The Outstanding Civil Engineering Achievement Award is given in recognition of outstanding academic achievement, dedicated ASCE leadership and commitment to serving others and the community. The candidates are nominated by the Civil Engineering faculty at UD and Cedarville University for the Outstanding Senior Award and then interviewed by the ASCE Dayton Section Education Committee.
2024 Outstanding Senior Awards
The UD nominees were Sean Menker and Brad Hashbarger. The CU nominees were Nick Snyder and Calvin Vondracek.
The 2024 Outstanding Senior Awards were presented to Brad Hashbarger and Nick Snyder in June 2024.
Brad Hashbarger is from St. Louis, Missouri, and a fourth-year student at the University of Dayton set to graduate in May of 2024 as a proud member of Tau Beta Pi with a bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering, a minor in Sustainability, and an Honors College certificate. During his years as an undergraduate, he took various opportunities beyond the classroom including a semester abroad at the National University of Ireland and leadership positions in his student chapter of ASCE and AISC’s Student Steel Bridge Competition. Carrying these into professional experiences, he began his first internship with the United States Army Corps of Engineers’ St. Louis District in Hydraulics and Hydrology analyzing levees, flood data, and drainage systems around vulnerable or low-income communities. The next summer, he accepted another internship with Kimley-Horn in Indianapolis, where he produced construction document sheet sets, site plans, and proposals for commercial and transportation infrastructure development for organizations including Starbucks, Chick-fil-A, and INDOT. Inspired by professionals, projects, research studies, and his time managing Dayton’s Steel Bridge Design Team, he is pursuing a future in Structural Engineering, specifically in multi-story infrastructure, with my next step being toward graduate studies. This summer 2024, he is interning once again with Kimley-Horn's Structural Team in Orlando, Florida before he begins graduate studies in the fall for a Master of Engineering program.
Nick Snyder was born in Rochester, New York, and has lived there for my entire pre-college life. His parents decided to homeschool him, which he is very thankful for because of the ways in which it prepared him to be an independent learner who was excited to find the answers to his questions. Some of his hobbies growing up included Legos, board games, piano, reading, writing stories, and doing yard work around the house. It was his love of working with nature combined with his skill in math and science that prompted him to consider civil engineering. Cedarville University became an obvious choice for his degree because of the financial aid they offered and because of the Christian environment that he highly valued. He is specializing in structural engineering, but continued to enjoy aspects of water quality engineering through my senior design project. He will be joining Passero Associates in their Rochester office at the end of May as a full time civil engineer.
To see previous award winners, visit Previous Outstanding Senior Awards.