Kristi Moorman: “Steve was using a jacket to ‘guide’ the bird. Specifically Daniel’s jacket… not his own.”

While days out on our survey crews sometimes get a little adventurous, most days in our Sidney and Loveland offices are pretty routine— wear green, design public and private infrastructure, discuss lunch, chat about sports, celebrate roundabouts, and so on. But this past Tuesday, a BIRD got into the Loveland office and excitement followed!

While we’ve had the occasional mouse in the office, this bird was a new experience. Not wanting any bird germs on his own coat, designer Steve Goessling grabbed Daniel Foos’s jacket to toss in the air to guide the bird out of the office. After much flailing and waving, the bird was successfully shooed out the front door. (All the while, project manager Troy Niese never missed a beat while on the phone determining a project schedule with a client…)

Despite working mostly with passive objects like concrete and plastic, we as engineers still have to expect the unexpected—sometimes that 80-year-old water main is wooden or brick! So whether it’s dealing with an old clay storm tile or an unexpected bird invasion, our adaptability is often put to the test. At least with an old pipe, it doesn’t land on a monitor to rest!