Lafayette designer of bridges, roads named Indiana's Engineer of the Year
LAFAYETTE, Ind. − After a 35-year-long career at his family's company and having contributed to the design or inspection of over 600 Indiana bridges, Lafayette's Stewart Kline was awarded Engineer of the Year by the Association of Indiana Counties.
Kline's two careers
Kline, who graduated from Lafayette Jefferson High School and earned his bachelor's at Purdue University has spent his entire careers - both of them - working on the design, development and safety of bridges and road constructions completed around the state. His first career at family business H. Stewart Kline & Associates initially gave him the opportunity to pursue his structural engineering job.
"We were a consulting engineering firm," Kline said. "We designed roads and bridges, some heavy industrial design. Primarily worked for the Indiana Department of Transportation, six or eight different counties, primarily Tippecanoe."
Some of the bridges and large road projects that Kline worked on during his long career includes: Klondike Road Reconstruction; CR 200 N and CR 600 N Curve Corrections; CR 500 N at CR 50 W Intersection Improvement and Traffic Signal; Concord Road at CR 430 S Safety Improvements and Bridge No. 133 Replacement.
"We did work in White, Benton, Cass, Fulton, Carrol (counties), might've done a bridge in Montgomery at one point," Kline said. "Basically the peripheral area plus Fulton. Pretty much all of central and northern Indiana."
H Stewart Kline & Associates was sold to VS Engineering in 2017, therefore that specific business is closed, and the company name is retired.
Kline's second and current career is as Tippecanoe county engineer, a job that still holds close ties to what he's previously done as an engineering consultant.
"I get to supervise the people that do what I used to do," Kline said. "The county is responsible for bridges, and that was a whole lot of my strong suit was bridges. My degree in engineering was structural and the firm that I took over was my father's firm...70%+, maybe 80% of bridges that now exist within the county were designed by me or a predecessor."
Engineer of the Year award
The Association of Indiana Counties chose Kline as its 2022 Engineer of the Year. Kline states that he had no idea the award was coming, and had to be coaxed downstairs to the ceremony beforehand in order to receive it.
"(I felt) embarrassed," Kline said. "I was not expecting it...It was the last night of the (AIC) conference up in South Bend. I hadn't even planned to go but, in fact I was relaxing in my hotel room for that last night of the conference and one of our county commissioners kept calling me and saying 'You really need to come down here to this dinner.'
"(I wondered) why. So somehow he knew it was gonna happen. He had contacted my wife. So I come down, I'm in South Bend, IN and I come down to dinner and my wife is sitting there. I knew then something embarrassing was gonna happen."
The award consists of a placard that was presented for Kline in honor of his career-long dedication to engineering in the state of Indiana.
Kline attributes at least part of the reason why he won this honor to Tippecanoe County and its overall high quality.
"I think Tippecanoe County as a whole has a pretty good reputation throughout the state," Kline said. "For a lot of reasons, some just because we're Tippecanoe County and it's an extraordinary community."
Other notable accomplishments
Kline also serves on a slew of local boards of directors, such as the Friendship House Communities Board of Directors as president, West Lafayette Little League Board of Directors, vice president of Indiana Association of County Highway Engineers and Supervisors, member of American Concrete Institute, the American Institute of Steel Construction and multiple others.
Kline expressed how important giving back to the community is to him, and that's why he serves on these boards.
"It's the standard to give back to the community," Kline said. "I mean, that's part of your duty. At least, that's the way I was raised, I think. You owe that."
Margaret Christopherson is a reporter for the Journal & Courier. Email her at mchristopherson@jconline.com and follow her on Twitter @MargaretJC2.
This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: Lafayette designer of bridges, roads named Engineer of the Year
