Cordoba Corporation is pleased to celebrate #EngineersWeek by highlighting the experience, skills and insights from some of our talented engineers. These team members are serving in a wide variety of positions on projects across the state and represent different viewpoints, disciplines and experiences. They join our entire Engineering Team in celebrating #EngineersWeek and Making a Difference for our clients and communities.
Happy #EngineersWeek from Cordoba Corporation!
Alexander Pulido
Alexander Pulido is a Project Manager at Cordoba Corporation, where he is currently providing project and program management leadership on San Diego Gas & Electric’s (SDG&E) Pole Risk Mitigation and Engineering Program. He is an experienced engineer and has supported other major projects and programs at SDG&E, including power transmission and distribution fire hardening projects.
Prior to his work here in Southern California, Alexander led teams supporting such clients as Google, Florida Power & Light, and AT&T, where he provided civil engineering, structural engineering, and project management expertise for telecommunications, renewable energy, electric distribution and electric transmission projects. His efforts included championing improvements of quality, project control and reporting, client interface, change management and trend/change order identification, as well as leading large teams.
Alexander is experienced with designing aerial and underground electrical distribution systems, as well as designing transmission lines, performing transmission tower analysis, hardware evaluation, civil/structural calculations, and foundation design. Alexander has also analyzed and designed modifications for telecommunications towers, equipment platforms and rooms, roof structures, antennas and ancillary equipment.
Alexander is a registered Professional Engineer, a certified Project Management Professional, and a Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt. He graduated Cum Laude from the University of Kentucky with a B.S. in Civil Engineering and a Minor in Mathematics. Alexander has enjoyed learning and playing several instruments, including two years playing snare drum for the University of Kentucky Wildcat Marching Band.
Chelsea Grace
Chelsea Grace is an experienced Project Manager who brings unique experience to Cordoba Corporation from her past work for the Department of Defense in Naval ship maintenance and repair.
Chelsea spent 11 years working at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Washington, Yokosuka, Japan, San Diego, California, and various other bases around the world. She was fortunate to work with thousands of people from diverse backgrounds; skilled journeymen and women, brilliant engineers, diplomats, and strategists from multiple governments, government agencies, universities, and private businesses. She started as an Environmental Engineer, where she managed industrial waste and eventually the Pollution Prevention Program for the naval shipyard. Her most influential job was leading an innovation network – facilitating expert mechanics, engineers, and warfighters to invent new ways to design and maintain aircraft carriers, and then bringing those ideas to life to make work safer, reduce environmental impact, save millions of dollars, and thousands of hours in labor.
Chelsea managed the Risk Program for over 3,700 professionals on the USS Carl Vinson maintenance availability, and later became the Project Engineering and Program Manager for the USS Ronald Reagan. In this role, she built a team of senior leaders including Department of Defense civilians from Washington and Japan, officers from the USS Ronald Reagan, and contractors from the US and Japan to support the mission of the forward-deployed USS Ronald Reagan. Her most memorable time as a Project Manager on the USS Ronald Reagan was getting stuck between two typhoons riding the ship between Guam and Japan and having to tie herself to her bunk to stay in it at night.
Chelsea is currently working as Field Engineer for San Diego Gas & Electric’s Fire Risk Mitigation Initiative (FiRM), for which Cordoba Corporation is providing program/project and construction management services. Chelsea works with the job walk teams, construction contractors, project managers, and the FiRM team to construct improved distribution lines and remote sensing equipment to reduce the fire risk in San Diego County.
Chelsea earned her M.B.A. with a Certificate in Finance and a focus on Sustainable Business from Bainbridge Graduate Institute. She earned a Certificate in Organizational Leadership from Olympic College and her B.S. in Chemical and Biological Engineering from Montana State University – Bozeman, where she was a member of Tau Beta Pi, Engineers Without Borders, the Society of Women Engineers, and most importantly, local ski areas Big Sky and Bridger Bowl. She also caught some beautiful rainbow trout with flies she tied from her Grandpa’s fly-tying stash. She is a registered Professional Engineer in the State of Washington.
Conrado Ayala
Conrado Ayala brings over 20 years of diverse experience to Cordoba Corporation, including civil engineering, design, environmental remediation, construction management, and program/project management.
Prior to joining Cordoba Corporation, Conrado supported key infrastructure projects for City of Pasadena, City of Los Angeles, Port of Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, California Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration, Marriott International, Walt Disney Imagineering, Audi/VW and Mexico City’s New International Airport (NAICM).
He is currently serving as Cordoba Corporation’s Director of Transportation Engineering where he oversees Cordoba’s Engineering & Design Center Team in our Santa Ana Office. This integrated team supports several key design and engineering projects that span all four of Cordoba’s sectors. In addition to leading the Engineering and Design Center, Conrado provides leadership and support to the City of Pico Rivera, the City of Los Angeles Bureau of Engineering, and other Cordoba clients on infrastructure projects.
Conrado is experienced in site-integrated life-cycle support, including planning, design, construction, and operations. He exemplifies Cordoba’s philosophy of “Making a Difference” for his clients by developing infrastructure that improves communities.
Conrado earned his B.S. in Civil Engineering at USC and his M.B.A. from the Peter F. Drucker Graduate School of Management. He is a Certified Construction Manager (CCM) and LEED AP.
Cristian Hernandez
Cristian Hernandez is supporting a variety of projects at Cordoba Corporation, including analyzing air quality data for the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power regarding its operations at Mono Lake. In addition, he is currently working on a project supporting the Imperial Irrigation District by evaluating feasible and cost effective options for treatment and management of cooling water for one of the District’s generating stations.
Cristian has also provided technical support to the City of Los Angeles Bureau of Sanitation’s Safe Clean Water Program. His work has included supporting the development of a screening tool to evaluate and prioritize hundreds of proposed stormwater capture projects across the City of Los Angeles. He analyzed relevant quantifiable criteria, including FEMA flood zones, census tracts for disadvantaged communities, load reductions and infiltration areas, and created an ArcGIS map used by the team to analyze projects at any level of development.
Prior to his focus at Cordoba on water and air quality related projects, Cristian supported the Southern California Gas Company (SoCalGas) Distribution Integrity Management Program / Distribution Risk Evaluation and Monitoring System Program, through which he developed experience with gas line installation, maintenance and standards for medium pressure gas mains.
Cristian earned a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and Minors in Chemistry and Materials Engineering at Cal Poly Pomona. His Senior Project involved completing a preliminary process design for a proposed ammonia synthesis plant. His efforts included simulating a heat exchanger network using HYSYS-Energy Analyzer, which was both cost effective and efficient for plant operations. Cristian’s project also involved developing a combination of reverse osmosis and ion exchanger procedures to design a waste water management system to supply clean water for plant operations.
Ken Ortega
Cordoba Corporation is pleased to welcome Ken Ortega as its new Director of Water Infrastructure. With more than 30 years of experience and leadership in the public and private water/wastewater industry, Ken is a Civil Engineer with a solid track record of building high performance teams and delivering superior results. His experience includes serving as a water resource consultant, an investor-owned-utility supervisor, a full-service and contract cities department head, a special area district manager, and an engineering company designer and project manager.
Ken has extensive experience managing large-scale complex projects and programs; developing multi-year capital improvement programs; implementing sustainable asset management strategies; leading innovation and organizational change; supervising and mentoring staff; collaborating with stakeholders; and developing and implementing multi-benefit resilient water policies.
Ken previously served as the Assistant General Manager of the Water Replenishment District (WRD) of Southern California. Prior to his role at WRD, Ken served in several key positions at the City of Oxnard, including Water Superintendent and Public Works Director. Earlier in Ken’s impressive career, he worked at the City of Santa Paula as Assistant City Engineer/Deputy Public Works Director, and as Engineering Supervisor/Assistant General Manager at Santa Paula Water Works. Ltd. He also brings extensive water resources and engineering consulting expertise from managing his own consulting and management company.
Ken earned his B.S. in Civil Engineering at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. In 2002, Ken was honored as an Engineer of the Year by the American Society of Civil Engineers. He is a member of the American Public Works Association, American Water Works Association, and the Association of California Water Agencies. In 2004, Ken was elected to serve as a Trustee for the Rio School District in Oxnard.
Margarita Rodriguez
Margarita Rodriquez is currently serving as a Project Engineer supporting the City of Los Angeles Bureau of Sanitation’s Safe Clean Water Program. Margarita has supported this program by developing GIS technical reports and heat maps focusing on watersheds and water bodies for this program, as well as providing document control services for the team.
In addition to her work supporting Cordoba’s Water Infrastructure sector and clients, Margarita also supports Cordoba’s Energy Infrastructure sector as a Planner for the Southern California Gas Company (SoCalGas) Distribution Integrity Management Program / Distribution Risk Evaluation and Monitoring System Program. In this role, her planning and field review efforts support the replacement of medium pressure gas mains and distribution pipelines throughout the SoCalGas service territory.
Margarita’s past experience includes serving as a Management Field Intern for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California where she was responsible for supporting a chemical unloading facility project. Margarita’s role involved verifying construction and engineering drawings, working with subcontractors, developing cost estimates and contract amendments, and overseeing the project’s Storm Water Pollution Prevention Plan with the general contractor. She also was responsible for monitoring and documenting inventory lists of hazardous chemicals and maintaining Safety Data Sheets for chemicals stored on site.
Margarita earned her B.S. in Environmental Engineering from UC Riverside, where she was active in the local college chapter of the Society of Women Engineers. While at UC Riverside, she participated in various projects through which she gained valuable experience preparing water treatment design technical reports and developing the design for a chemical plant designed to extract ethane from a natural gas source.
Peter Yu
Peter Yu is a Senior Project Manager at Cordoba Corporation, where he is currently providing project management leadership on important gas pipeline projects for San Diego Gas & Electric and Southern California Gas Company (SoCalGas).
Peter’s experience also includes managing exploration and production projects, including projects at the Port of Long Beach and in Bakersfield, supporting oil and gas industry clients with piping, oil and water separation, well work, and pipelines.
Peter is well versed with pipe stress analysis, hydraulic analysis, surge analysis, cost estimating, procurement, scheduling, material specification and construction support.
He honed is leadership skills while in college serving as President of the UC Irvine Circle K International Club. Peter also served as Membership Development and Education Chair for the Circle K International California-Nevada-Hawaii District. He later served as a member of California Young Professionals of Kiwanis for several years.
Peter is a registered Professional Mechanical Engineer and certified Project Management Professional. He earned is B.S. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from UC Irvine, where in addition to being active in Circle K International, he was also a member of the ASME, Pi Tau Sigma, and the Chinese Association.
Sandra Cuevas
Sandra Cuevas is a Senior Project Manager at Cordoba Corporation, where she has worked on large-scale transportation projects throughout southern California. Over her 20-year career she has provided expertise in program management; transportation planning; roadway and rail project design; cost estimating; and construction support.
Sandra provided program management services in support of the California High Speed Rail Program. She served as Project Manager for the Los Angeles to San Diego section overseeing planning activities and early environmental analysis. Sandra also served as deputy Project Manager for the Burbank to Los Angeles and Los Angeles to Anaheim section of the program helping oversee the development of the environmental document, preliminary design and contract management.
Mrs. Cuevas has also provided design and engineering expertise to several landmark transportation projects in Southern California, including Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s (Metro) Expo Light Rail Project (Phase 1 and Phase 2), San Fernando Valley’s Orange Line busway and Metro’s Edward R. Roybal Gold Line Eastside Extension, an important light rail system connecting East Los Angeles to Downtown Los Angeles.
In Orange County, Sandra supported the Design Team that developed the alternatives analysis for the OC Streetcar, and she provided leadership on outreach and coordination efforts with the cities in Orange County relating to the Orange County Transportation Authority’s GO Local Program.
Sandra is currently supporting design and engineering activities for Metro’s Eastside Transit Corridor Phase 2 as part of the Cordoba HNTB Design Partners, Inc. team leading the Advanced Conceptual Engineering efforts for this significant project that will extend light rail through East Los Angeles to the San Gabriel Valley.
Sandra is a registered Professional Civil Engineer in California. She earned her B.S. in Civil Engineering from UC Irvine.
