The City of West Lafayette has Bowen Engineering and its innovative technical team, including CEM alum Mark Cvetkovich, to thank for a $5.5 million dollar savings on the recently completed interceptor project east of campus. The CSO Relief Interceptor Project had two undertakings: installing additional piping to prevent excess wastewater from being discharged into the Wabash River, and constructing a new roundabout at the intersection of River Road, Williams Street, and Tapawingo Drive.

Cvetkovich was Bowen Engineering’s project manager for the team performing the construction. He helped coordinate all aspects of the project, including collaboration with the city, engineers, and local businesses to ensure the project was delivered in the schedule allowed with as minimal disruption as possible to the public.

Several of the team’s solutions saved time and money to add up to a total project cost $5.5 million dollars below the project engineer’s initial estimate of $27 million dollars, with all savings going back to the City of West Lafayette. “We crushed the existing concrete roadway that we were removing and reused the crushed concrete as the new roadway base,” Cvetkovich says. “We also recycled granular material and value engineered some of the tie-ins to existing facilities to compress the schedule and create large amounts of labor and material savings.”

Cvetkovich managed the project on a tight deadline, reaching completion a mere eight months after the start date, when the City of West Lafayette requested a fast-tracked project to ensure completion prior to the start of the State Street Redevelopment project on the Purdue campus.

As with any underground infrastructure project, multiple unknown obstacles were uncovered during the process. However, due to a collaborative effort with the city and design consultants, solutions were determined quickly to minimize downtime, stay on schedule, and actually allow for a superior final product.

Cvetkovich has worked for Bowen Engineering since he graduated from the CEM program in 2005. While in school, he completed three internships with Reynolds, Inc. in Orleans, Indiana. “Since that time, I have built on the foundation I built during my internships and schooling at Purdue to work on a lot of exciting projects all over the eastern half of the country,” he says. “I also have had the opportunity to get my professional engineer’s license and move into project management.”

The CSO Relief Interceptor project required multiple sheet piled excavations and supporting of large utilities. Cvetkovich was the designer for these excavations and pipe supports using his professional engineer’s license.

He feels that the CEM program helped prepare him to be successful in the construction industry. “The internship program is second to none,” he says. “It allows graduates to come out of school with significantly more experience and allows for a quicker career path.”

Just over a decade out of school, Cvetkovich has certainly found success and shows no signs of slowing down. He is an exemplar of what Purdue likes to see in its engineering graduates: pursuing professional licensure, seeking growth within his company, and giving back to society. In this case, he has given back in a big way by working with a team to help save our local community millions of dollars on infrastructure.