Posted on September 4, 2024
VICKSBURG, Miss.— The U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) congratulates Alan Katzenmeyer being chosen for the 2023 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Manager of the Year award.
Katzenmeyer has over a decade of experience with ERDC and currently serves as chief for the Survivability Engineering Branch in the Geotechnical and Structures Laboratory. In this role, he supports his team members in any way possible, helping those team members to meet their project milestones and goals.
“My favorite part of my job is that I get to learn about new tasks and processes daily to support my team’s ongoing research,” said Katzenmeyer.
Katzenmeyer started his career as a field technician for the Aquatic Ecology and Invasive Species Branch in the Environmental Laboratory at ERDC.
“I started as a contract technician and have made the most of every opportunity given to me,” he said. “I scrubbed waste out of fish tanks when I started at ERDC and moved up from there. I have worked in every position that I now get to lead; this has given me a better understanding of the challenges that each position holds and what struggles they face.”
He added that the best part of his entire career was not necessarily the research itself, but being around a team of people that had such a passion for research.
“I really owe my research career to my senior mentors — Dr. Jan Hoover, Dr. Jack Killgore and Dr. Todd Slack. They were incredibly patient in teaching me how to go from getting funding for a project, to collecting the data and generating the report,” Katzenmeyer said.
The “one team, one mission” culture that his mentors instilled in him early on in his career has shaped how he now supports others. With the mentoring he received, Katzenmeyer developed his own leadership style, making it his goal to make his team members lives easier by seeing the worth of everyone on his team.
“I believe that everyone I work with is more important than me, and that each team member I have brings a unique perspective and skillset to my branch that enables us to solve some of the most complex challenges in our Nation,” said Katzenmeyer.
While his professional mentors helped shaped him into the leader he is today, he also attributes much of his success to his spouse and two children.
“I have a great family who supports me in all that I do, and that support has helped me get to where I am now in my career,” said Katzenmeyer.
He and his spouse are active in their church and board members for the North Louisiana Down Syndrome advocacy group, and while outside of work, Katzenmeyer enjoys working in his garden and being outdoors. One of his favorite outdoor hobbies has been to reforest land.
“My dad instilled a love for the outdoors and carpentry ever since I can remember,” he said. “I am passing on that passion of being in the outdoors to my two children. My dad and I replanted several hundred trees around 20 years ago, and I have continued to maintain and grow several other tracts of forest. It is truly amazing to see the wildlife return to an area that was once barren.”
Katzenmeyer holds a bachelor’s degree in environmental science and a master’s degree in environmental biology from Louisiana Tech University. He is currently working on his doctorate at the University of Mississippi.
“I am humbled,” Katzenmeyer said about being named the 2023 USACE Manager of the Year. “I have so much gratitude for the people who selected me as manager for the year. I never take working at ERDC for granted.”
Alan Katzenmeyer leads a discussion on research projects at ERDC. With over a decade of experience, Katzenmeyer was selected as the 2023 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Manager of the Year.
