Staff Spotlight – Rob Ferguson

Based out of the Rancho Cordova office, Rob Ferguson is one of Murraysmith + Quincy’s leading bridge engineers and someone who epitomizes our company’s culture. Whether he’s whistling or singing an early 90s classic from down the hall, Rob radiates a friendly presence that lets you know whenever he’s in the building. Along with his musical talents, Rob brings specialized bridge expertise to our team, which you can find in projects stretching all over California, from the high deserts of Inyo County to various locations up and down the California Coast.

Rob Ferguson is a great person, coworker and engineer. He is fun to be around and always has a deep list of songs to sing (One of his/my favorites is “Rain is a Good Thing”). He is willing to drop what he is doing to lend a hand whenever called upon. Time and again Rob has demonstrated his prowess as an engineer, not just on the technical level but also on the practical level (In part, maybe due to those wonderful Inyo construction experiences!). Rob’s contributions to the team’s success in the past are very much appreciated and I’m certain his contributions in the future will be also. Hat’s off to Mr. Ferguson!”

– Jim Foster, Principal Engineer

When I was a kid, I loved playing Legos and putting together model cars, which made me wonder who got to make the instructions. After high school, I didn’t know what I was going to do, so I just kept taking math classes at my community college. That led to physics, then statistics, and then engineering. My first engineering internship was at an architectural engineering firm, where I was designing structure plans for single family residences. I loved it. Then, during my seismic design classes at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, I learned that it’s OK for structures to move during earthquakes, and in bridge design, you actually get to figure out how much they’ll move. I was sold.

The Italian Bar Road bridge, which is wrapping up construction right now. It was a difficult bridge to layout because of steep side slopes, and it was tough to figure out if we could even get materials to the site. It’s on a winding mountain road leading to the San Joaquin River. We type selected a two-span, steel plate, girder superstructure and each foundation at the abutments and pier had to be different to meet the site constraints. It feels great to see it finally built after a lot of hard work in design and a lot of sleepless nights during construction.

I really hope we hold on to and grow our current culture. No matter how tough your day is, it’s always better when you get to work with fun and talented people. I’m looking forward to getting to work with the CONSOR team and seeing what Oregon and California bridge design can bring to the rest of the country and, in return, what we can learn from them. I’m not saying I want to move to Miami or Oklahoma, but information or work sharing on a large scale seems interesting.

One hidden talent about me, that not a lot of people know about, is that I love Karaoke and I’m a very gifted singer. My favorite set list includes Michael Bolton, Aerosmith, and Journey. I’ve been told I have the voice of an angel.