NEW ECLC Members

VTCA’s Engineering Consultant Leadership Committee will once again welcome three new members as the committee term-year refreshes on July 1st.  New to the committee (first timers) will be Lorna Parkins from Michael Baker and Robert Ridgell from Wallace Montgomery.  Mike Saunders from NXL will be returning to the committee after a 4-year hiatus.

Lorna brings 37 years of professional experience to the Committee, the last 27 of which with Michael Baker International.  She currently serves as Office Executive for the Richmond and Virginia Beach offices, where she manages a multidisciplined transportation team and a civil and environmental engineering team totaling over 75 staff. In addition to her work with VTCA, Lorna is a leader in several professional associations including WTS International Central Virginia Chapter (since its founding), Virginia Transit Association, Virginians for High-Speed Rail, and the American Planning Association Virginia Chapter. Lorna has a bachelor’s degree in Urban Affairs and Planning from Virginia Tech and an MS in Applied Economics from the University of Minnesota.

Robert serves as Vice President of Construction Services for Virginia and DC at Wallace Montgomery. He is a professional engineer with over 18 years of hands-on experience in construction management, field operations, materials testing, and staffing. In a former role at VDOT Robert helped to establish the Design-Build Community of Practice, a group he chaired for over 5 years. In 2020 Robert was named one of the Top 40 under 40 Young Professionals in the US Construction Industry. In 2023, he was named an Outstanding Young Alumni by the Charles E. Via, Jr. Department of Civil Engineering at Virginia Tech, and now serves on the Virginia Tech CEE Alumni Board as liaison to the transportation program. 

Mike returns to the ECLC with over 24 years of experience in the Construction Industry, with a focus on Quality Assurance. He is a Senior Vice President with NXL managing a team of nearly 100 employees providing CEI, Survey, and Design services across Virginia. Mike has experience as a Project Control Engineer and Area Construction Engineer for Design Build and Local Administered Projects in the VDOT Richmond District. Since his last term on the ECLC, company transitions and acquisitions have given Mike experience with providing professional services with various size firms, valuable perspective in representing the spectrum of firms that belong to VTCA.

Also a Hokie, Mike makes it a clean sweep for Virginia Tech with the ECLC Class of ’25-’26. Hoos, Monarchs, Patriots, Keydets – better up those games!