Jordan Hurta, Design Manager, grew up in the historic city of Victoria, Texas located 30 miles from the beach on the Gulf of Mexico. Jordan warmly recalls his family vacationing on the Frio River in the rolling Hill Country of Texas. As a child, Jordan enjoyed studying math and science in school. He remembers spending time designing Rube Goldberg inventions and creating structures with Legos, so engineering came naturally as a career. When Jordan isn’t working, he enjoys cooking in the kitchen and using his grill. “My approach to cooking is based on science, and I like to make just about anything.”
Jordan is a third generation Aggie. His parents and grandparents both attended Texas A&M University, and his grandmother was in the first class of women when A&M made the transition from an all male university to a coed university. Earning a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering with a minor in business, Jordan paved the way as the first engineer in his family.
Jordan worked in Austin after graduation in 2017. He met Darren Strozewsi at a career fair held at Texas A&M and was immediately drawn in. “I liked the small company feel. I felt like an individual, rather than a number lost in a larger firm, and that was a big deal to me. I have been able to work on a variety of projects. I am the type of person who wants to know everything about everything. Larger companies will pigeon hole employees into doing this and that, but by necessity smaller companies have to be more dynamic, and I like that.”
Jordan learned technical and theoretical aspects of engineering at Texas A & M which helped prepare him for his role as a design manager. “ I started with DCS straight out of school. I have been with DCS for over six years now, and when I think back on my time here, I learned to think on my feet, how to be dynamic, and how to problem solve.”
One memorable DCS project for Jordan is the SH130 Interceptor Wastewater Line project. The City of Pflugerville asked for a design that stretched three miles long. We had to figure out how to construct the proposed wastewater line at depths of up to 70 feet, and the answer was to tunnel it. The contractor built 20 ft diameter shafts straight down into the earth, then tunneled approximately 2,000 ft to install the 42 inch pipes. We were able to go onsite and walk through the tunnels to review the work on the project.”
Jordan values his close family ties, so when his parents moved to Augusta, Georgia, he made a life changing decision to leave Austin, Texas and join them in another state. “I like the flexibility of working remotely. I am able to attend meetings using Microsoft Teams, and I can do everything I need to do to be successful at DCS.”