Grand Forks

Burian & Associates New Hire Spotlight: Stauss

Posted on October 12, 2023October 30, 2023 by burianadmin

Burian & Associates is excited to welcome Jenny Stauss to its Grand Forks Office as a Senior Project Manager. Jenny brings unique and extensive project management experience, and passion for attention to detail, problem solving, research, and data analysis to her position at Burian & Associates.

Jenny’s background includes an undergraduate degree in Business Administration, with an emphasis in Management Information Systems. Her work experience includes being a Technical Support Engineer for Great Plains Software (now Microsoft), the Customer Service Team Lead for Amazon, and most recently working for Ideal Aerosmith in a variety of positions – Purchasing, Materials Manager, Production Planning, and Project Management.

In her 22.5 years at Ideal Aerosmith, Jenny worked with mechanical and electrical engineers and production project teams to plan projects, identify resources, and drive schedules to meet commitments to customers. Her emphasis was project management of the contract manufacturing services Ideal Aerosmith provided to the aerospace industry.

“I am excited to be joining a new and growing company that will challenge me every day,” expressed Jenny.

Sarah Sesselman, Director of Development at Burian & Associates, noted “We’re fortunate to have Jenny join our Team! We are really looking forward to the wide-ranging project management experience and fresh perspective she will be able to share with our Team and our Clients!”

Jenny has hit the ground running in Grand Forks by assisting in User Outreach on the RRVWSP. Jenny is also assisting on the ND DEQ Lead Service Line projects and is currently managing seven of the cities we have been awarded with more to come.

Jenny is a very detail-oriented person and enjoys projects that require extensive research, information management, and planning upfront. Jenny is an amazing addition to the Burian and Associates team and she will, and already has started to, make an impact on our work going forward.

Project Spotlight-Memorial Village ll

Posted on October 6, 2023October 18, 2023 by burianadmin

Written by: Katie Mowat, EIT, MS
Date: 9/19/23

Burian and Associates is excited to be part of the Memorial Village II (The Fieldhouse at Memorial Village) project at the University of North Dakota. This is a $49 million combined project that is being made possible through a public/private partnership between the City of Grand Forks, UND Athletics, the UND Alumni Association and Foundation, the Memorial Village Development Group, and donors Dave and Alexa Albrecht. This project includes a mixed-use building (commercial and apartments) and a new 500-seat softball field.

Figure 1-Rendering of Memorial Village II provided by Rise Design Group.

The five story, mixed-use building will have commercial space on parts of the first and second floors as well as residential on the other parts of those floors and on the three additional floors. There will be diverse living arrangements with 1, 2, 3, and 4 beds, studios, and ADA studios located throughout the different floors. The tenants will also have access to multiple amenities, lounges, and patios. The Hawk’s Perch (observation deck) is positioned to overlook the new softball field and there will also be a roof top deck.

Figure 2- Rendering of Albrecht Field provided by ICON.

Articles by UND Today and Campus Renewal noted that site clearing is already underway (Criswell, 2023; Murphy, 2023). As of the third week of September concrete pouring for the project foundations has also started (Burian, 2023). The groundbreaking was celebrated on October 3, 2023.

Community Contractors has been contacted to build both Memorial Village II and the Softball Field. TL Stroh out of Fargo and Rise Design group are doing the architectural design for the multi-use building and ICON Architectural Group is doing the design for the Softball Field. Burian and Associates is doing the civil engineering for the whole project. This includes the designs for the water service, wastewater service, egress, ingress, stormwater management, parking, and site grading (Burian, 2023).

As an extension of the civil engineering work for the project, Burian and Associates is designing a new regional stormwater pond. This pond will collect all the stormwater for east campus to improve downstream water quality and quantity. Burian and Associates has also designed a new sanitary sewer extension for the City of Grand Forks. This extension was needed since the old line was built at the same time as the old stadium in 1918, was not able to handle the compacity that is needed now, was located in an undesirable spot with all the new projects going on, and was made of old clay material that is no longer used for sanitary sewer lines.

Steve Burian (President and CEO of Burian and Associates) through a sister company of Burian and Associates, Kevin Ritterman through a sister company of Dakota Commercial, and Greg Tweten of Community Contractors are, among other investors, the ones developing and owning the multi-use building (Burian, 2023). All three of the above mentioned are alumni of the University of North Dakota making this project and the ability to provide their skills back to their university unique and special.

UND’s Softball team agrees with how special this project is as stated in the article by UND Today, they “are ‘extremely excited’ and ‘thankful’ to everyone who helped make their new field possible” (Criswell, 2023). Furthermore, in the UND Today article, “UND Athletics director Bill Chaves referred to” the field “as ‘yet another piece of an amazing facilities upgrade for intercollegiate athletics,’” and the field “promises to be a game-changer for the team.”

In a conversation with Steve Burian, he said that he is excited to see Memorial Village ll as an extension of Memorial Village l and that both projects are moving the University of North Dakota to another level (Burian, 2023). He pointed out that the multi-use building will provide some really nice commercial amenities and high-end living spaces on campus. The building will also be located on one of the most prominent corners in Grand Forks.

Memorial Village ll will seamlessly connect to Memorial Village I and the rest of campus. Memorial Village ll will be connected via the Columbia Road skywalk to the UND parking structure on the other side of Columbia Road that is then connected to the University Student Union (Murphy, 2023). Thus, Memorial Village ll will be intimately connected to the UND Campus.

Burian and Associates is thrilled to be part of the Memorial Village ll project. We are already in the middle of working on the civil engineering design. It is exciting to be able to work on a project that will have such an impact on the UND community and landscape.

Sources:

Burian, S. (2023, September 18). Personal Conversation.

Criswell, W. (2023, September 12). New diamond in crown of UND Athletics. UND Today. https://blogs.und.edu/und-today/2023/09/new-diamond-in-crown-of-und-athletics/?utm_source=mailpoet&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Sept.+12%2C+2023+issue

Murphy, C. (2023, September 12). Memorial Village II. Campus Renewal. https://blogs.und.edu/campus-renewal/2023/09/memorial-village-ii/

My Summer Experience at Burian & Associates

Posted on September 1, 2023September 21, 2023 by burianadmin

Written By: Angelica Beto / Engineering Assistant II

This past summer, I had the opportunity to work for Burian & Associates as an Engineering Assistant II in Grand Forks, ND. It was an exciting time to join the company, as Burian & Associates was in the process of expanding their team and moving from a coworking space to a new private office space in the Gate City Bank building.

Even with the quick growth and fast-paced work environment, Burian & Associates made time to make me feel welcome and gave me opportunities to meet and work with the entire team, including those from different locations. The company also had a retreat in Minnesota lake country at the end of July which allowed all the employees to socialize and team build while focusing on company goals and future plans.

In my position, I got to explore research projects, write technical memoranda, and create professional presentations. I had an amazing opportunity to work on a large-scale intern project where I, along with the other interns, was able to practice being a consultant. We were introduced to all parts of a project including initial client meetings, research, development of project plans and task creation, client relations, and presentation of findings.

For college students, I believe Burian & Associates offers an excellent intern experience that can link classroom studies to real world situations. I would encourage any students thinking about applying for internships to get involved because there are plenty of opportunities available that will give you a great head start into the world of civil engineering, especially at Burian & Associates.