I recently started my internship at Ross & Baruzzini as a plumbing engineer. I have done a lot of exciting things since I’ve started, so here is what you can expect in the first few weeks:
The first week of my internship was all about meeting new people and getting settled into my new work environment. I was given a tour of the building, I met the other members of my department, and I started getting my work environment set up.
Ross & Baruzzini uses a program called Microsoft Teams. This is the main form of communication between you and the rest of the company. Microsoft Teams will also provide you with a weekly schedule for any meetings or activities you need to attend.
Most of my time is spent at my desk working on drawings, but there are times when you will be out on a job site. During the second week of my internship, I visited the Lemay water treatment plant. This was my first site visit, and it was a great way to see what life in the field is like.
As a member of the mechanical team at Ross and Baruzzini, each new day brings its own excitement and challenges. Recently, the most pressing project for my team here in the Kansas City office has been designing the HVAC system for a new football operations center for the University of Virginia.
We create our plans from a model in Revit. As we make changes to the model throughout the day, all the notes and callouts on the plan become a jumbled mess. It is much easier to do design work when the existing plans are easy to read. So, a typical day for me on this project starts with tagging and organizing to make the plans nice and neat for myself and my fellow engineers. Then, depending on the day, I dive into positioning and sizing ductwork, boxes, pipes, and other parts of the system.
Later in the day, I might work on a load calculation. Load calcs are all about figuring out how large your equipment needs to be. If it is too small, you end up with a building that gets cold in the winter or hot in the summer. If it is too large, your client has wasted anywhere from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars because of your recommendation.
First, I gather all the information I can get about the building: location, materials, intended use of rooms, and lots more. Then I make and document assumptions and carefully put all of them into a computer program that tells us how much heat enters or leaves the building depending on the weather. We can then use that information to help design the system.
I have been working with Ross & Baruzzini as an intern since February of 2021. In that time, I have learned a lot about how a project comes together between architects, engineers, and contractors. I have spent this summer working on design-build proposals.
As part of the electrical team, I have pulled together light fixture cutsheets, read through the Request for Proposal, and determined which fixtures need to be used where in the preliminary building drawings. In other projects, I have worked on light level calculations, generator sizing calculations, and laying out equipment in Revit. The experience has shown me not only what electrical engineers do but also how they work with others.
The time I spent working here has given me skills and experience that are useful even outside of my work. I am very involved in Engineers Without Borders, specifically in planning international trips. My job at Ross & Baruzzini has given me a better understanding of our international project design process. I have been able to improve our group’s organization and project documentation. Overall, my time at Ross & Baruzzini has trained me to be a successful engineer after graduation.
I am Devin, and I am going to be a senior this fall at the Colorado School of Mines. I study electrical engineering, and I have the wonderful opportunity to be the Technology division intern for the summer.
Here at the Denver office, I work hybrid, which means some days I come to the office while others I can work completely remote.
At the office, I’m provided a laptop, docking station, and two monitors to improve productivity. My usual tasks include handling Revit models, reviewing documents, attending meetings, and occasional site visits. Some of these tasks are completely virtual, but it is nice to have someone to help you hands-on, especially with familiarizing yourself with new software.
The schedule depends on the work my advisor can give me, based on difficulty and novelty, so the work is always encompassing new aspects of project development. Some work could be relocating specific components in an entire Revit project, while others are back-to-back meetings on doors.
One of the projects I’ve worked on is the SCL Health Hospital, where I’ve revised the tech layout and have gone on a site visit. During this internship, I’ve learned how to do lots of small things that help contribute to the project, and I’m continuing to learn new things.
Hello! My name is Stephen Kielhofner and I am a mechanical intern at the St. Louis branch of Ross & Baruzzini. I decided to pursue an internship in mechanical, electrical, and plumbing (MEP) engineering as this field is a less-traditional sector of mechanical engineering. Where instead of designing individual mechanical devices, a complex system of mechanical devices and structures is assembled for a practical purpose.
My manager is a seasoned MEP engineer, while my mentors have been in this area of work for around three to five years. Communicating with people outside of my direct coworkers and fellow interns are encouraged. Questions about job assignments and MEP, in general, are answered and encouraged.
During the first few weeks, I spent many hours orienting myself with software such as Revit, Trace 700, and AutoCAD. And my mentors trained me in some basics of mechanical design and software applications. Once some training had been completed, a common task given to me would include modifying Revit drawings based on redlines. Or tracing ductwork to identify the airflows and horsepower of HVAC units. One morning, a member of Ross & Baruzzini construction administration took the intern team on-site of a major building renovation to observe how MEP systems all fit together and the importance of coordinating work between different systems’ teams.
My Desk! Sparsely decorated, but there is a LEGO set hiding in the shelf on the right.
My manager also took the intern team to a client site to scout existing HVAC systems and their conditions in a building before renovation design work began. These tasks and activities are giving me a clear-cut idea how what my job may look like being a full-time mechanical engineer.
My name is Rosalie, and I am a junior studying biomedical engineering at the University of Missouri. I learned about opportunities at Ross and Baruzzini at my school’s career fair and was excited because their headquarters are in St. Louis, my hometown. They have worked on countless projects around town, and their commitment to building communities is important to me.
Since I am interested in medical devices, the Medical Equipment Planning team is a great fit for me. The team works with hospitals and other healthcare systems to make sure they have the proper equipment on hand to save lives. We also streamline the process of getting the hospital up and running by managing the procurement, logistics, and even installation of the products.
The main system we use is Planview, created in-house specifically for Medical Equipment planning at Ross & Baruzzini. We also look at room drawings to match our equipment plans with the architect’s plans. My first week was spent learning how to use Planview through training sessions and videos. After that, I began my first project. I received a list of equipment that a university will be purchasing for an expansion and created the project in Planview. In addition, I completed an electrical audit to send to the architect to ensure each item has proper electrical sourcing. Within the first few weeks of my internship, I was already meeting with clients to share my report!
My other responsibilities include price matching, obtaining quotes, and ensuring the quotes reflect what we have in Planview. I also work on general database maintenance such as researching items and ensuring the information in Planview is current.
We’re excited to welcome our 2022 summer interns! Our intern program gives new talent experience with several types of projects throughout their discipline as well as our other markets. Each intern also receives a company mentor and will have opportunities to interact and engage with senior leadership.
In this blog series, see what our amazing interns experience during their time working at Ross & Baruzzini:
Emre Guvenilir | Information TechnologyDatabase Intern
“My entire team is supportive and helps me when I need it, but also lets me figure out issues on my own to learn how to troubleshoot properly before asking for help. There were times I would be stuck on an issue, but with the help of Google, a programmer’s best friend, and a little bit of critical thinking, I have solved many of the issues I came across.”
“As a student at the University of Delaware for civil engineering, I have always dreamt of working in infrastructure. Roads, bridges, trains, housing – they all pique my interest in leaving a positive mark on the world. Here at Ross & Baruzzini, my dreams are a reality.”
“The great thing about this internship is that you immediately get involved with real-world work. After review, the HVAC systems I worked on can be put into buildings. The documents and schematics I worked with will be sent to contractors and building owners. In ten years, you can walk into a hospital or classroom in ten years and know that your work is a part of it.”
“As a sales intern, here you will learn the different functions of making sales proposals in each market; potential client and project research, operating sales databases, and how to successfully create and maintain networks necessary to succeed in the world of business development.”
Rosalie Garzia | Medical Equipment Planning Intern
“After that, I began my first project. I received a list of equipment that a university will be purchasing for an expansion and created the project in Planview. In addition, I completed an electrical audit to send to the architect to ensure each item has proper electrical sourcing. Within the first few weeks of my internship, I was already meeting with clients to share my report!”
“One of the projects I’ve worked on is the SCL Health Hospital, where I’ve revised the tech layout and have gone on a site visit. During this internship, I’ve learned how to do lots of small things that help contribute to the project, and I’m continuing to learn new things.”
“My job at Ross & Baruzzini has given me a better understanding of our international project design process. I have been able to improve our group’s organization and project documentation. Overall, my time at Ross & Baruzzini has trained me to be a successful engineer after graduation.”
“As a member of the mechanical team at Ross and Baruzzini, each new day brings its own excitement and challenges. Recently, the most pressing project for my team here in the Kansas City office has been designing the HVAC system for a new football operations center for the University of Virginia.”
“Most of my time is spent at my desk working on drawings, but there are times when you will be out on a job site. During the second week of my internship, I visited the Lemay water treatment plant. This was my first site visit, and it was a great way to see what life in the field is like.”
My name is Nate Ulsas. I am a business development & sales intern at Ross & Baruzzini. An average day for me at work includes a combination of meetings, marketing research, and submitting information into our sales database.
Each meeting is different, and I also received one-on-one training in addition to meet-and-greets with various people around the company, business conferences, client meetings in or outside the office, and even a military affairs meeting on an Air Force Base.
One project I have worked on includes organizing the company’s annual golf tournament. I completed the research and planning needed for us to switch from a traditional tournament to hosting the event at Top Golf for the first time this year.
As a sales intern, here you will learn the different functions of making sales proposals in each market; potential client and project research, operating sales databases, and how to successfully create and maintain networks necessary to succeed in the world of business development.
My name is Luke Muckerheide, and I am an upcoming sophomore at Purdue University studying mechanical engineering. I chose Ross & Baruzzini for my first summer internship because I heard good things about the company and the work seemed interesting. The first week of my internship was mostly onboarding activities to get me set up on the company’s systems and programs while preparing for the work I would be doing.
By the second week, I was already working on projects with the mechanical team, going on-site visits, and talking with suppliers to get equipment with the right specs. Within the next couple of weeks, I started on my biggest project of the summer: The Indiana University School of Medicine.
After learning the basics of Revit, I was given the freedom to look through our model of this expansive, ten-story building. I was looking to fix any conflicts between pipes and ducts in the confined area between ceilings and floors called the plenum space.
At first, I would just fix minor errors by nudging one pipe or duct slightly out of the way (after checking the ends to be sure I would not hit something else). But as I gradually got accustomed to the program and the building, I gradually worked on larger and larger fixes. After this project, my coworkers gave me other tasks, including, markups (implementing an engineer’s on-paper sketch into a CAD model), basic calculations, and moving data around on schedules (large spreadsheets with information about mechanical equipment).
The great thing about this internship is that you immediately get involved with real-world work. After review, the HVAC systems I worked on can be put into buildings. The documents and schematics I worked with will be sent to contractors and building owners. You can walk into a hospital or classroom in ten years and know that your work is a part of it. That’s the greatest thing about building engineering and you get to experience it yourself as an intern at Ross & Baruzzini.
Effective July 15, 2022, Ross & Baruzzini’s Mobility System group, formerly MACRO, joins TYLin International, a global alliance company, to more closely align with the mobility practices of TYLin along with GPO Group and Sam Schwartz, TYLin companies.
This move aligns a broad spectrum of transportation professionals to ensure clients realize the smoothest project experiences.
“The changes clients will see from this strategic effort will be the enhanced connections, collaboration and knowledge sharing to support your needs,” says Megan Huff, Vice President, Managing Principal – Mobility Systems. “It means that as their needs evolve, we will be able to provide more efficient access to additional resources and expertise that might be needed to support their future requirements.“
There will be no changes in project teams, client-focused operations, or in the quality of the service provided. Mobility Systems will continue to work under its existing contracts and will deliver the highest quality services to clients.
Ross & Baruzzini will continue to be an important partner in future transportation projects as TYLin works closely with its communications, security, or digital teams to create systems that meet the demands of our future.
