What Steve Does At Work

Not long ago my sister Mary had a post on her blog about "What I Do At Work". This got me thinking...besides for your spouse and maybe a couple other people in your life does anyone really know what anyone else does at work all day? Yeah, you might know that someone is in marketing, or finance, or whatever but could you descibe what they do to someone else. I know I can't.

Well, I think everyone knows I'm an engineer. Most who follow this blog probably know I'm a structural engineer. But what does that mean? It pretty much means I make things stand up. Architects/designers make them look pretty and I make sure they don't fall over. Sounds simple but it took 7 years of college to be able to do it.

The biggest project I have worked on in my professional career is nearing completion. I am lead engineer on the design of a nearly 600,000 square foot replacement hospital in Charlottesville, Virginia. The construction budget on this project is $250 million. Just to put that in perspective, that was just about the construction budget of Miller Park (prior to the infamous blue crane collapse, that is). I started on this project in early 2006 and have logged over 3500 man hours (yikes) on this project to date. It's been kind of a labor of love for me, I guess you could say.

Below are a couple recent aerial photos taken of the project. One very interesting item to note is that if you look closely at the top of the foothill in the background of the second picture you'll see a cluster of buildings. That is Monticello...the estate of Thomas Jefferson. You may have heard of him.

Most engineers work their whole careers and don't get involved in a project of this magnitude. Kind of neat, I guess.