Santa Clara Valley Transportation, Measure A/B Highway Program, Santa Clara County, CA

Rachael Keish served as the construction environmental coordinator and Resident Engineer for the Measure A/B Program as part of a joint venture team to provide program management services for the Santa Clara County Valley Transportation Authority. This $550 million highway program includes various improvement projects on nearly every major freeway within Santa Clara County. She was responsible for ensuring that the eight highway projects were compliant with environmental permits and mitigation measures. Her duties included interfacing with project engineers, biologists and archeologists to keep construction on schedule even when working in sensitive environmental and archeological areas. Rachael was also the project coordinator for the design and construction phase implementation of a $6.2 million, 17-acre mitigation planting project that included creating new wetlands, shaded riverine aquatic and riparian habitats. The consolidated environmental mitigation site was required to complete the highway projects with no unmitigated environmental impacts. As the Resident Engineer, Rachael was responsible for all day-to-day management activities on construction projects, including coordinating with the client, design team, local agencies and construction contractor. She was also responsible for the financial management, scheduling and overall monitoring of the projects to ensure compliance with client’s needs and project goals.