HISTORY OF SUBSURFACE UTILITY ENGINEERING

POST 80 – SANDY WILSON

Sandy Wilson just completed her 28^th consecutive year working for the T2 Utility Engineers where she is a Project Manager for the Illinois Office. I can only think of a few people that have been with their present companies doing SUE work for that length of time. The history of SUE in Illinois and Sandy’s history coincide and continues to this day. I find that pretty amazing. I asked Sandy to tell us a little bit about it and the following is what she had to say:

“I started my career with Tampa Bay Engineering back in 1996 in Bloomington, Illinois. During this time, our company had started to grow outside the state of Florida, and we had changed our name to TBE Group, Inc. The Illinois office at the time was providing OSP (Telephony Signal Source Provider Contract) Outside Plant System Design Services for GTE North for new fiber optic installations throughout Illinois and Wisconsin. When GTE North was purchased by Verizon in 1998/1999, all contracts with GTE soon ended. Verizon decided to keep all design services in house. I was given the opportunity by TBE to remain with the company to begin learning about Subsurface Utility Engineering.

My work started on various SUE assignments out of our Indianapolis office for a short period of time. TBE was awarded a SUE contract with the Illinois Department of Transportation for IDOT District 1, and we soon opened our new Illinois branch office performing SUE services in the Northwest Suburbs of Chicago in 2001. I was not the original manager when we opened our office in Bloomington, Illinois. I was the administrative technical support assistant to the OSP Engineers who taught me how to interpret telephone and fiber optic as-built records that were drawn by hand before CADD software became available.

After my time in Indiana learning the SUE process and procedures, my job description had changed to Assistant Utility Coordinator and then I was promoted to Assistant Project Manager. Over the years, I trained with several managers who currently work for T2 and along with other managers prior who no longer work for us, that helped me be successful in my current position. Over the years, we had developed relationships with clients by educating their project team on the benefits of SUE Services.

Today, we continue to perform SUE Services for the Illinois Department of Transportation Districts 1 and 8 and other various clients throughout Illinois. We do take the time to listen and tailor each project based on the client’s needs to give them a quality SUE deliverable and complete their projects efficiently and with reduced risks.”

Thank you, Sandy. You are pretty amazing. 

Is there anyone else in the SUE community with a similar history? If so, please send me an email at cpscott532@aol.com and let me know.  Thanks!

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