Aviation Thought Leaders

Duane Hippe is a senior vice president with HDR, director of aviation and Alaska area manager. He is a senior civil engineer with over 30 years of contract, project management and engineering experience. He formerly served as a design engineer for the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities Division of Aviation. Duane has a strong background in planning, design and construction administration of municipal engineering, transportation and public and private development projects. His working knowledge of construction methods and techniques, as well as specifications and contract compliance, enables him to consistently produce well-managed projects.

Mark Dikun has 36 years of experience in electrical, structural and mechanical design. His electrical experience includes airport lighting power studies inspections; loading studies; lighting design and photometrics; cabling; conduit layouts and schedules; control panels; panel boards and Motor Control Center design; instrumentation; Programmable Logic Controllers programming and CAD; design and layouts of printed circuit boards; thick and thin film substrates; loop diagrams; and simulation and fabrication process. His structural design experience includes construction design for beam layouts at Newark Liberty International Airport in Edison, New Jersey, United States, and two additions to existing building at various geriatrics centers. Mark's mechanical design work encompasses machined parts, castings, welding, sheet metal and CAD.

Mike has over 20 years of aviation-related experience managing and overseeing staff members and consultants on multiple, simultaneous projects. He understands the importance of maintaining operations at an active airport during the design and construction phases, and strives to ensure that the project's design schedule and budget are adhered to. Mike has worked on numerous complex, multi-phased airport projects, and has been trained in QA/QC review processes and interdisciplinary consultant coordination. He encourages open communication between design team members, and believes that regular dialog with airport staff, airlines, and TSA and FAA personnel help lead to a project's successful completion.

Mark Pavlick is a senior project manager and engineer. He has designed and managed numerous transit system structure projects and Department of Transportation projects. He also is experienced in the design of people movers, straight and curved steel plate girder bridges, prestressed I beam and prestressed box beam concrete bridge and concrete bents. Mark also has inspected, analyzed, rated and recommended repairs for numerous bridges and has checked design drawings and shop drawings for approval. He has international people mover design experience, including projects at Leonardo da Vinci International Airport Transit System, Rome, Italy; Kuala Lumpur International Airport Transit Track System, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Stansted Airport, London, England; Changi Airport, Singapore; and Frankfurt Airport, Frankfurt, Germany.

B.J. Skar is a senior program manager for airport/airfield pavements and infrastructure. Before joining HDR, he worked as the senior airfield engineer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Transportation Systems Center. He specializes in planning, design and construction of aviation facilities. B.J.'s expertise includes project/program level planning and programming studies, project design and project construction. He has overseen the planning, design and construction of various aviation projects, including runways, taxiways, aprons, arm pads, lighting vaults, air traffic control towers, maintenance hangars, hydrant fuel systems, weapons systems facilities, navigational aids and lighting projects. He has extensive international project experience, including: Airfield Assessment and Base Master Plan for Amari Air Base, Estonia; Airfield Assessment for Siauliai Air Base, Lithuania; and Airfield Suitability Studies at Bamberg Army Airfield (AAF) in Bamberg, Germany and Vilseck AAF at Vilseck, Germany.

Jason Wenger has experience in planning, design and project management for federal, state, municipal and private development projects, including extensive landside access experience. He has worked on numerous roadway design projects, from small local and collector roadways to state highways and interstates. He also has several years of experience managing and designing site civil projects ranging from two-acre single use to 50-acre multiuse facilities.

Carl Siebe is a senior airport engineer with more than 30 years in the airport engineering industry and brings a vested interest to the issue of aviation safety. He is a licensed pilot, owner of a classic Cessna 170 and flies search and rescue missions with the Civil Air Patrol. Carl is devoted to the effort to develop, prototype and implement technologies for the Next Generation Air Transportation System (Next Gen). The first full-scale prototype of Next Gen in Alaska, the Capstone Program, produced a 47 percent reduction of accidents for the aircraft equipped with the new technology.

Learn more about Next Gen in the Spring/Summer 2011 issue of Transportation Delivered.

Mike Pucci has more than 19 years of experience in civil engineering, specializing in projects related to civil design, water resources, planning, transportation and construction administration. His experience includes project management, quality assurance/control, project scheduling and all aspects of engineering design, permitting and construction support services for various federal and municipal projects. Mike currently is leading an effort to improve runway conditions for the United States Air Force's C-17 training facility at the Lakehurst Naval Air Engineering Station.

Learn more about Mike's work on the C-17 training facility in the Spring/Summer 2011 issue of Transportation Delivered.