Civil Engineer/Project Manager

Perhaps you recall Dan Ackroyd and John Belushi zipping down Wacker Drive in the “Blues Brothers.” If you’ve driven through downtown Chicago yourself in the last 21 months, you probably experienced the re-routing caused by construction of the busy section of the two-level roadway between Michigan Avenue and Randolph Street. If so, you can understand why Denise Casalino has been called a wonder woman.

Casalino, who studied civil engineering at Valparaiso University (www.valpo.edu), just happens to be the project manager who delivered the $220 million reconstruction of Chicago’s famous Wacker Drive on time and on budget—no small feat.

As the Chicago Tribune reported, “The Wacker rehabilitation has been an unprecedented success, despite the complexity of demolishing the 75-year-old east-west section of the traffic circulator road and rebuilding it without completely snarling traffic flow in the rest of downtown.”

The newspaper attributes Casolino’s project management success to her engineering and diplomacy skills and to “bringing a world view to the technical and sometimes geeky subculture of designing and building roads, bridges, tunnels and waterworks.”

Casalino says it’s important that engineers communicate well and avoid technical jargon. For Wacker Drive, she also needed the ability to look at the “bigger picture of how all the disciplines related” in the mammoth engineering project.

Casalino built her leadership skills in college through involvement in her social sorority (now Delta Delta Delta) and the campus chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

She will take no time to rest on the laurels of her recent successful project completion. After all, there is more to be done. Some of the limestone facade taken and reconditioned must still be put back in place. A proposed riverwalk project that includes restaurants, outdoor cafes and bands performing on barges on the Chicago River is in the final design stage. Casalino will continue to make her mark on this world-class city for many years to come, always depending on her management and communication skills to bring every project to a successful completion.

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