NMSPE salutes the accomplishments of our 2023 Award Winners, which were announced during our EWeek Conference held on February 24, 2023.  The knowledge, ethics, hard work, professionalism, talent, innovation, and dedication to the Engineering profession are outstanding.  The Awards Committee would like to honor all the nominees for their submissions this year and encourages your submissions for next year.

2023 Engineer of the Year, Ashley Arrossa, PE

The 2023 Engineer of the Year, Ashley Arrossa, PE, is an accomplished young environmental engineer with over 12 years of experience in sampling, analysis, and reporting support of environmental site investigation and remediation projects. Working for state and municipal agencies as well as commercial industry, she has supported projects involving the permitting of new mine sites and the reclamation of former sites; the operation and maintenance of landfill monitoring and groundwater remediation systems; subsurface investigations to determine the nature and extent of contamination resulting from leaking petroleum storage tank sites; environmental assessments to support Brownfields Civil three-dimensional (3D) and site plans in ArcGIS, manages data using EnviroData, and is familiar with the Hydrologic Evaluation Landfill Performance (HELP) and United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Net modeling programs.

She is a dedicated young professional who is passionate about STEM outreach and helping other young women discover great careers in engineering.  Her academic background includes a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Engineering from New Mexico Tech.  She earned her professional engineering licensure in 2017.

Jonah Ruybalid, PE, CFM, 2023 Young Engineer of the Year

Jonah Ruybalid, 2023Young Engineer of the Year, is a Licensed Professional Engineer and Certified Floodplain Manager with 10 years of experience in civil and water resources engineering, including roadway, drainage, site development, sewer line and water line planning and design. He is an accomplished project manager having served communities across New Mexico, as well as serving as the project manager for on-call contracts with the City of Las Vegas (6 individual on-call contracts), Greater Chimayo Mutual Domestic Water Consumers Association, City of Belen, Town of Bernalillo, Village of Los Lunas and Village of Tijeras.

Jonah has also spent two years with the Dona Ana County Flood Commission where he assisted with flood control projects, reviews for building permits, drainage analyses, and other applications for compliance with the most current standards and specifications. Jonah obtained his Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering from NMSU in 2013, his Certified Floodplain Manager in 2012, and his Professional Engineer designation in 2014. 

2023 Project of the Year: Simplified Inundation Mapping Toolset – Dam Breach Analysis and Mapping

Project Owner, New Mexico Office of the State Engineer, in conjunction with CDM Smith, Inc. was awarded Outstand Project of the Year.  CDM Smith provided consulting and engineering services to develop the new state guidance/directive of the simplified dam breach analysis (SIM dam breach) and emergency plan (EAP) preparation. The project tasks include the dam EAP compliance survey of western states, the SIM dam breach directive development, SIM dam breach workbook tools, GIS mapping toolset, and public support of the development of EAP’s for small and intermediate size dams throughout the State of New Mexico with significant high hazard potential. CDM Smith developed tools and guidance intended to simplify the EAP process for dam owners and operators while meeting the key requirements of an EAP including engineering analysis, inundation mapping, and emergency action planning. Key members of the CDM Smith team were Hui-Ming (Max) Shih, PhD, PE, CFM, Robert Fowlie, PE, Joseph Machala, PE, Grace Houghton, PE and Carlos Yvellez, EIT.

The future value of applying the new SIM dam breach program in this project can be expected to perform a simplified dam flood risk assessment coordinated with a reliable risk to show the dam’s breach consequences are associated with a low-risk designation and avoid unnecessary, substantial efforts related to an emergency action plan development, evacuation plan preparation, dam rehabilitation, and other associated actions.