WGI Unleashed

In this episode, we got to chat with Amanda Montgomery, an Environmental Scientist on our Environmental Services team. Amanda is based out of our Fort Lauderdale, FL office and has been with WGI for 4 years. She is one of WGI's most active brand ambassadors and exudes passion in everything she does, which is why our hosts were so eager to have her as a guest on the show.

In this episode, we got to chat with Tom Bernard, the Market Leader of our MEP Division based in our Tampa, FL office. Tom has recently celebrated his one-year anniversary with WGI and was excited to hop on the mic and join us on the show.

In this episode, we got to chat with Shad Shafie, VP of the Buildings division based in our San Antonio, TX office. Shad drove to the Austin, TX office to record this episode of the podcast for a riveting conversation.

Shad discussed his early life growing up in the Austin, TX area and going to college at The University of Texas where he played football and studied Architectural Engineering. He also discussed moving around the country to many cities with his wife before they had two daughters. We also learned about Shad's passion for photography, skydiving, 80s music, Las Vegas, and more!

In this episode, we got to sit down in the Tallahassee, Florida office to chat with Loren Steele, Project Engineer with our Transportation team.

Loren is originally from Jacksonville, FL, and moved to Tallahassee, FL to attend FSU where she obtained her bachelor’s in Civil Engineering. In her free time, she discussed how she enjoys home improvement projects and spending time outside at the park where her kids can play. She also gave gardening tips to our host, calling back to our previous episode with Floyd Jackson.

Loren's transportation design experience encompasses a wide range of assignments involving roadway design, plans production, quantities/estimating, planning, public involvement, and engineering research, analysis, and reporting.

In this episode, we got to sit down in the Tampa, Florida office to chat with Floyd Jackson, Chief Designer with our Civil Engineering team.

Floyd talked about growing up in Florida and attending the Santa Fe College in Gainsville, FL on a scholarship for being a school ambassador for two years. He then graduated from the University of Central Florida where he obtained his Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering. He also discussed getting married, traveling the world, and his newfound hobby - gardening! Floyd and his wife started gardening during the pandemic and have not stopped since.

In this episode, we got to sit down in the Tampa, Florida office to chat with Marcia Alvarado, Market Leader for our Structures and Parking division.

Marcia discussed growing up in a military family and her travels around the world. She also discussed her path to the engineering profession, going to college with a full-ride to play basketball, and her life as a model working during New York Fashion Week. She received the USF College of Engineering Young Alumnus Award in 2018. Marcia is a graduate of Leadership Tampa Bay and serves as the Diversity and Inclusion Chair for the Board of Directors.

Marcia provides a unique combination of experience with structural engineering and Building Information Modeling (BIM) coordination as a project manager. She has 16 years of structural engineering experience and project management of new construction and renovation in healthcare, commercial, higher education, multi-story residential, federal, aviation, and parking garages. She also has engineering experience in structural design for restoration construction and forensic engineering investigations, structural analysis for existing buildings for seismic, wind, and AT/FP blast resistance, and progressive collapse upgrades, including National Technical Reviews for various FEMA programs.

In this episode, we got to sit down in the Austin, TX office to chat with Colter Sonneville, Project Manager and Certified Arborist in our Landscape Architecture department.

Our hosts got a kick out of our new guest this month, Joelle McCormick, Team Leader based in our Austin, Texas office on our MEP Engineering team. She talked about growing up in New Jersey and going off to college at The Pennsylvania State University to become a doctor. She changed her career path to becoming an engineer because she is good at solving problems and making systems work efficiently. She went on to talk about how she found herself moving to Austin, Texas after a site visit with a previous employer while eating Thai food. She ended up here at WGI and has been with us for 5 years!

In this episode of WGI Unleashed, we got to chat with Mario Garcia, Graduate Civil Engineer located in our Houston, Texas office. We were thrilled to get to have Mario as a guest in this podcast episode. Mario has expressed great interest and fandom towards Unleashed since the beginning and was excited to finally be on the show! He discussed many projects he has worked on throughout his career with WGI, growing up raising cattle, his love for movies, and how his two-year-old daughter and the family dog both fight for his attention daily!

Mario works in our Civil Engineering division on land development projects across Texas and the Southwest. He also has extensive experience in parking planning, parking design, parking analysis, and operations studies.

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In this episode of WGI Unleashed, we chat with Jose Mendoza, Geospatial Field Supervisor located in our West Palm Beach, Florida office.

We were excited to get to know Jose since he was recommended so many times to be on the podcast. He talked about how he was a military kid growing up in many different countries and how he eventually ended up in Florida. He also talked about his favorite place he has ever been to which is Barbados. He is an avid surfer and he loves visiting Barbados to surf. He told our hosts that he had visited Barbados at least 6 times. Today, he's a father and a new hobby he shares with his son is knife throwing!

At WGI, Jose is responsible for a wide variety of surveying assignments. He is proficient in the use of conventional surveying methodology, and hydrographic surveying technology, as well as both static and RTK global positioning. Jose's project experience over the past 13+ years includes work on major highway projects as well as urban and local roads. Jose is also proficient with boundary surveys, topographic surveys, and large land development surveys.