Ben Holland
EIT
Staff River Engineer
Water is essential to our well-being, and it has an impact on the way life functions around us every day. To offset potential impacts as the climate shifts and unpredictable storms/droughts become a constant, it is crucial to design our infrastructure around water as a resource rather than a liability.
Hired
- 2023
Location
- Boise, ID
Every river—and every river project—is unique. As a staff river engineer, Ben spends a lot of his time carefully investigating sites to understand their conditions and nuanced natural systems. He is the eyes and ears of senior engineers in the field, updating them on conditions or potential issues at a site, communicating with contractors and partners, and contributing to modeling and reports.
“As a kid, I realized that rivers, streams, the environment, and our built world must all cross paths eventually,” Ben says. “I always wondered, what happens then?”
Ben’s curiosity took him to Michigan Tech, where his eyes were opened to the fascinating world of river engineering. He focused on water resources during his undergraduate degree in civil engineering and took every opportunity to learn on the job thanks to a series of student internships around the Midwest.
“For a while, I worked on county drain designs for a land developer in Michigan,” Ben says. “Dam and embankment inspection was another big role I played since I was always so keen on getting outdoors.”
Ben spent one more year at Michigan Tech earning a master’s degree in environmental engineering, and then his love of the outdoors and desire to do more water modeling motivated him to move westward into the mountains. It wasn’t long before he found a home with GeoEngineers’ Boise team.
“I like the community,” Ben says. “The people are nice, and everyone seems to relate to my love for getting out to enjoy the outdoors.”
Between skiing, soccer, and running, Ben stays very active. He ran competitive cross-country and track and field events in college, and now he’s getting into ultramarathons.
“It feels freeing to do something most people think is impossible,” Ben says. “I also enjoy ski racing and got the opportunity to work as the director of ski racing at a local mountain between college and starting my job here at GeoEngineers.”
Other hobbies include disc golf, coin collecting, and meeting people’s dogs!
Awards
Michigan Stormwater and Floodplain Association’s 2021 Scholarship Recipient
