Benjamin said, “It has been everything I had hoped for. I still have so much to learn, but I am enjoying getting exposure to a variety of projects.”
Alongside Benjamin, Tom McLaughlin joined the new Charlottesville office as the Director of Structural Engineering. Tom is a Professional Engineer licensed in Virginia, who recently returned from a trip to Nepal where he was part of a live search and rescue team after an earthquake struck there.
“The team is based in Fairfax County,” said Tom, “And I was living there for a while and wanted to find out if I could contribute my engineering knowledge.”
Tom eventually joined the team—known as USA 1—and acts as one of a few on-call engineers who are ready to go wherever a natural disaster strikes.
“The engineers on the team look for the safest way to enter and exit collapsed structures,” he explained, “We evaluate the whole building and make sure it’s safe for the search dogs to go into first.”
As for his new position with Engineering Solutions, Tom believes the new office has a lot of potential.
“There are definitely larger markets that we can tap, and I hope to help with that expansion,” Tom said.
When not working, Tom loves working on his own home renovation projects, coaching his kids’ baseball team, and mountain biking. In fact, the whole Charlottesville office hopes to plan a mountain biking trip soon this summer. Tom and Benjamin enjoy the new opportunities that the Charlottesville has to offer, including the area’s many outdoor activities.
Engineering Solutions & Construction Management is a structural engineering company that serves the whole of Virginia as well as some of its surrounding states: West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Tennessee, and Washington DC.