Martin Garcia joined ArchTam five years ago after 34 successful years at Denver Water managing, designing and constructing a wide range of projects. His roles ranged from civil engineer to project manager, focusing on complex piping projects as well as tank, pump station and treatment plant projects. He was involved in the design and construction of a pipeline that connected the suburban enclave of Glendale to the Denver Water system, and he was part of the team that designed the 40-mile water transmission and distribution system from scratch for Denver International Airport (DEN). Following the opening of the airport, he was involved in its water distribution system expansion and upgrades over a 25-year period.  

After overseeing the design work for the Northwater Treatment Plant during his time at Denver Water, he took the opportunity to work at ArchTam and assist with technical support during the construction phase of the project.  

Tell us about what inspired you to join the industry. 

From a young age, I was always fascinated with infrastructure — highways, buildings and the layouts of cities. My father worked at Denver Water handling distribution system maintenance, so I was familiar with Denver Water from a young age. He worked there for 30 years, and our careers overlapped for about a year and a half.  When I was in high school, I learned that civil engineers are involved with infrastructure, and so I chose to study that subject in school. Then, I got a job in civil engineering after coming out of college, at a large oil refinery in southeast Texas. When there was a downturn in the oil industry in the mid-1980s, I got laid off. This gave me a chance to come back home to Denver, and to join Denver Water. I have worked in the water industry ever since, and now I also work in wastewater. 

What is your favorite ArchTam project that you’ve worked on and why?

All of my projects have been interesting, but the best I would have to say is the Salt Lake City Water Reclamation Facility because of the teamwork that the project required. In addition to half a dozen or more disciplines, there were many different offices involved from the United States and Canada. The process design for the project was done in Winnipeg, and we also had people working from Vancouver, Virginia, Ohio, California, and here in Denver — with each office contributing a different specialization. Winnipeg had a wastewater design center, Virginia handled specialty systems, Vancouver handled odor control, and here in Denver we did the yard piping along with plumbing and other building systems, and the architectural design. 

I was involved with the yard piping, because of my background from Denver Water. Since this was a wastewater plant, it was different for me — but it was still about moving water around. There were several different processes scattered all over the site and a lot of existing infrastructure that we had to navigate to get from point A to point B, and then from point B to point C. We had to move the water from one process to another, and I collaborated with civil engineers to coordinate all those different parts of the process. Each process engineer managed a specific section of the treatment process, and we coordinated with them as to where the pipe needed to connect into their building.  

The teamwork that occurred on the project among the different engineers, the offices across the United States and Canada, and the collaboration with the client made it very memorable for me. And we did it all remotely from our own offices, and from our homes even during the COVID-19 lockdown, using virtual collaboration tools.

Tell us a story of how your work positively impacted the community.

When working on utilities and infrastructure, there’s always going to be an impact on the community. The Salt Lake City Water Reclamation Facility project will allow our client, the Salt Lake City Department of Public Utilities, to continue meeting their discharge requirements and support the rapid growth of the area. The population continues to grow in Salt Lake City, and this project will allow them to meet the rising demand and build capacity resilience for the future with a more reliable and efficient water reclamation facility. For example, there will be less nutrients in the discharge because of the updated processes designed by ArchTam. 

Share a piece of career advice. 

Don’t be afraid to ask questions. As a young engineer, you aren’t going to have the benefit of experience. But those who have gone before you will have that to share. As you progress through your career and gain that experience, you can then share it with those coming up behind you.  

When I started, there was a lot I didn’t know, especially about the water industry, so I asked a lot of questions. Now I’m on the other end of the spectrum, helping younger engineers here at ArchTam. I’m glad to help them out when they ask questions. That’s one of the things I like most about what I’m doing now — helping the younger engineers learn. 

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Jason has more than 23 years of experience as an economist for ArchTam projects across business lines. Over the course of his career, he has leveraged his background in resource economics to help evaluate and justify transportation, water, energy and environmental projects for local, state and federal agencies such as the U.S Department of Transportation (USDOT), U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS), Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and U.S. Trade and Development Agency (USTDA), as well as the U.S. government’s Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC).

His recent projects include an economic impact study for a working waterfront in Portland, Maine where he lives and benefit-cost analyses for dam rehabilitation projects nationwide. He’s currently working with our Environment team to help our clients find ways to generate revenue from the natural capital of their land assets through initiatives like conservation easements and mitigation banking. He has prepared application packages and completed economic analyses for multiple successful federal and state transportation and hazard mitigation grants, including for BRIC, HMA, BUILD, INFRA, CRISI, PIDP and RAISE. He has been an instructor for courses at FEMA’s Emergency Management Institute and instructed a pilot course at the National Highway Institute that taught participants (USDOT reviewers) how to evaluate the benefit-cost analyses of applications submitted to USDOT discretionary grant programs.

Tell us about what inspired you to join the industry.

While I earned my undergraduate degree in engineering, I became interested in the best ways to justify environmental-related measures from an economic standpoint. This led me to pursue a master’s degree in resource economics, and economics has been my focus ever since. When completing an environmental-related project, we used different methods to show that people are willing to pay for things like higher water quality, clean air and preserved nature that benefit the community or broader society.

This involves either surveying people who could be impacted or using a benefit transfer, in which we consider values developed through other studies published by academia or in peer-reviewed journals and translate them to our specific study. We provide benefit-cost analyses and feasibility studies for existing projects and grant applications to show that projects are economically feasible and cost-effective.

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law have increased available grant funding tremendously, so our team’s grant work has expanded. I work on a broad range of projects at ArchTam — there are always new and interesting opportunities to learn and grow — and this keeps me energized in my role.

What is your favorite ArchTam project that you’ve worked on and why?

I have opportunities to work on a broad range of projects, so it’s difficult to select one project or area of practice. However, much of my career has focused on hazard mitigation, which aims to reduce or eliminate long-term risk to people and property from future flooding and other hazard events. For more than 20 years I’ve helped federal, state and local agencies evaluate flood mitigation projects using cost-benefit analyses and provided guidance related to resilience and climate change.

For the United States Trade and Development Agency, we looked at ways to help restore mangroves in coastal areas of Thailand. Our proposed solutions needed to protect the ecosystem while supporting local communities that rely on shrimp farming for their livelihoods and food security. We examined and brought forward more sustainable aquaculture approaches that protect mangroves and contribute to mangrove reforestation.

Another subset of my hazard mitigation work is dams, which can have a significant impact if they fail. Working with our Water business line teams across the country, I help the NRCS, FEMA and USAF evaluate dam rehabilitation projects. We use benefit-cost analyses to determine the economic feasibility and value of rehabilitating dams to current day standards.

Tell us a story of how your work positively impacted the community.

In 2018, I took part in a study aimed at improving the wastewater collection system in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia’s capital city, for the Millennium Challenge Corporation. One of the study’s outcomes is a newly constructed Advanced Water Purification Plant (AWPP). The AWPP has introduced the latest developments in water purification science and technology to Mongolia and replaced an ineffective water treatment plant that had left water untreated and flowing into a local river with communities struggling under the stench.

The project has made a significant impact, both in terms of the water supply that’s available and the health and well-being of the downstream communities. I was able to spend two to three weeks in Mongolia to develop the benefit-cost analysis that helped justify the AWPP. Seeing the situation in person and then being able to play a part in solving this health issue — putting my resource economics background to use on the ground — was extremely rewarding. Overall, I’ve enjoyed the international projects I’ve worked on because they provide the opportunity to think creatively on how to approach a problem and how to evaluate proposed solutions.

Share a piece of career advice.

Keep yourself relevant in the industry by trying new things and continuously expanding your knowledge base. There are so many great resources here at ArchTam to bounce things off and our people are very willing to help train young professionals to bring them up to speed. So don’t be afraid to say, “yes I can!” when you’re asked to do something new internally or by a client.

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The City of Columbia identified the 2.7-mile-long sewer line as a top priority after several years of evaluating their major trunk sewers. Its replacement was a key part of a comprehensive program addressing the city’s system capacity and structural issues.  As it was developed more than 50 years ago as a gravity sewer line, the Lake Katherine project had a fixed route that made repairs challenging. Further complicating matters, replacement required numerous easements as the route traverses a commercial area, a lakefront residential area and is in proximity to two creeks, one of which is a protected waterway.

Here are some of the lessons we learned as we brought this project over the finish line:

Talk. Talk. And talk some more.  When talking with the communities involved, keep the dialogue flowing about the issues that are relevant to them. Some engineers have reputations for avoiding interactions and only looking at numbers and plans. We knew from the outset that communication and coordination across our project team, the general public, conservation groups and homeowners’ associations (HOA) would be key. To us, this meant making a concerted effort to listen to concerns, provide information and work with the community and public entities from design to construction to project completion.

We held formal and informal meetings to receive community input and provide inclusion, answer questions and enable the community to have a say in the overall process. During those meetings, we provided construction schedule updates and discussed what to expect next. When questions arose about a specific property, we met property owners on site to discuss and solve problems. The city did its part, adding updates on social media and sending out phased mailers, to make residents aware of project activities.

Pay attention to design and constructability. We looked at the project design not only through our engineering lens but as community members evaluating what was needed for constructability. One of the biggest challenges was gaining workspace. At Lake Katherine, a man-made 150-acre lake controlled by the HOA of the same name, we had to bring 30-inch pipes and heavy equipment into very tight spaces to work on sewer lines between the homes and the lake’s edge in an area that incorporated retaining walls and established landscaping.  

It was clear that we would need the use of the lakebed to complete our work along the lake. To make this possible, we secured a temporary construction easement during the design from the HOA and came to an agreement to lower the lake level during construction. Our contractor continued the outside the box thinking, advancing the idea of creating a temporary road along the lake in the temporary easement to bring in the equipment without traversing residents’ backyards. Relying on communications skills, we worked closely with the HOA on the easement, agreement and use of the temporary road during construction.

Our team goal, across city workers and contractors to ArchTam professionals, was to allay individual concerns. This was especially significant for the work easements along Lake Katharine. In 2015 these homeowners experienced a 1000-year flood centered on our project route that destroyed or severely damaged homes which then required years of repairs. Homeowners did have to allow for retaining walls to be temporarily removed during construction. It was important they trust that their properties would be restored to initial condition once work was completed. The HOA board was a key part of this success, providing communication to homeowners regarding progress and issues and communicating individual homeowners’ needs to us.

Take action. As a team,we lived by the mantra “be flexible, find solutions.” We moved quickly to solve problems as we went through project construction. Our work on the temporary road was one aspect of this approach. Another was managing the concerns arising from the commercial district regarding the potential presence of heavy machinery during the holiday season. Our easement decreed the contractor could not be on a commercial property from October 1^st to January 15^th to accommodate these needs and we arranged the schedule to work on other aspects of the project at that time.

Completion of the sewer line repairs was a win-win for those living along the project route. The newly repaired pipeline prevents spills and overflow and the damage and pollution that goes along with them. Lake Katherine’s homeowners found their properties were restored to their pre-construction condition. And the city will have a sewer line equal to the task of providing service for years to come.

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