Gail G. Mattson, P.E.

1950-

Gail first got involved with SWE in 1982 as a graduate engineering student and has served the Society in many capacities since. For the Pacific Northwest Section and then the Chicago Regional Section, she chaired several different program committees and served as their Section Representative. Between 1992 and 1995, she served as Chair of the National Membership Committee and was then elected to the FY 96 National Board as vice president of Member Services. For FY97-FY98, Gail served as the Region D Director and then in FY99 as the National Strategic Planning Committee Chair. In addition to SWE, she has also served in various local, regional, and national positions with the ASCE, CHMM, Girl Scouts, Girls Inc., AAUW, Phi Mu Fraternity, Rotary International, her church, and other community organizations. Gail currently represents SWE on the International Network of Women Engineers and Scientists (INWES) and the Board of Directors, serving as Treasurer.

Gail is a prime example of the many women who get into engineering in a roundabout way. She originally was a pre-medical student, but her father talked her into working during the summers at Bechtel as an engineering aide. Bechtel recruited her for full-time employment after graduation and worked for seven years as a cost/schedule engineer on power and infrastructure projects in California, Oregon, Canada, and Saudi Arabia. Gail negotiated a leave of absence to obtain an engineering degree, and while taking both undergraduate pre-requisite and graduate courses, helped develop the curriculum for the first class to receive a Masters of Science in Environmental Engineering at the University of Washington.

Between 1983 and 1999, she worked for Foster Wheeler Environmental, starting as a Project Engineer on a wide variety of environmental assignments in the Pacific Northwest and then Engineering Department Lead for the Seattle office; Project Manager of several Superfund remediation contracts in the Midwest and the Chicago Operations Manager; Program Manager of the USDOE Environmental Restoration and Waste Management design contract; and then Assistant Vice-President of Engineering and the Oak Ridge Operations Manager.

While as Program Manager from 2000 through 2003 for the Bechtel Jacobs Company LLC (BJC) Reservation Cleanup/Waste Management Project (RCWM), Gail performed a wide variety of project management duties, as well as the successful execution of several major assignments for the US Department of Energy Oak Ridge Operations (DOE-ORO). RCWM was the largest BJC project with a $200M/yr budget, 19 subcontractors, and responsibility for 813 facilities located at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), the Y-12 Plant Site East Tennessee Technology Park (ETTP). The project scope included S&M of inactive waste sites and facilities slated for D&D; liquid, gaseous, and PCB contaminated waste treatment operations; storage, shipment, and disposition of hazardous, low-level, mixed, and transuranic waste.

Gail is currently a Vice President with Parallax, Inc., in charge of corporate business development for environmental engineering and management services, including focus area identification, development of partnering agreements, proposal development, and contract negotiations. She is responsible for the safe, quality execution of Parallax’s environmental remediation and waste management contracts, including those for DOE-ORO, DOE-SRS, and EPA. She develops/approves cost, schedule, and technical approach for completion of work, oversees project managers, interfaces with clients to ensure satisfaction, and maintains ultimate responsibility for environmental compliance and safety of workers.

As the FY01 president, her focus was to build on the outstanding 50 year legacy of SWE. Accomplishments included the outsourcing of headquarters operations; initiation of the change process for the roles and responsibilities for the Board of Directors, Council of Section Representatives, and National Committees to achieve the Society’s strategic plan better; establishment of alliances with the Girl Scouts and Girls Inc.; kicking off the new nationwide Section Vitality Training Program; establishment of the new Conference Programming Board; development of “Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day” as a new component of Engineering Week, and the finalization of the new Corporate Partnership Concept.