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Del Shannon of Schnabel Engineering on Dam Construction and Rehabilitation
North Fork Dam, Asheville, NC: Schnabel has worked with the City of Asheville, North Carolina, since 1996, performing dam engineering services ranging from dam safety inspections to design and construction of dam safety modifications. Schnabel recently completed comprehensive engineering design services and oversaw the construction of rehabilitation measures to address identified safety issues at the North Fork Dam.
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chnabel Engineering is an engineering firm that does significant dam design and rehabilitation work across the United States, focusing on geotechnical, structural, hydraulic, and mechanical issues and other important factors. Del Shannon is a principal at Schnabel Engineering and a senior vice president in its dam and levee engineering group. In this interview, he tells Hydro Leader about his work in dam rehabilitation, the advantages of various project delivery methods, and the increasing importance of risk-based dam assessments.
Del Shannon: My undergraduate degree is in journalism, but I turned out to be the world’s worst journalist. I got a job at an engineering firm helping write proposals and turned out to be pretty good at it. I started hanging out with engineers and realized that I was confident that with the proper training, I could do the same work they did. So I went back
14 | HYDRO LEADER | February 2021
Hydro Leader: Did your civil engineering master’s program specialize in dams?
PHOTOS COURTESY OF SCHNABEL ENGINEERING.
Hydro Leader: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.
to school, got a master’s degree in engineering, and then I got a job at a firm that designed dams. Early in my career, around 2005–2006, I was the lead designer and engineer of record for one of the first design-build dams in the country. That got me interested in having engineers work with contractors. I thought that there could be tremendous benefit for the industry in creating a team that approached projects from a holistic standpoint, not just from a design or construction standpoint. After working for an engineering firm for 20 years, I worked for contractors for 10 years. That has given me a unique perspective not only on how to design these structures, but also on how to build them. I’m now back in the consulting business. I am a senior vice president of Schnabel Engineering and one of the senior managers in our dam and levee engineering group.
