Jason Marquardt, PE, has been named to the 2018 Moody on the Market 40 Under 40 list.   The prestigious recognition program identifies forty dynamic young professionals making a difference in our community.  Jason, a Senior Project Manager at Abonmarche, has been recognized for award-winning projects which improve the community, but still finds time to volunteer his time and talents.  Perhaps his favorite community involvement activity is participating in the Starwatchers program at his daughter school.

Abonmarche was presented a Surveying Merit Award during the American Council of Engineering Companies of Michigan (ACEC/M) Engineering and Surveying Excellence Awards ceremony on March 10. The ceremony honors firms for engineering and surveying excellence. The award was in recognition for Abonmarche’s work on the City of Portage’s “Natural Place to Move” initiative. The project included improvements to 6.34 miles of local neighborhood streets. Portage had a narrow timeframe for completion of the projects.

Due to the many stormwater, asset management, and wastewater (SAW) grants awarded to communities throughout Michigan, cities are now taking a look at their assets and creating improvement plans that carefully balance costs against risk in order to prevent problems.

A geographic information system, or GIS, is a tool that can aid in the creation of these plans. Any community asset, from trees to benches to garbage cans to bus stops, can be logged in GIS. An asset’s exact location can be noted, as well as its condition, asset photographs, and any other information.