UPDATED 2008
The firm teams two Principal Engineers and three Professional Land Surveyors with a complement of Project Managers, staff engineers, Planners, CADD personnel, multiple survey crews, and administrative staff to provide full land development and infrastructure services to municipalities, developers, contractors, and industries. The firm associates with other professionals such as architects, environmental specialists, geotechnical engineers, and contractors as required to meet clients' needs.
We regularly augment our production capabilities by employing engineers on a contract basis for short-term project assignments, using only persons with whom we have long association and the highest confidence.
Before founding Knesal Engineering Services, Inc. in 1993, Mr. Knesal held positions with an international multi-discipline firm, a national multi-discipline firm, and two major regional multi-discipline firms. He served one national firm as Assistant Vice President, Branch Office Manager in Biloxi, and (in the firm’s main office) Department Manager for the Civil, Transportation, and Solid Waste Department, where he had responsible charge of 32 employees, with work ranging from general civil work through solid waste studies and landfill design.
For the international firm, Mr. Knesal was the Senior Civil engineer in the New Orleans office of URS Corporation, before returning to the Mississippi Gulf Coast in 1983 after seven years in New Orleans.
Mr. Knesal has experience in a wide range of projects since 1973, including project management, design, and construction administration of multi-discipline projects. He has become recognized for his attention to the details of the regulatory processes, has been asked to advise industry groups regarding the impacts of proposed regulations, and has assisted such groups by rewriting and submitting replacement language for proposed regulations. In November of 2007 he participated on a speakers panel at a conference on the durability of wood-framed housing, addressing development and regulatory issues.
Mr. Knesal has assembled a corps of key employees, some of whom have served since the first and second years of the firm’s founding. Mr. Knesal’s experience at multifaceted national and international firms allowed him to visualize the managerial structure required to support the type of quality firm he intended to establish, which would be demonstrably different from typical firms considered to be “local” firms.
Mr. C. H. Pete Ball joined the firm in 1994 after completing 18 years of engineering and executive service at Mississippi Power Company (MPCO). Mr. Ball served as Operations & Maintenance Manager at both Plant Watson in Gulfport and Plant Daniels in Jackson County. At one time, Mr. Ball served MPCO as Assistant to the President. In addition to his Engineering Degree, business acumen, and MBA education, Mr. Ball brings strong experience with planning, implementing, and closing out large and vital projects, some of which are listed on his resume. He had established and organized three separate departments at MPCO. Mr. Ball serves the firm as Vice President/COO and is primarily responsible for the day-to-day operation of KES’s surveying services.
Robert J. (Bobby) Knesal, P.E./P.S. is Bill’s brother and joined the firm on a full time basis in 2006. Bobby has over 30 years experience as a civil engineer including 10 years as the County Engineer for Harrison County, MS. His experience also includes 4 years managing the Mississippi operations of three public works contracts for the Cities of Gulfport, Long Beach and Pascagoula for a publicly traded company based in California. During this time he was fully involved with direct management over Gulfport’s Public Works Department which included supervision of 175 employees in the Water, Sewer, Streets and Drainage Departments.
Bobby performed private consulting work throughout his career and completed several projects with KES prior to joining the firm in 2006. He has been an equity partner on several successful residential and commercial developments in south Mississippi and continues to pursue such developments for current and prospective clients. Bobby also worked for a commercial building contractor for 5 years and was responsible for the structural and foundation design of several large projects, some valued up to $10 million. He holds a State Certificate of Responsibility (contractor’s license) for “Building Construction” and “Municipal & Public Works Construction” in the State of Mississippi.
Much of the firm’s eminence in surveying can be credited to two of the firm’s Professional Surveyors (P.S.), Jeffrey C. Collins, P.S. began his career as a CAD Drafter, and joined KES in 1999, shortly after obtaining his P.S. license. He now serves KES as a Vice President. In addition to typical surveying services, he manages and produces a large portion of the firm’s work for the Real Estate and Engineering departments of this area’s largest utility company, covering approximately the southern one-third of Mississippi. Much of this work includes property acquisition, topography, and construction staking of cross-country utilities, as well as intense urban surveys.
J. Colter Ratliff, P.S. joined KES after obtaining a B.S. degree in Surveying, and became registered after completing the required Three years of experience. In addition to assisting with the utility surveying, he provides most of the Professional Surveying services for the other typical client types. The firm has provided Mr. Ratliff the flexibility to anticipate and respond to clients’ needs by evaluating, selecting, and adapting the latest surveying technologies, as well as training the staff in its use, keeping the firm on the “cutting edge” of surveying technology. As a result, KES regularly deploys robotic, static Global Positioning System (GPS), GPS - Real Time Kinematic (GPS - RTK), and prismless instruments (useful, for example, in surveying inaccessible points such as the tops of transmission towers). As an example of our managerial flexibility and Mr. Ratliff’s technical ingenuity, we were able to mobilize on very short notice after Hurricane Katrina to adapt our equipment to provide bathymetric surveys across the Back Bay of Biloxi and the Bay of St. Louis for the design of two fast-track, design-build replacement bridges totaling about 3.7 miles and $605 million.
Ron L. Northrop, Survey QA/QC Supervisor, is the firm’s longest-serving staff member, having joined the firm in 1993. He has been instrumental in developing the firm’s CAD techniques, standards, and automated design processes, thereby providing continuity in quality for long-term clients. His expertise has assisted both the surveying and engineering functions in deciding on which technologies are practical, adapting the technologies to produce the appropriate types of data files, and directing the survey managers in the field QA/QC processes required to meet the production tolerances appropriate for various types of work.
Mr. Knesal’s vision has developed another differentiating factor in the managerial professionalism illustrated by Sid Ponder, KES’s Vice President/CFO. Mr. Ponder joined the firm in 2004 and manages the firm’s Financial, Administrative, and Human Resources functions. He has a background in both public and private accounting, and holds an HR Certification. Mr. Ponder held a previous position as the Dean of Administration and Finance for an independent, nonprofit, accredited sports university. Before that, he served as CFO with a multi-office engineering firm headquartered in Daphne, Alabama.
Regarding land surveying, we believe that the factor which differentiates KES is a leadership philosophy which incorporates the surveying function into the fabric of the firm as opposed to maintaining it as an adjunct support function. This provided the initial impetus and the ongoing support for the surveyors to complete their projects to the highest professional quality, even where this exceeds the level of effort typical for competitive, market-rate surveying. With support in professional and technical ethics provided by a seasoned Professional Engineer, newly-licensed Professional Surveyors have been allowed to develop their habits for investigation and analysis without market constraints which do not reflect the level of work actually required. Even in difficult circumstances, Mr. Knesal has supported his vision that, to accomplish the firm’s overall goals and establish its engineering reputation, surveying must receive the same attention to quality as the Professional Engineering functions. Honing this concept since 1998 has established the firm’s eminence in all types of surveying in this area, including deployment of 12 survey crews during one period in 2007.
KES has also established Knesal Realty Services, LLC, with Patrick G. Collins serving as Broker. Mr. Collins’ experience has included professional planning at state and local planning agencies, as well as real estate sales. His real estate and planning work supports the engineering functions in assisting clients with rezoning, variances, and other such services requiring communication with and approvals from the area’s many public jurisdictions.