AECOM Engineer Named New Face of Civil Engineering

Reston, Va. – The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) today announced that 29-year-old Lee von Gynz-Guethle, P.E., from Chicago has been named a New Face of Civil Engineering.  Lee is a water resources engineer at AECOM.  An integral part of ASCE’s 2011 National Engineers’ Week (Feb. 20-26) initiatives, the New Faces program promotes the achievements of young civil engineers by highlighting their contributions to and impact on society.

Lee enjoys the problem-solving aspects of civil engineering and his work helps to provide an understanding of why floods occur and what can be done to prevent flooding in the future. Lee worked with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to assess flooding in post-Katrina New Orleans. He has also worked with the Corps to develop flood models of downtown Chicago. Lee is currently working to understand how flooding may occur behind levees in the Sacramento Valley in California.

An active member of Engineers Without Borders, he is helping determine the cause of flooding in a rural Guatemalan town that is home to 17,000 people. He is also an active member of ASCE—working on the dam safety section of the Illinois Infrastructure Report Card, which advocates the need for improving the Nation’s infrastructure. He was also a part of the concrete canoe competition as a student and in his spare time, Lee enjoys photography and is planning a six-month “around the world” trip with his wife.

Lee has a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from the University of Texas at Austin and a master’s degree in civil and environmental engineering from the University of California, Davis. He is a registered professional engineer in Illinois, and is also a certified floodplain manager.

Each year, ASCE names ten New Faces of Civil Engineering, some of whom are also submitted to the New Faces of Engineering program run by the Engineers Week Foundation. This inclusive national program includes representatives from the civil, mechanical, electrical, chemical, industrial and manufacturing engineering professions. Selected New Faces profiles are featured in a USA Today ad during Engineers Week and are profiled on the National Engineers Week website at www.eweek.org, as well as at www.discoverengineering.org.

Founded in 1852, the American Society of Civil Engineers represents more than 140,000 civil engineers worldwide and is America’s oldest national engineering society. For more information, visit www.asce.org.