![\"\"](\"http:\/\/d45h139.public.uconn.edu\/sites\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/leshko2a-2.jpg\" "\\"leshko2a")
<\/a>n engineer for the better part of the past 30 years, a career that has brought him all around the world, from Greenland to Africa to Las Vegas, and culminated in his current role as a Vice President at HDR, Inc., one of the leading engineering and design firms in the country.<\/p>\nBrian began his engineering career at the United States Air Force Academy, where he received a B.S. in civil engineering in 1985.\u00a0 From there, he was assigned to the 820th<\/sup> Civil Engineering Squadron (Heavy Repair) with the U.S. Air Force, where he worked as a design engineer, resident engineer and project manager.\u00a0 \u201cI developed plans, specifications and cost estimates for new construction, alterations, maintenance and repairs, and conducted project site visits and authored engineering feasibility studies,\u201d he says.\u00a0 \u201cMy workload included design and management of projects valued at $1.2 million.\u201d\u00a0 After this initial assignment, Brian was assigned to the 4700th<\/sup> Operations Support Squadron, completing a one-year remote assignment at Sondrestrom Air Base in Greenland.\u00a0 There, he was a Quality Assurance Evaluator and certified the completion of civil engineering projects.\u00a0 \u201cI accepted the newly constructed North Warning System facilities in arctic Alaska and Canada for the U.S. Air Force and Canadian Armed Forces,\u201d he explains, detailing one of his specific assignments.<\/p>\n His next assignment was to pursue an accelerated, one-year master\u2019s degree in structural engineering at UConn from 1989-90, supported by an Air Force Institute of Technology Fellowship.\u00a0 The accelerated pace, he explains, was driven by his need to return to the United States Air Force Academy as an Instructor in the Department of Civil Engineering before the program underwent a scheduled ABET accreditation visit.\u00a0 His attendance at UConn did more than just prepare him to teach, however.\u00a0 \u201cThe coursework at UConn provided my first exposure to analyzing and designing bridges and has led to my continuing passion for bridge engineering,\u201d he remarks. Brian remembers the impact certain professors at UConn had on him and his future career. \u00a0Dr. Michael Accorsi (CEE), his academic advisor, in particular, stands out.\u00a0 \u201cDr. Accorsi taught me Numerical Methods for Applied Mechanics and Finite Element Analysis for Structural Engineering and patiently helped me learn FORTRAN and master computer programming.\u201d\u00a0 More important, Brian says, \u201cDr. Accorsi inspired me to be successful.\u201d<\/p>\n After attending UConn, Brian returned to the Air Force Academy as an instructor of civil engineering and cadet advisor until his honorable discharge from the Air Force in 1992.\u00a0 At that point, he returned to college yet again, this time to pursue a Master of Civil Engineering degree in Structural Dynamics from The Johns Hopkins University, which he received in 1993.\u00a0 His degree program was supported by a Federal Highway Administration Eisenhower Transportation Fellowship that enabled him to study non-destructive evaluation techniques for bridges.\u00a0 This experience set the stage for his 20-year career as a bridge engineer, focusing on the inspection and rehabilitation of the nation\u2019s infrastructure, he says.<\/p>\n Today, Brian is a Vice President, Senior Professional Associate, and Bridges and Structures Inspection Management, and Operations Program Leader at HDR, Inc.\u00a0 \u201cI have experience developing bridge plans and specifications, bridge analysis and ratings, and bridge inspections and cost estimates,\u201d he says.\u00a0 As a program leader, Brian\u2019s responsibilities include providing inspection and rehabilitation studies; evaluating newly developed inspection, management, and monitoring technologies; and overseeing the planning, maintenance, and delivery of services to clients.\u00a0 \u201cIn addition, I serve as a Project Manager of several bridge inspection contracts and on-going research projects for the Federal Highway Administration,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n In his position at HDR, Brian is especially proud of his development of a bridge inspection program.\u00a0 \u201cI built a Top-5 National Bridge Inspection Program from a core cadre of six bridge engineers and inspectors into a highly trained group comprising 75 staff supporting numerous bridges and structures inspection contracts nationwide,\u201d he says.\u00a0 Brian has also been recognized by his peers as a leader in the structural engineering profession.\u00a0 He was recently named an Inaugural Fellow of the Structural Engineering Institute (SEI), an honor that acknowledges distinguished SEI members as leaders and mentors in the field.<\/p>\n When asked what counsel he has for UConn engineering students, Brian responds with advice that has helped him develop his own long and very successful career.\u00a0 \u201cChallenge yourself to be the best possible engineer,\u201d he says.\u00a0 \u201cSet lofty goals, for if you strive to attain them and come up a bit short, you will still have noteworthy achievements.\u00a0 Get involved and learn to network, a skill that will be useful throughout your career.\u201d\u00a0 Most important, he says, \u201cBe passionate about your chosen profession.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Brian Leshko (M.S., Structural Engineering ’90) recalls the moment he knew he wanted to be an engineer. “I remember misspelling the word ‘engineer’ in a spelling bee,” he says. “I looked up the proper spelling and definition and told my parents that, although I couldn’t spell ‘engineer’ correctly, one day I was going to be one.” <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":122,"featured_media":224856,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1866],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2110],"class_list":["post-203589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-engr"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-22 02:05:10","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/122"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203589"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203589\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":224857,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203589\/revisions\/224857"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/224856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203589"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=203589"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=203589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/p>\n