In three years as a transportation engineering team lead, one project stands head and shoulders above the rest for Olsson Associates Inc.’s Kelly Turner.
Turner and team designed the roadways leading into Mercy Hospital Joplin’s new campus development after the health system’s building was destroyed in the May 2011 tornado. In the relocation project, Olsson Associates was hired for engineering and professional services, including some $8 million in roadway improvements covering the redesign and reconstruction of an Interstate 44 interchange and another 1.5 miles of roadway.
“So often our projects help to make communities better places to live and work,” says Turner, project manager of the Mercy-Joplin infrastructure improvements. “I get the opportunity to design projects that help our clients solve problems and make their visions reality. It is extremely gratifying to play a role in rebuilding the Joplin community after its devastating loss.”
Other transportation and traffic projects across southwest Missouri with Turner’s engineering design fingerprints are the east-west arterial for Mercy’s $116 million orthopedic hospital and the Walnut Street Streetscape, Phase III, between Kimbrough Avenue and Hammons Parkway, both in Springfield. In Webb City, the professional engineer worked on a highway project to turn formerly environmentally contaminated property into land ripe for development.
“The property did not have an adequate access,” he says. “We worked with (Missouri Department of Transportation) to obtain access and engineer a new intersection design to provide both access for the future of development and serve as a gateway into the city.”
Since mid-2011, Turner and his teams have designed nearly $20 million in new projects, representing engineering contracts of about $3 million. The ownership of Olsson Associates has taken notice by welcoming him as a stockholder of the Nebraska-based privately held corporation. A member of the 40-employee Springfield office, Turner also was selected to serve on Olsson’s strategic planning group to determine the firm’s five-year vision for its 650 employees across 24 offices.
Turner doesn’t leave his work in the field. He recently stepped into the classroom in Ash Grove to help energize discouraged math students.
“The Ash Grove School District mathematics department contacted our office and explained that their students were having a difficult time understanding real-world applications of math,” he says. “I volunteered to deliver a presentation to their class to educate them about engineering and how we use math in specific ways that are interesting and make sense in the real world.”
With his eye on the future of Springfield-area transportation needs, Turner has served two years as chairman of the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce transportation committee and as co-chair of the city’s transportation committee for strategic planning. “These committees helped develop the Field Guide that will serve as the strategic plan and vision for the city of Springfield and the region for the next 30 years,” Turner says.
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