Few can say they have worked for the same company for 40 years, but Johnson Engineering’s Stormwater Technician, Tim Bailey can. Throughout his four decades of work, Tim has been in the trenches, literally, at times crawling through mangroves to set up water quality monitoring equipment, taking samples, and testing the water.

Tim began working part-time for our company founder, Carl Johnson, back in 1966 while still in high school just before getting deployed to Vietnam. In 1972, he started working full-time as a survey rodman, however at the time Tim worked wherever he was needed. His willingness to learn new skills and desire to help out gave him the opportunity to learn a variety of services including land surveying, observing water flows after a heavy rain fall, and even spent time in the office drafting. During the early years, there were no computers so hand drafting was the standard method. This is such a far cry from the heavy reliance we have on computers and technology today. Tim remembers the challenges the company faced with the introduction of technology and computers….hand drafting soon became a thing of the past and he was forced to learn computer drafting in AutoCAD. Tim also recounts times when he used a cork and stick to measure water levels before electronic data loggers became available. With everything else, learning new technology can be a challenge, but it makes work faster and life easier as Tim can’t imagine doing work without a computer now.

Tim’s heart is happiest when working out in the field – out in the woods watching the water flow. Tim learned from one of the best, our company’s second president and water resource expert, Archie Grant. During a heavy rainfall event, Tim could expect to get a call from Archie, no matter what time of the night, to go out and observe where the water was flowing. This historical firsthand knowledge is priceless as Tim knows the lay of the land, knows where to go, and more importantly, where the water will go. Forty years later he still thrives by being in the field, working closely with our water resources, transportation, and utility engineers, as well as our ecologists who need information about the water levels, water flow, and water quality around their project areas.

No need to tell Tim what do, just tell him what you need and he’ll get it done. For more than 40 years Tim has dedicated himself to Johnson Engineering and we are honored to have him as a part of our team.