My name is D. James Suit PE. I am a 5th generation Western Nebraska Farmer/Rancher and have been doing professional engineering work for over 45 years. My association with MC Schaff and Associates goes back over 40 years. The Wyo-Braska area is lucky to have MCS Family of Companies in Scottsbluff to provide engineering, testing and survey services. They have always been a “quality go to” firm.

Earlier in my career, I was located in Western Nebraska, doing water resources engineering. MCS provided a large majority of the construction testing needed for the large construction projects I was working on. They provided additional advice for foundation issues that I encountered. There were times that I personally used their drilling equipment rather than using other equipment located in Eastern Nebraska.

Recently I have been working on a large commercial wind farm and have been partnered with the largest wind developer in Texas (Tri-Global-Energy). Due to federal tax qualifications associated with wind farms, certain construction work had to be completed by the last day/hour of the year. Because of the pending vote in Congress on the tax code changes, it was not determined that this work was necessary until a couple weeks prior to the end of the year (2017). Even though it was the end of the year and many in the firm were going to take their much-needed vacation time over the holidays, MCS stated that they would complete the 3rd party construction survey over the holidays if necessary.

As you can assume the weather turned bitter cold and with snow the last week of the year. This was a very remote location. The wind chill was well below a minus 35 degrees. And yes the contractor did not finish the work until around 4:00 PM on December 31st.

Dennis Sullivan gave me his word he would complete the 3rd party survey certification. The field survey data according to federal tax code documentation, also had to be completed and certified prior to the close of business on December 31st. Mr. Sullivan came to the site on December 30th with snowed-in roads and horrible weather conditions. It was so cold his electronic GPS survey equipment would not work. This required Mr. Sullivan to again drive to the site under adverse conditions and complete the survey and certification work on December 31st, which he did. Mr. Sullivan went well beyond normal field conditions to complete his promise of completing the construction/survey certification prior to the last hour of the year.

My partner, Tri-Global-Energy stated to me that the quality of the documentation for the 3rd party certification provided by MCS was the best that they had ever seen and they have worked with many, engineering firms. From past working relations with MCS, I knew the regional engineering firm would get the job done even with the adverse weather and on New Year’s Eve. Even though we ended up with a simple contract for this work, most of the work due to the short fuse was completed with a “Western Nebraska handshake.”

D. James Suit PE