Enrique Bazán-Arias, PE, EMBA is one of hundreds of skilled GAI professionals who help clients create better communities, transportation infrastructure, energy generation and delivery, and more from our office locations throughout the United States. Today we’ll find out a little about what makes Enrique tick—the background, motivation, and methods that he brings to the table every day for GAI and GAI’s clients.
Q: Please tell us a little about how you arrived at your area of specialization.
Enrique Bazán-Arias: I focused on structural engineering within civil engineering for my undergraduate degree. For my graduate degree, I focused on international marketing and project management. I actually started pursuing electrical engineering, but eventually structures came more naturally to me than circuits.
Q: What role do you play at GAI, and what sorts of projects do you typically contribute to?
Enrique: I work almost exclusively on renewable energy projects. My duties are to develop relationships with renewable energy clients and to continually nurture relationships with existing clients. More broadly, I am part of a great team that strategizes on the role that renewable energy plays at GAI, and on what direction we as a company take with this exciting market. Finally, I act as Project Manager for some of the projects that I help to procure.
Q: What does your typical day at GAI look like?
Enrique: The great thing is that there is no typical day for me. When you wear several hats, your days are very fluid. In the end, my day is a mix of giving some direction to a project team, discussing opportunities with clients, pulling together a proposal team, keeping up to date with the renewable energy industry, and working on marketing material.
I have worked in large, publicly traded companies, and I have worked in a small family business. I relate the best to a company like GAI where we reap the benefits of our success, and where we offer services in a variety of disciplines.
Q: What do you like most about your job, and why do you feel GAI is a good place to put your skills to work?
Enrique: I really enjoy the people I work with—the colleagues whom I interface with day in and day out, as well as our clients and partners. I like contributing to a team that makes positive impacts across the country every day.
I have worked in large, publicly traded companies, and I have worked in a small family business. I relate the best to a company like GAI where we reap the benefits of our success, and where we offer services in a variety of disciplines.
As a matter of fact, people may be surprised to learn that my two sisters and my father are also engineers, and that GAI is the only company that we have all worked for at one time or another!
Q: How do you measure your success, and what inspires you to continually improve?
Enrique: Last week, we completed a permitting project for a solar facility. The client wrote a totally unsolicited email to us that in addition to being very complimentary about the work we did also described how much they enjoyed collaborating with our team. I rest well knowing that I have given a good day’s effort, but it is even better to receive that type of client feedback.
Ultimately, my faith inspires me to become a better version of myself each year, and I am extremely thankful for my family who help me in that process. I definitely feel that striving to improve myself personally enables me to do better work for my company and our clients.
Q: How do you feel that the job you do at GAI benefits the community and the world?
Enrique: The best way I can answer that is through a personal story. When my dad was growing up in a small town in Peru in the ‘50s, he used to have to go outside under a streetlamp to do homework or read books at night. I grew up in Mexico and Peru in the 70’s, and blackouts were a common part of my childhood. We knew exactly where the candles were. By working to bring clean, sustainable power-generating projects to the grid, I and others in my field can help make sure that communities here and around the world won’t have to experience similar circumstances.
Contact Enrique at 412.399.5465 and find out more about GAI’s renewable energy services—message GAI online and start the conversation about how our multidiscipline professionals can meet your unique project needs.
Enrique Bazán-Arias, PE, EMBA specializes in civil engineering including civil and structural design, seismic certification, site characterization, forensic analysis, power generation facilities, transportation systems, foundations and slope stability, and finite element analysis. With more than 2 decades of experience, Enrique has been responsible for the marketing, design, and execution of projects throughout the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.
