PERSPECTIVES
SE Operations vice president named
Jay Saxena has joined Ayres Associates as
vice president of Southeast Operations. He brings
more than 20 years of success in engineering and
business management and will oversee Ayres’ four
Florida offices.
Saxena has built a solid reputation
for creating and leveraging models
to achieve business growth. He
has worked for more than 16 years
for engineering consultant firms
throughout Florida, including
serving in management roles.
He has spent the past four years in the health
care field, most recently as president and chief
operating officer of a successful health care
group specializing in personal, customer-focused
service to its patients. His engineering experience
includes managing civil and geotechnical projects
throughout the Southeast and expanding
companies’ client bases. His focus in the health
care field was putting patients first, just as his
engineering consulting work puts the client first.
Saxena is a registered professional engineer
in Florida and a Florida neutral evaluator and
certified circuit civil mediator. He holds a master
of engineering degree from Cornell University and
a bachelor of science in civil engineering from the
University of Florida.
Bridge scour team wins awards
The Florida Institute of Consulting Engineers
recognized a massive effort to evaluate the
incidence of dangerous scour among more than
1,500 Florida bridges with “unknown foundations”
– ones whose foundation construction
documentation is lacking – by awarding the project
a 2017 Grand Award for Engineering Excellence.
Ayres Associates and GCI Inc, in partnership
with Kimley-Horn and Associates, Inc. and STV
Incorporated, meticulously analyzed bridges
susceptible to scour – the engineering term for the
erosion of soil surrounding a bridge foundation
– thereby helping the Florida Department of
Transportation (FDOT) to decide which bridges are
candidates for repair, replacement, or protection
from scour.
The team also developed innovative and
rational methods that advance the state of practice
in assessing bridges with unknown foundations.
Lead practitioners for the project say the important
contributions made by the team will ensure safer
structures and lead to new standards for bridge
evaluations. The team leaders have presented
their methods and findings regionally, nationally,
and internationally to others in the industry,
governmental agencies, and academic institutions.
Ayres Associates’ FDOT scour evaluation efforts
have been led by Hisham Sunna, manager of
structural design/inspection, Southeast Operations.
The firms assembled multidisciplinary teams
to complete risk assessment, field investigations
and reviews, surveys, non-destructive testing,
scour analysis, geo-structural evaluations,
and development of plans of action for scour
countermeasures. Inn ovations included a
pioneering method for pile embedment
estimation, as well as the first known approach to
rationally include consideration of the substructure
in bridge load ratings. Bridge load ratings are
typically assigned based solely on evaluation of
the superstructure, which consists of the beams
and deck directly beneath traffic. Such load rating
could cause catastrophic results if the load-carrying
capacity of the substructure, which includes
abutments and piers, is deficient.
The project advanced to the national
ACEC competition, where it earned a National
Recognition Award for demonstrating “exceptional
achievement in engineering.”
Bridge project earns ACEC honors
The American Council of Engineering
Companies of Wisconsin honored Ayres’ USH 2
Bong Bridge Rehabilitation and Approaches project
with a 2017 Engineering Excellence State Finalist
Award.
Ayres Associates used creative
engineering and well-planned
construction staging to safely
and successfully rehabilitate the
Richard I. Bong Memorial Bridge
– a prominent structure linking
Superior, Wisconsin, and Duluth,
Minnesota, over the St. Louis River
and Harbor. The thousands of people who use this
picturesque bridge daily have a renewed structure
they can trust and quicker drive times on a
smoother road and modern roundabout, and they
will encounter minimal maintenance disruptions
for the next 30 years. The visually captivating “S”
shaped bridge, which opened in 1985, required
“routine” maintenance after 30 years of use.
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