Frederick W. Blickle III, P.E., F.ASCE, a civil and environmental engineer specializing in processes and technical applications that redress environmental blight, has been named a Fellow by the ASCE Board of Direction.
Blickle, throughout his 35-year consulting career, has solved many different types of problems for clients. Most projects related to environmental impairment or impediment, as these considerations often obstruct civil projects and can severely delay or even stop them if not addressed to the securing of public safety and health as well as biological community health.
He successfully completed hundreds of projects while employed in Florida and adjacent states, Michigan and surrounding Midwestern states, and California and its surroundings. This body of work has helped clients comply with environmental requirements and at the same time provided improved and salutary conditions for the citizenry. Projects ranged in size from small to very large, closed landfills to redevelopment of brownfield sites in crowded intercity locations where the end result was productive reuse of dormant or festering properties.
Blickle has published over 50 technical papers and given presentations regarding many of the projects and technical applications developed, and these provide valuable information to the technical community for application to other challenging projects.
An example is the City of Chicago and the O’Hare Modernization Program (OMP), where new runways were desperately needed to help the O’Hare International Airport accommodate air traffic. Litigation had ground this $10 billion project to a halt because of environmental concerns associated with the planned demolition of 600 structures on 300 acres of land acquired by OMP for the expansion. Blickle led a team of over 50 engineers and scientists who studied the conditions and determined steps needed to decommission the buildings prior to demolition and clearing, sparing harm to the surrounding community and environment.
In two years the team successfully addressed matters and provided reports and engineering plans for the work needed. Blickle also served as the lead expert-engineer witness for the City of Chicago in the court case, which went in favor of the City. What prepared him for the success of this project were his years of experience in decommissioning and demolition assessment, and the common process he developed for his company and which is followed to this day by the many engineers who conduct such identification of the problems surrounding blighted environs and then develop organized and thorough solutions.
Blickle holds B.S. degrees in biology and civil engineering and an M.S. in environmental engineering from the University of Alabama. He is a licensed professional engineer in Kansas, Michigan, Illinois, Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska and Florida.
