Brian Witte was just a freshman in high school when he launched his infrastructure career. “It was a small town in Iowa, and the teacher’s neighbor was the town engineer for a dozen communities,” recalls Witte, vice president of construction engineering for Parsons Corp. “They needed help. I got hired at $4.65/hour, doing drafting of street reconstruction. We’d develop drawings, do surveying, layouts, inspections—curb and gutter and drainage from beginning to end. It was super fun, interesting; I just had dumb luck.”

His subsequent years working with civil contractors confirmed the conviction that “I learned I need to be in the field, not just sitting behind the desk,” he says. With the Kicking Horse Canyon project, he not only was in the field, but spearheaded key solutions to make smoothing out a treacherous, winding stretch of two-lane highway possible within the allotted schedule and budget.