Our Planning Group—One of the Largest Planning/Modeling-Dedicated Teams in the Pacific Northwest

No matter what is happening in the world, it is crucial for public agencies to ensure their communities have access to water, wastewater, and stormwater infrastructure. To do that, they must first understand the limits of their systems to see where improvements are needed most. Infrastructure planning is both an art and a science that finds solutions by balancing community needs, city policies, and funding sources. Hydraulic modeling, a tool to analyze demands and properly plan the infrastructure needs of the future, supports that process.

That’s where our Planning Group comes in. We help public agencies understand their system’s challenges and maximize their opportunities. This allows our client to make informed decisions about how to prioritize capital spending to make sure their community has continued access to high-quality water/wastewater infrastructure.

For our Planning Group, this work is the real focus of what we do. It allows us to build deep expertise, so we can provide the best for our clients and our communities.

– Heidi Springer, Planning Group Manager

This is what we do.

Many firms have planning capabilities, but very few have a large team of engineers dedicated solely to planning projects. In October 2019, Murraysmith + Quincy acquired Aqualyze, an eight-person modeling and planning firm, significantly growing our expertise, especially in wastewater and stormwater planning. Our vision was to have the largest modeling and planning team in the Pacific Northwest, so we can provide the best for our clients. That’s what makes our firmwide Planning Group unique—we offer a 16-person team of engineers focused completely on planning and modeling work, meaning our team pulls from deep expertise founded on knowledge gained from 250+ planning/modeling projects.

Our team is multidisciplinary.

Our team has performed modeling and planning work for more than 100 public agencies across the Pacific Northwest for water, wastewater, and stormwater projects. While we have subject matter experts in these disciplines, our team is truly multidisciplinary, and our junior staff are specifically cross-trained to meet a wide variety of project needs. With this perspective, we’re able to identify opportunities to address multiple problems at once.

We customize our approach.

In addition to finding solutions across disciplines, whether through an engineering project or policy change, we do the work better by developing our own tools to automate aspects of the modeling process. Mushtaque Silat, our in-house software architect (some might say, “wizard”), builds software that helps our engineers do their work more efficiently, making us more adaptable and flexible. But what does that mean for our clients? This efficiency saves us time, and ultimately saves our clients money.

Our team is truly firmwide, with talent stretching from California to Washington. Led by the planning group manager, Heidi Springer, and experienced regional leaders, LaDonne Harris, Andrew Henson, and Marshall Meyer, we offer the right people for each job, taking full advantage of individual strengths and expertise, regardless of location.

Our team is always looking for ways to learn and improve, even providing pathways for industry professionals to grow alongside us. Rizwan Hamid, the founder and president of Aqualyze before it became Murraysmith + Quincy, never misses an opportunity to help the next generation of planning/modeling engineers develop their expertise, making mentorship a top priority. His nationwide wastewater master planning experience means he brings subject matter expertise in areas related to wastewater collection system analyses. Case in point: he recently hosted two public webinars for clients in the Puget Sound region, with plans for upcoming virtual learning opportunities in Oregon and Southwest Washington.

Wondering what else our Planning Group is up to? You’re in luck—we’ll be posting periodically to show you some of the projects we’re excited about and highlight the unique skills of our team.