MELBOURNE, FLA. March 8, 2023 – BRPH, a nationally ranked architecture, engineering and construction firm with offices nationwide, recently earned three awards from The Engineers’ Council at the 2023 National Engineers’ Week Honors & Awards Banquet in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Now celebrating its 68th anniversary, The Engineers’ Council was formed in 1955 in Los Angeles and has grown to a nationwide presence, with the goal of advancing the art and science of engineering for the welfare of humankind and the public through engineering, as well as providing public recognition of engineering achievements. The awards program is presented in three cities nationwide—Los Angeles; Huntsville, Alabama; and West Palm Beach, Florida.
BRPH earned an “Outstanding Engineering Project Achievement Award” for Gateway: The Deep Space Launch Complex at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex and team members including: Marc Sherman, Rob Bartlett, Daniela Arriagada, David Ogle, Mohammad El Habbal, Eric Bradford and others. The award lauded the “outstanding imagination, design and development” of the attraction, which opened in June 2022 and highlights the present and future of NASA and commercial space exploration with real flight hardware and artifacts, interactive displays and a 4D ride experience.
Two BRPH team members also received individual awards. Eric Bradford, a certified professional engineer and national practice leader for structural engineering, received the Outstanding Engineering Achievement Merit Award, recognizing his “outstanding commitment to development and mentorship of early career structural engineers and for technical excellence in facility structural engineering design.” Matthew Chambers, certified professional engineer and structural engineer, received the Distinguished Future Technology Leader Award for “demonstration of leadership and technical excellence in structural engineering systems for building design.”
Cris Vigil, BRPH senior vice president and principal at BRPH, serves as the awards chair of the West Palm Beach chapter, which is presented in conjunction with the Business Development Board of Palm Beach County. “I’m proud to partner with the BDB of Palm Beach County and our sponsors, Pratt & Whitney, Aerojet Rocketdyne, Belcan, Florida Power & Light, Parametric Solutions, Inc., and Lockheed Martin to recognize some of the most outstanding engineering accomplishments achieved in the past year,” Vigil said. “This is truly a ‘best in show’ scenario with each project more inspiring and more complex than the last.”
The keynote speaker for the event was Shawn Quinn, Exploration Ground Systems program manager for NASA at Kennedy Space Center. Quinn is responsible for leading the team that prepares the ground systems, infrastructure, facilities and operations required to process and launch NASA’s space launch systems and spacecraft in support of the Artemis program and America’s return to the moon.
In his presentation, “NASA’s Artemis Missions: Our Return to the Moon,” Quinn shared the agency’s mission to lead “humanity’s next steps as we extend our presence across the solar system.” He called the launch of Artemis I “the beginning of a new era of discovery… a symphony of hardware and software, humans and machines… engineering at its finest.” Through photos and video, he showed highlights of the successful first mission, explaining, “We just completed the transformation of Kennedy Space Center with the largest facility and ground systems upgrades at KSC since the shuttle program in the 1970s.”
BRPH has partnered with NASA since 1964, supporting the agency through the Apollo, Space Shuttle and Artemis programs by designing and engineering many of the facilities mentioned in Quinn’s presentation, including Launch Complexes 39A and B, upgrades to the Vehicle Assembly Building, numerous spacecraft processing and ground support facilities, mobile launch platforms, and most recently, the LH2 Hydrogen dewar, the largest liquid hydrogen sphere in the world. The firm also supports a number of commercial space companies launching from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
ABOUT BRPH – BRPH is a technically focused, creative AEC firm dedicated to solving clients’ most challenging problems through architecture, engineering, design, interior design, construction and mission solutions. The firm partners with mission-driven clients in the aerospace, defense, manufacturing, commercial, education, entertainment and hospitality markets to identify gaps in their program delivery, then plans, designs, manages and constructs facilities and solutions that get the job done – beautifully and intelligently. Founded in 1964 to support America’s space program, BRPH is consistently ranked among the nation’s top firms and has completed a wide range of projects across the United States and throughout the world. Headquartered in Melbourne, Florida, BRPH operates regional offices in Orlando; South Florida; Atlanta; Charleston, South Carolina; Huntsville, Alabama; Seattle; Phoenix; and Palmdale, California. For more information, visit brph.com.
