WASHINGTON, DC – Merrick & Company of Greenwood Village, Colo., has earned a National Recognition Award for exemplary engineering achievement in the American Council of Engineering Companies’ (ACEC) 50th annual Engineering Excellence Awards (EEA) for providing surveys of the McMurdo Research Station in Antarctica.
ACEC is the Washington-D.C.-based business association of the engineering industry representing more than 5,000 independent engineering firms throughout the United States.
Merrick prepared virtual 3D models developed from more than two billion individual positions, called point clouds using hi-definition LiDAR scanning technology. Merrick’s use of this advanced data-collection system creating a more complete and accurate 3D model of the project sites, with points accurate to a fraction of an inch.
Facility planners and engineers can now more accurately visualize the remote infrastructure facilities, and cost-effectively create multiple design scenarios for maintenance, upgrade, and planning. Designing a more energy and operationally efficient research station offers the scientific community the potential to attain valuable results that could have positive impacts on the environment, social, and economic concerns in Antarctica, and worldwide.
The project is among 162 engineering achievements from throughout the nation and the world being recognized by ACEC as the year’s finest examples of engineering excellence, and eligible for additional top national honors. Judging for the awards program—known industry-wide as the “Academy Awards of the engineering industry”– took place in February, conducted by a national 30-member panel of built environment leaders, along with experts from government, the media and academia. Award criteria focuses on uniqueness and originality, technical innovation, social and economic value, and generating excitement for the engineering profession.
Recognition of all award winners including top commendations— 20 Honor Awards, 16 Grand Awards and the prestigious “Grand Conceptor Award” for the year’s most outstanding overall engineering achievement—will take place at the annual EEA Dinner and Gala, a black-tie event to be held Tuesday, April 25, 2017, at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, D.C.
The American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) is the business association of America’s engineering industry, representing more than 5,000 independent engineering firms and more than 500,000 professionals throughout the United States engaged in the development of America’s transportation, water and energy infrastructure, along with environmental, industrial and other public and private facilities. Founded in 1909 and headquartered in Washington, D.C., ACEC is a national federation of 51 state and regional organizations.
