Board Members

Company: Bennett Trenchless Engineers

Ms. Wallin has been involved with trenchless design since 2005 and has provided design and construction management services on projects using horizontal directional drilling, microtunneling, pipe ramming, guided boring, and earth pressure balance pipe jacking. She is a contributing author on the 2011 revision of the Horizontal Directional Drilling Good Practices Guidelines. Kate serves as the Vice Chair of WESTT Chapter Board of Directors and received the Trent Ralston Young Trenchless Achievement Award in 2011.

Company: National Plant Services

Michelle received a BS in Civil Engineering from Purdue University, and is a registered California PE with 27-years experience in planning, design, construction, and asset management of water, stormwater, and wastewater assets.  She has worked as a Project Engineer for Black & Veatch, as an Asset Management Engineer with the East Bay Municipal Utility District, she owned her own Engineering & Construction firm, and for the last 10 years has specialized in multi-sensor inspections and trenchless rehabilitation of sewer, storm, and water assets.  She is currently the Regional Manager for National Plant Services, Inc., covering the 12 Western States, including Hawaii and Alaska.

Michelle is also active in many industry organizations. In addition to serving as a Board Member of WESTT, she is a Board Member of NASSCO, and is Chair of the NASSCO Infrastructure Assessment Committee which manages revisions and updates to NASSCO’s PACP/MACP/LACP coding.

Company: Tanner Pacific, Inc.

Mike is a Principal Co-Founder of Tanner Pacific, Inc., specializing in Construction Management of Water Resource Projects. Mike is the Chief Marketing Officer responsible for all Marketing and Business Development for the Company. He is a Professional Engineer with over 35 years of experience in public infrastructure project/construction management, as well as, over 10 years of Partnering Facilitation. Having spent his early professional years working for the Cities of Fremont and Palo Alto and at the Union Sanitary District, Mike worked on many different types of projects including, roadway improvements, building renovations, landfill closures and large wastewater treatment plant expansions, just to name a few. Mike has managed many pipeline projects, totaling more than 30 miles of installed pipe. Ranging in size from 30 in. to 132 in. in diameter, these projects included many miles of open cut, microtunnel, HDD and pipe bursting to traverse under highways, active school sites, active rail lines and sensitive environmental habitats. One of the largest and longest projects included the LAVWMA pipeline stretching 16 miles from Pleasanton to the bay in San Leandro. This project had microtunnel crossings of freeways (4), sensitive creek habitat (2), a railroad crossing and a long stretch of continuous microtunnel (10,000 LF) at the end. Another was the West Sacramento Force Main as part of the Lower Northwest Interceptor Program. This project installed twin 60-in. diameter force mains with microtunnel of 2 railroad crossings, 1 freeway and high school property crossing and a 3 bore microtunnel under a major thoroughfare. It also included a 1,300 LF HDD crossing of a barge canal. Mike has overseen several other pipeline projects that include microtunnel, HDD, pipe bursting and CIPP lining work, as well. Currently Mike is the Project Manager on a $206 Million Progressive Design Build Tunnel Project in Redwood City for Silicon Valley Clean Water. Mike grew up in the bay area in San Jose and Campbell, later attending and becoming a graduate of San Jose State University with a BS in Civil Engineering.

Company: Carollo Engineers

Mr. Taylor is the National Director of the Supply and Conveyance Infrastructure Practice and a Senior Vice President with Carollo Engineers, Inc.. Tim has been working on water and wastewater infrastructure projects for over 34 years and has been heavily involved in the planning, design, construction and project management of projects for water distribution systems, gravity sewer collection systems, pump stations, storage reservoirs. He has worked on projects all across the nation incorporating trenchless construction techniques such as HDD and microtunneling as well as worked on pipeline condition assessment and rehabilitation projects for many clients.

In his spare time, Tim enjoys backcountry skiing and mountain biking in the Sierra Nevada mountains with his wife of over 30 years and their two college age daughters.

Company: Carollo Engineers

Brian Avon is an Associate Vice President with Carollo Engineers, located in Walnut Creek, California. Brian has more than 14 years of experience in design, preparing contract documents and cost estimates, and facilitating the acquisition of permits for pipeline projects. His work has included systems evaluation, development of rehabilitation/replacement improvements, construction, geotechnical engineering, and specialty inspection. Over the past 12 years most of Brian’s projects have been trenchless focused.

Company: Woodard & Curran

Jennifer Glynn is a Senior Technical Practice Lead and Principal for Woodard & Curran out of their Sacramento, California office.  Jen has over 24 years of experience in Project Management and Infrastructure Design, with an expertise in Condition Assessment and Trenchless Rehabilitation.   

Jen has been authoring papers and presenting at conferences both domestically and internationally for the past 20 years.  She is a past Executive Board Member for NASTT and is currently an NASTT training course instructor for two classes:  Introduction to Trenchless Rehabilitation and Pipe Bursting Good Practices.  She is also a member of the AWWA Water Main Rehabilitation and Water Main CIPP Standards Committees.

Company: Sekisui SPR Americas, LLC

Jacquie is the Regional Manager for Sekisui SPR Americas for the Western US. She has over 25 years of industry experience working with manufacturers and contractors specializing in trenchless pipeline rehabilitation and condition assessment solutions. She is a current board member of WESTT and is active in numerous industry committees. She has authored several industry papers and magazine articles as well as has presented at national and regional conferences. Jacquie is originally from Chicago, IL where she received her BA degree in International Business from Northern Illinois University. She continued her studies in International Business at the Institute for American Universities in Avignon, France then pursed her MBA at the University of Illinois in Chicago.

Company: McMillen Jacobs Associates

Rachel Martin has 20 years of experience in design and construction management on civil projects focused in the fields of water, wastewater, and hydropower. Her experience includes trenchless and tunnel design, development of contract drawings and specifications, construction management, design and constructability reviews, project controls, quality management, and cost estimating. Rachel has developed designs for microtunneling, pipe jacking, HDD, and sliplining projects throughout the US, Canada, and New Zealand.

Company: Central Contra Costa Sanitary District

Sasha Mestetsky is a Senior Engineer in the Capital Projects Division at Central Contra Costa Sanitary District (Central San) located in Martinez, California. He manages Central San’s Collection System Program with an annual fiscal budget of approximately $40 million. Sasha is responsible for the design and construction management of all sewer system replacement and renovation capital improvement projects. Most of these projects utilize various trenchless technologies.

Sasha has over 25 years of experience in design and construction of collection systems projects. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering from California State University, Sacramento and is a California-licensed Civil and Mechanical Engineer.

Sasha serves as the At-Large Representative of WESTT Chapter Board of Directors. He is a long time member of Water Environment Federation (WEF), North American Society for Trenchless Technology (NASTT), and Northern California Pipe Users Group (PUG). Sasha is passionate about everything trenchless, enjoys sharing his experiences, and actively promotes trenchless technology education.

Company: Yogi Kwong Engineers, LLC

Mr. Nakayama has nearly 20 years of experience in geotechnical and trenchless engineering, working on projects requiring soil stabilization, shallow and deep foundations, deep shaft excavations, microtunneling, guided bore, and horizontal directional drilling. He has published and presented two papers on trenchless pipe installation at the North American Society of Trenchless Technology No-Dig conferences.

Company: GHD

Mr. Watanabe is a Civil Engineer registered in California, Hawaii, and Guam and has more than 20 years of engineering experience of which the last 8 years have been largely focused on trenchless technologies for both rehabilitation and new construction. During this time he has planned, assessed, and designed over 100-miles of pipelines up to 96” for public utility systems. His project experience includes alternative construction and rehabilitation methods including horizontal auger boring, burst and insert, HDD, point repairs, CIPP, PCIPP, and microtunneling.

He currently manages the Linear Infrastructure business (which includes the Tunneling and Trenchless services sector) for GHD’s US West region consisting of California, Arizona, Oregon, Washington, Hawaii, Guam, and Saipan. He is also GHD’s managing Principal for the firm’s NASTT No-Dig participation across North America. Mr. Watanabe manages a dedicated team of trenchless engineers throughout the US West who have been involved in over 100 trenchless construction projects installing over 250,000 feet of pipelines throughout North America.