Christopher Leaton

A civil and structural engineer with 25 years of experience in the design and supervision of projects in the commercial, government, industrial, power, residential, and water/wastewater sectors. His experience includes the analysis, design and specification, construction support, condition assessments and site inspections in various engineering and management roles. Chris has experience in the condition assessment and inspection of many types of structures including buildings, cooling towers, parking garages, and concrete tanks. He also has experience in damage assessments from significant natural disasters including the Harvey (Houston) and Maria (Puerto Rico) hurricanes along with the Moore (Oklahoma) and Joplin (Missouri) tornadoes.

Prior to joining Vertex Companies, his experience includes various roles with engineering firms and in the manufacture of cooling towers and precast concrete. Complementing his professional design experience is his knowledge of the water/wastewater including leading large structural projects at Black & Veatch. He has been the lead structural engineer for water / wastewater treatment project in metropolitan areas such as Chicago, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Minneapolis, St. Louis and Washington, DC along with international projects located in Afghanistan, Australia, and Chile. Environmental and water containing structures include aeration and ozone contact basins, clarifiers, pumping stations, yard structures and vaults, and large concrete and steel tanks. His structural expertise includes the specification and use of many materials including masonry, concrete (cast-in-place and precast), steel (cold-formed and structural), and wood along with other materials such as stainless steel and FRP.
Cooling tower experience includes the design of new FRP cooling towers and reconstruction and inspection for natural and mechanical draft concrete towers. His experience includes both factory assembled and field erected cooling towers and has led the design for cooling tower projects for sites including Three Mile Island, Vogtle Nuclear Plant, and Mountaineer Power Plant. He has also been involved in cooling tower manufacturing for plant equipment, layout, maintenance, lean manufacturing, and quality control.

His precast concrete experience includes typical products such as architectural precast, beams, bleacher risers, columns, double tees, hollow core slabs, and insulated wall panels along with specialty products for architectural precast applications. He has experience in precast concrete plant quality control and mix design and has been involved in concrete monitoring and self-compacting concrete. He has previously been involved on the Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute (PCI) Sandwich Wall Panel and Seismic committees.
In addition to his professional experience Chris also serves on the Spring Hill, Kansas city council and is an active member of the FEMA Urban Search and Rescue (US&R) Nebraska Task Force 1 (NE-TF1).

Education & Certification

M.A., Public Administration, University of Missouri – Kansas City
B.S., Civil Engineering, Kansas State University

Associations

Professional Engineer (PE) – Civil/Structural, State of IA, KS, MO, NE, NV
Structural Engineer (SE), State of IL
OSHA 10, State of MO
HAZWOPER 40
HAZWOPER 8-hour Refresher