Posted on July 14, 2021
Prairie Engineers of Columbia has several open jobs thanks to a new $7 million contract with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The contract involves performing hydrographic and topographic surveys over the next five years and is a continuation of an existing contract, according to Prairie Engineers Federal Market Lead Darren Forgy.
He added the company expects to add four or five full-time positions and some temporary positions.
“The last round of contracts was half the size,” Forgy said. “We have several job openings out right now, so we’re looking forward to a lot of work.”
Forgy said open positions include surveying jobs, land surveyors, and survey technicians.
“Contracts like this help us keep expanding,” said Forgy, the program manager under the newly awarded contract.
Regarding the work, Forgy said a hydrographic survey is one performed underwater from a boat and required by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Using sonar sensors, they map the bottom of a river, for instance.
“We support navigation on the Mississippi River and map the bottom of the river channel,” he said. “This supports their dredging mission. This helps maintain a minimum 9 foot channel for barges to access on the river. Otherwise, barges get stuck and there’s no river traffic.
“We also do work at dams. We do precise surveys at dams to make sure nothing is moving … everything is moving, but we do the surveys to make sure things aren’t moving too much.”
The firm also will make ground maps to support the corp of engineers, Forgy said. He said they perform studies on streams to help with flooding or levy repairs when things have been damaged.
Should the corp of engineers want to build a bike path at one of the lakes they own — such as Rend Lake — Prairie Engineers would perform a topographic survey, Forgy added.
“They do a lot of design with their in-house engineers; we do the surveys that support their work,” he said. “We do a lot of boundary surveys for when the government has to do their projects.”
Forgy noted Prairie Engineers handles most, but not all, their work in the St. Louis area.
“The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers does have missions that go farther,” he said. “We do work nationwide at times depending on what comes up. St. Louis is the center of the expertise for mapping, and they get a lot of requests from other core districts. We’ve done work in 19 states the last year through this contract.”
Prairie Engineers started in 2010 as a one-person company. According to Forgy, the business now employs 67 people and will soon have offices in four states. It’s located at 404 N. Main St. in Columbia.
U.S. Rep. Mike Bost issued a statement congratulating Prairie Engineers on the renewed contract.
“I am pleased to announce this U.S. Army contract today. Not only will it allow Prairie Engineers to provide support to the U.S. Army, but it will help sustain jobs for workers in the metro-east.”
