About The SPECS Team
SPECS Civil Solutions specializes in feasibility, design, and project management of bridge projects, retaining walls, and any nonstandard civil structural design. SPECS offers consultative support with the design, specification, and in some cases supply of custom hydraulic and environmental corridor crossing solutions. SPECS can explore environmentally friendly options that preserve or create natural habitats; options range from an oversized pipe with a buried invert to a long-span bridge.
Our team excels in solution development and guides projects through consultation, design, approval, material delivery, and construction support in a wide spectrum of both public and private markets including but not limited to projects for schools, hospitals, Military and Federal agencies, local municipalities, residential and commercial developments, utility companies, as well as designers and design-build contractors across the Western U.S. We work to manage the project from the early stages of feasibility and design and follow the project through the approval stages, procurement of raw materials, production, delivery of the material, and onsite construction consultation.
Meet Our Key Personnel
Amanda Ernst
Project Manager, Co-Owner
Gina Spears
Project Manager, Co-Owner
Karen Doll, PE
VP of Engineering
Sam
Calming Presence Manager
Amanda Ernst
Principal
Amanda has 20 years of experience in the civil engineering and construction industry. She worked for SAIC (Science Applications International Corporation) immediately after earning her undergraduate degree in civil engineering. At SAIC her responsibilities encompassed the study, reporting, and remediation of a number of FUSRAP (Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program) sites in the St. Louis area. After two years she left SAIC to work toward an MS in Civil and later worked for MWH (Montgomery Watson Harza). Amanda has managed both public and private projects from feasibility through construction, managing schedules and project budgets, preparing project scopes, RFPs, studying bid submittals, choosing the appropriate team, managing the team in the field, and preparing documentation and recommendations based on field findings. She has managed activities within Military and Federal markets across the Western U.S., with a heavy emphasis on design-build contracts from the SOQ stage through material delivery and construction. As Chief Financial Officer for SPECS, Amanda now manages the day-to-day business in addition to offering consulting support to engineers, developers and agencies relative to bridge and culvert structures, walls, and other custom hydraulic solutions.
Gina Spears
Principal
Gina has over 20 years of experience in project management covering the design, specification and approval of bridge and culvert projects. She is also experienced in the areas of precast concrete fabrication, delivery logistics, construction scheduling, formwork, and calculating and sourcing raw material. Gina’s experience offers clients an efficient and proven resource in project management.
Since 1997, Gina has worked to promote and manage the design, manufacture and delivery of prefabricated bridge structures. Her work includes developing specifications with City, County, and Federal agencies, as well as supporting the engineering and contracting communities with the technical resources to utilize soil-structure technology.
Karen Doll, PE
VP of Engineering
Since graduating from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo in 2002 with a degree in Civil Engineering, Karen has concentrated her career on the design and engineering of underground structures, retaining walls and bridges. As VP of Engineering for SPECS, Karen is responsible for the development and oversight of SPECS’ engineering deliverables. She manages the design and creation of the PS&E packages, including calculations, plan creation, specification and application of construction specifications to material submittals. Prior to joining SPECS in 2013, Karen worked with the Division of Engineering Services – Structure Design at Caltrans headquarters in Sacramento. She held several roles, including construction oversight/inspection, bridge design, quantity calculations, and most recently structure specifications. Prior to her nearly 10 years at Caltrans, Karen served for 6 years as the Area Engineer managing the Northern California office of a bridge design firm specializing in soil-structure interaction design. Karen is a registered professional engineer in AZ, CA, NV, TX and UT.
Sam
Calming Presence Manager
Sam joined the SPECS team in 2018 as the Calming Presence Manager. He has spent his entire life studying humans and is skilled at naps, long walks and enjoying belly scratches. He is known to sing along to piano practice and bark at his fellow canine and feline peers when they are on conference calls with him. Luckily Sam is not a lap dog. While his large frame is majestic, he is all bark and no bite.
What Makes Us Different
Here at SPECS WE ARE...
Project Managers
From the BIG PICTURE to what may seem like mundane details; SPECS ensures that our clients’ long-term goals are met and details addressed. We engage at the entitlement stage to bring the site constraints and preliminary budgets into view. We proactively coordinate with the project team during final engineering to bring the structure design scope through approval. We help keep construct-ability issues at the forefront.
Problem Solvers
Whether the project is in entitlement or final design; SPECS will work proactively with the project team to evaluate the site constraints to find the most EFFICIENT SOLUTION for the project. Instead of evaluating the structure design in a vacuum, we take a wide-range look at the MILESTONES and help our clients understand the long-lead steps early in the process and along the way. Our strong professional friendships developed over two decades in the industry mean that we know where to find proven technical talent.
Designers
We design all manner of BRIDGES, ABUTMENTS, RETAINING WALLS, TUNNELS, custom HYDRAULIC STRUCTURES, etc. From finite element analysis to basic hand calculations, we apply our expertise and our tools to make efficient use of your design budget.
SPECS works with the project team on VALUE ENGINEERING options throughout the life of the project. We engage the hydraulic engineer to understand the most EFFICIENT method to convey flow and protect from scour. We concurrently engage the biologist to balance impact avoidance, structure cost and scour protection while accounting for the time and cost of agency review, MITIGATION and CONSTRUCTION. We work with the civil engineer to find efficiencies in the layout of the structure and walls wherever possible. We engage contractors to collect feedback on constructability.
We understand construction and the response-time demands to keep the job moving.
Suppliers
When a PREFABRICATED SOLUTION is the answer, we've got options. With precast concrete, corrugated steel, steel beams and trusses at our fingertips, we can reduce your time in construction. Time is money. With a prefabricated bridge structure, you really can install a bridge in a single day.
