Chastain-Skillman is excited to celebrate National Engineers Week 2022 by recognizing our talented & dedicated engineering staff. Each day in #EWeek2022, we’ll highlight members of our team on social media and in our blog. Today we’re chatting with Vaughan Leer, PE!
Vaughan Leer, PE joined the Chastain-Skillman (CS) team in the winter of 2021 as a Senior Project Manager in our Lakeland office. Vaughan graduated from The Pennsylvania State University with a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Engineering Technology, soon after beginning his professional career in engineering. While Vaughan has worked to diversify his background in civil engineering design and project management, he has come to specialize in water/wastewater design and permitting through his 25 years in the industry.
As Senior Project Manager on the Water/Wastewater team at Chastain-Skillman, Vaughan gets to apply his vast background of experience to his work contributing to the completion of and overseeing water/wastewater projects. When he’s not working on projects, he focuses his time on proposal or design-related tasks around the office.
Vaughan is a registered Professional Engineering (PE) in his home state, Pennsylvania, as well as a devoted member of the Water Environment Federation (WEF) and the American Water Works Associate (AWWA).
To mark the second day of National Engineers Week 2022, we talked to Mr. Leer about his experiences, fulfilling aspects of his job, and what some of his favorite projects have been over the course of his 25 years in the industry.
Read more below:
Describe your typical day: What do you do as soon as you get to the office? What takes up most of your time? What is your favorite part of the workday?
Review email, then to the tasks of the day, might be a proposal to write, or design-related task.
As a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up? When did you realize you wanted to become an engineer?
Astronaut / Aeronautical Engineer. My sophomore year in college.
What has been one of your favorite projects to work on?
A water supply well deemed to be under surface water influence, that I was responsible for developing the testing protocol and pilot testing of diatomaceous earth filtration technology.
What, in your opinion, is one of the most underrated skills to have as an engineer?
Political astuteness.
What is one of the most fulfilling aspects of your job as an engineer? Why have you continued to be an engineer all of these years?
Solving a challenging problem. The satisfaction of a successful project to benefit public health.
What advice would you give to someone who wants to pursue a career in engineering?
Be a sponge, engineering is a profession built upon experiences. Do not be afraid to make a mistake (they will happen), learn from the mistake.
“Be a sponge, engineering is a profession built upon experiences.”
– Vaughan Leer, PE
