Dayton Kiwanis hears from WSP Senior VP Karen Doherty

DAYTON-The Dayton Kiwanis Club heard from yet another successful Dayton High School (DHS) alumna at their April 22 meeting. Attendees enjoyed a presentation from Karen Doherty, a Senior Vice President at WSP USA.

Doherty graduated from DHS in 1990, before attending Gonzaga University, graduating magna cum laude in Engineering. Doherty went on to start Doherty & Associates, which she operated for ten years. The business was purchased by HDR, an employee-owned design firm specializing in architecture, engineering, environmental, and construction services, in 2008. In October of 2020, she was hired at WSP USA, a global professional service firm with its corporate headquarters in Canada.

As a Senior Vice President, Doherty oversees business activities for more than 450 staff across six states and Guam. Doherty gave a virtual tour of some projects that she has been a part of over the years.

"I'd like to start with 'why civil engineering?'" Doherty said. "When I wanted to become an engineer, I wanted to improve communities. I wanted to interact with people, and I have met some great people throughout my career. I wanted to solve some of our biggest challenges and help our communities and our citizens grow and be future-ready and sustainable."

Notably, Doherty was involved in Seattle's Sound Transit Light Rail project. Her portion of the project's stretch of track spanned from SeaTac to the Angle Lake Park & Ride Station- roughly 3 miles of track.

"Parking in downtown Seattle, and traffic, is awfully expensive," Doherty said. "Parking in Downtown Seattle is $300 per month, just to park your car, let alone the time you sit to get into downtown Seattle on 1-5 or SR99."

Doherty said parking at SeaTac is also expensive, and now many people can park at Angle Lake, pack their luggage onto the train, and travel via light rail to the airport.

"On this project, we were the engineer of record on a design-build team," she explained. "Design-build is where we, as the engineering firm, are contracted to a contractor for that contractor to deliver the finished project to the owner. In this case, it was Sound Transit."

Doherty said that the other popular way of delivery is design-bid-build, where the engineering firm is contracted directly by the owner. Engineers design the project and provide plans for owners to take to a contractor for the project's construction.

She explained that design-build projects take a special team mindset because they issue the plans to contractors at a roughly 60% phase. This allows the team to spend a fair amount of time working with contractors to adjust the plans to fit schedules and code.

Another major Washington project that Doherty worked on was the 520 Floating Bridge Replacement. At nearly 13 miles, the bridge is recognized as the world's longest floating (pontoon) bridge. The six-lane bridge carries SR 520 across Lake Washington, connecting Seattle and its eastern suburbs. The bridge features 77 pontoons secured by 58 underwater anchors, connected by steel tethers.

She said that the team had some interesting challenges due to the noise impact in homeowners on Medina, the city the bridge connects to at the east end.

"We have plates on the joints that connect all of these girders, and the plates are pretty noisy," she said. "After construction, we had to go back, do noise studies, and retrofit the plates because of the noise they were generating."

The 520 Bridge earned recognition from the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC). Doherty said that the ACEC is the "Oscars of engineering."

WSP USA does pick up a lot of projects in Hawaii. Several of her team members are currently on an active landslide project at the eastern end of Kauai, which has been closed due to landslides.

"We are one of the teams that they call and say 'hey, come on over and help us get it reopened," she said. Doherty explained that WSP does a lot of work with energy and utility companies and private companies.

Growing up in Dayton and the lessons from the community's support have stayed with her throughout her career.

"What I carried with me was how important it is to support and engage our youth," Doherty said. "People did that for us: Basketball coaches, car washes, parents, bus drivers... it is so important to continue to do that. What I took away was the work ethic, and the discipline, and to continue going on even when it was hard."

She said that creating a place of support, whether it be family or an athletics team, is important to provide for students. The teamwork gained from sports or FFA, or other school organizations also stands out to Doherty.

"When I hire someone, I don't look at (just) the 4.0 (GPA). I look at them, obviously, but I really look at the 3.5 GPA kids, who also played basketball or did FFA or whatever it was because that shows a very well-rounded individual, a lot more than someone who just went home and studied in the books."

Doherty finished her presentation by thanking the Kiwanis Club members and answering questions. Former State Representative (and current Kiwanis Club member) Terry Nealey reflected on the time when pontoons on the 520 Bridge failed, expressing that they knew it would cost the State of Washington a lot of money. Doherty said that was before she joined the project, but she was aware of some geotechnical issues that contributed to the failure.