Lynn Lovell Receives Distinguished Engineers Award

Lynn Lovell, PE., D.WRE, CFM, of our Fort Worth office was awarded by the Texas Engineering Foundation as one of the 2015 Distinguished Engineers of the Foundation at the TSPE Conference and 79^th Annual Meeting held June 17.

He was introduced as follows:

Lynn is a Vice President of Halff Associates, Inc. in Fort Worth, and has 45 years of experience in civil engineering and water resources planning and management. Mr. Lovell earned a BSCE (1968) and MSCE in Water Resources (1969), from Texas Tech University. He spent thirteen years with the Fort Worth District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in water resources planning, hydraulic design, flood control planning, including six years as Chief of the Floodplain Management Services Branch, Engineering Division.

As Chief of the Flood Plain Management Services Branch, he was responsible for the preparation, coordination, and presentation of engineering studies for floodplain information, flood insurance reports, and portions of planning feasibility studies for flood control. He developed or managed the studies and publication of 80 floodplain information reports, 54 FEMA flood insurance studies, and 28 flood control feasibility reports. Mr. Lovell has extensive experience with USACE hydrologic, hydraulic, and flood damage calculation programs, including the Hydrologic Engineering Center (HEC) software. His earlier USACE experience included formulation of plans, and modeling for channel improvements, levees, and other flood-control projects.

Since January 1981, at Halff Associates, his duties have included water resources planning, water supply, stormwater management, drainage criteria manual development, master drainage studies, hydraulic design, floodplain land reclamation, floodplain management, H&H for transportation projects, flood-control planning and design, FEMA studies, and environmental mitigation.

Lovell was the manager of the Fort Worth office of Halff Associates from 1981 to 2010, and is now working four days a week. He has prepared or supervised over 250 Corps of Engineers, FEMA, city and state flood control, drainage, or floodplain studies. Mr. Lovell has also served as an expert witness in over 40 condemnation, drainage, or flood-related cases, in Texas and Arkansas. He was the principal-in-charge of the Halff Associates’ FEMA Map Modernization project, which included floodplain mapping for 52 Texas Counties. He continues to provide guidance and advice in the day-to-day planning and design of land development projects, hydraulic design, FEMA Flood Insurance Studies, flood-control planning and design.

He has authored 99 technical papers and presentations on storm water, erosion control, floodplain management, computer applications for hydraulics, flood-damage calculations, flood history, non-structural approaches to planning, and spatial-data management techniques. From 1974 to 2001 (27 Years), Mr. Lovell lectured twice yearly at the University of Texas River and Flood Plain Hydraulics Course (HEC‑2 and HEC-RAS) in Austin, Texas. He also taught short courses on floodplain hydraulics using HEC-2 and HEC-RAS to the city of Dallas, the New Mexico Department of Transportation, and for the American Society of Civil Engineers (Continuing Education). Since 1990 he has coordinated, participated in, or hosted 68 HEC-related training courses, with over 1,400 students. He has authored and presented technical papers at state and national meetings of the American Water Resources Association, the Association of State Flood Plain Managers, American Society of Civil Engineers, American Public Works Association, Society of American Military Engineers, Texas Society of Professional Engineers, the Texas Floodplain Management Association, and the Council of Engineering Companies. He has presented programs to student chapters of ASCE at Texas Tech, SMU, Rice, UT at Arlington, and Texas A&M University. He has presented engineering ethics lectures and webcasts for the TSPE, ASCE, TFMA, ASFPM, Halff Associates, and SAME.

Mr. Lovell and his wife Oleta are celebrating their 50^th Anniversary in 2015 by taking their married son and two daughters plus eleven grandchildren on an Alaskan Cruise in August. He served as a deacon and elder at the Hills Church of Christ in North Richland Hills, Texas, and taught bible classes for over 30 years. He and his wife have worked for 15 years at an abused children’s camp in the summers.