Life Member 2015
Born and educated in the former USSR (BS and MS in Civil Engineering from Tomsk State University, Russia in 1972), Yefim D. Goldenberg began his career as a superintendent for a state construction company in Tomsk, where he supervised the work of a construction crew at a large steel plant. After returning to his native city of Chernovtsy, Ukraine, he joined a large state consulting firm, where over the course of 16 years he rose from junior structural engineer to a senior project manager, designing and implementing challenging projects such as a large hotel/restaurant complex and a public swimming pool. Given the city's location in the most seismically active part of Ukraine, Yefim became deeply involved in analyzing and designing structures under seismic loads.
In December of 1989, Yefim moved his family to the United States, settling in Seattle. Shortly after arriving, Yefim secured his first engineering job working for Atwood-Hinzman Inc. (1990-1991). Even given the similarities in basic engineering principles the world over, transitioning to American standards offered quite a challenge for Yefim -- starting from having to convert everything from metric to imperial units, to learning new codes and standards -- and all of it in a brand new language. Nonetheless, Yefim worked very diligently to adapt and come up to speed in his new job environment.
In 1992 Yefim joined the Seattle Chapter of SEAW.
Over the years he has worked at a number of local leading engineering firms: SWMB, Inc. (1991-1992), Alpha Engineering Group, Inc. (1992-1993), GHL Consulting (1993-1994), AKB Consulting Engineers (1994-1999) and Gray & Osborne, Inc. (1999-Present). His early projects included: Bridgeport Elementary and Kittitas Middle schools, Billy McHale’s Restaurant in Lynnwood, Sacred Heart MC Doctor’s Building and Garage expansion in Spokane, Swedish Hospital MC SE addition in Seattle. In 1994, while working for AKB Consulting Engineers, Yefim leveraged his engineering experience in the former USSR to help drive a project designing the 12-story headquarters of a local bank (100,000 sq. ft.) office building in Vladivostok, Russia.
After joining Gray & Osborne, Inc., Yefim took part in the design and construction of several wastewater and water treatment Facilities and Plants located throughout the Pacific Northwest. The major projects included: WWT Plant expansion for the city of Sumner, upgrade of Wastewater Treatment Plant in Fort Lewis, and the most significant one: the $75 million Sunnyside Wastewater Treatment Facilities in Lake Stevens. In 2012, the Washington Aggregates and Concrete Association recognized the Sunnyside project as an Outstanding Example of Excellence in Concrete Construction.
Posted June 2015