Harun Sisic is a key part of our Harrisburg-area, Pennsylvania, civil and environmental teams, supporting construction management, inspection, and infiltration testing solutions. Today, we sat down with Harun to learn about his day-to-day role in our residential and green energy projects.
1. What does a typical week look like in your position?
I coordinate with contractors to deliver projects on schedule and within budget, adhering to land development and civil engineering plans. This includes managing sewer and water lines, handling emergencies such as sinkholes, providing cost estimates to clients, and reviewing invoices. In addition, I support our environmental team with infiltration testing for stormwater management design.
2. Describe a construction management and inspection project.
My go-to example is the Green Lane Meadows residential development in Fairview Township, Pennsylvania. For this 205 single-family unit community, I review contractor invoices to verify charges, monitor the construction of stormwater management, and oversee sewer and water line home connections. My first construction management project, this role got my foot in the door to our industry.
3. Walk us through the infiltration testing process.
We examine soil profiles for proposed stormwater management facility locations. I help identify limiting zones in six-feet or deeper test pits depending on stormwater system depth, perform double-ring infiltrometer testing, and adjust assessments based on bed rock, hydric soil, and perched water field conditions. The test pit logs and infiltration results assist in stormwater management final design.
4. Can you provide project examples?
For the Wynfield at Millersville retirement home community in Pennsylvania, our documented infiltration results and soil test pit profiles guided the surface and subsurface infiltration facility design. We also provided construction permitting and land development—transforming 14 acres of raw land into 64 duplex units and five single-family detached homes. In addition to residential development, my environmental experience extends to renewable energy.
5. Talk more about your solar work.
Dawood provided infiltration testing and documented soil profiles and conditions to assist stormwater management design for a solar client in Duncannon, Pennsylvania. The project proposes to convert pasture land into a one-megawatt community scale solar array field, which we also supported through land development and wetland stream and delineation services.
6. What are your career goals?
I’ve been fortunate to hit the ground running, starting my course work at The Pennsylvania State University, while working at Dawood for over two years. I aim to graduate from Penn State Harrisburg with a bachelor of science in civil engineering next Spring, earn my engineer-in-training license, and continue project management at Dawood.