2020 Charles Durham Achievement Award

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The ACEC Board of Directors is honored to announce that the recipient of the Charles Durham Achievement Award this year is John S. Olsson, Executive Vice President of Olsson Inc.

As EVP for consulting services, Olsson works with teams throughout the firm to identity and prioritize large public sector clients and projects, and works with Olsson’s practice leaders to enhance the firm’s standing at the municipal and state level.

Olsson has served in several leadership roles since he joined the firm in 1989. He was named leader of the Civil Municipal team in 2001, became the firm’s Lincoln office leader in 2007 and two years later was selected to serve on the first firmwide operations team.

Olsson exemplifies the firm’s community focused values through his involvement in various nonprofit and civic organizations. He served as president for the Nebraska Society of Professional Engineers and was a past director for ACEC Nebraska.

In 2015, Olsson helped establish the Olsson Foundation, a 501(c)(3) private foundation that supports education, communities and the environment.

John graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in civil engineering from the Colorado School of Mines and earned a master’s degree in engineering from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

He is the son of the firm’s founder, John E. Olsson.

The Charles Durham Achievement Award was created to honor Charles Durham’s leadership in the engineering profession and his community stewardship through civic involvement. Durham served as chairman and CEO of Henningson, Durham and Richardson, (HDR) the international engineering and architectural firm headquartered in Omaha. Over the years, he and his wife Marge were active in their community serving in leadership roles with many community organizations and donating millions of dollars to worthy causes.

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Aaron Buettner

State Director

Aaron Buettner, PE, CVS leads Benesch’s Nebraska structural group, bringing more than 27 years of experience in structural engineering, project management and value engineering to every project he touches. His work spans highway, railroad and pedestrian bridges, and he has delivered public and private projects across the country involving a wide variety of materials and structure types.

Aaron’s technical depth covers the full project lifecycle, from structural design and in-service inspection to forensic evaluation and construction administration. He is proficient in multiple structural design and analysis software platforms and has a keen understanding of load paths and constructability. As a Certified Value Specialist (CVS), Aaron’s Value Engineering work has generated tens of millions of dollars in potential construction cost avoidance for clients ranging from state DOTs to transit agencies.

Notable projects include the Lincoln South Beltway, where his team designed 10 of 21 bridges on the freeway corridor; the N-12 Emergency Bridge Repairs in northeast Nebraska, where biddable plans for three flood-damaged structures were delivered in just three weeks; and the Penny Bridges Replacement in Lincoln, where value planning produced a context-sensitive solution that earned broad community support.

Aaron also serves as a Structures Specialist on Nebraska Task Force 1 (NE-TF1), which is one of 28 FEMA Urban Search & Rescue (US&R) teams located throughout the United States. In this role, he supports the search and rescue mission by assessing damaged structures, recommending structural hazard mitigation within those structures, and monitoring the structure for condition changes during rescue and victim recovery operations. During his tenure with NE-TF1, he has deployed ​on numerous missions within the state of Nebraska and around the nation to assist communities that have been impacted by emergencies or disasters.

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