Christina Watson, Project Manager, NPS Denver Service Center

Engineer Christina Watson at Dorchester Heights. NPS photo.

For Engineers Week, the National Park Service talked with Christina Watson, a project manager in the Design and Construction Division of its Denver Service Center. Watson's answers are summarised here.

A path through design and construction

Watson has always liked learning how things fit together and how systems work. The career began as an engineering officer in the Army, then as a structural engineer in private practice. Wanting to see how designs got built, Watson spent a few years as a construction project manager — enjoying the site and seeing projects finished, but missing design — then returned to structural engineering for several more years. Before joining the NPS, Watson was design manager at a design-build contractor, working with both design and construction teams.

The Denver Service Center's project manager job combined everything Watson cares about: solving interesting problems, working with the whole project team, and preserving park resources — and it has lived up to that and more.

"Welcome to the Future": walking through Alcatraz from anywhere

For an upcoming project at Alcatraz, the team used 3D scanning to build a model they can walk through, room by room. It shows the layout, what will have to be moved, how the contractor will reach the work site and how the work will affect public tours — and lets team members in several states share screens and "walk" the project together in meetings.

Engineering for the past and the future

Engineers solve problems, and park projects supply plenty:

• How can a building from 1910 meet today's energy code?
• How can a monument get accessible paths without the new features looking out of place?

Project teams look for solutions that preserve the past while making facilities as safe, energy-efficient and accessible as possible. Many of Watson's projects renovate and restore historic buildings. New construction materials and methods keep arriving, but they are rarely designed with historic materials in mind, so engineers must work out how to use them without harming what is already there.

Advice

• Engineering has a reputation for hard math courses — but if you like solving problems and helping people, don't let the math scare you off. Everyone meets challenges, and people will help you along the way.
• The NPS and other federal agencies offer internships and volunteering, a good way to see what the work is like.

Sources

• National Park Service, "Christina Watson, Project Manager, Denver Service Center (DSC) Design and Construction Division." https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/christina-watson-project-manager-denver-service-center-dsc-design-and-construction-division.htm
• Rewritten in hubnx's own words.