engineer

project engineer

intern

designer

project manager

Pape-Dawson Engineers

The Environmental Department is staffed by many highly skilled professionals who genuinely care about their work. Working alongside them was the best part of my experience.

Unfortunately, leadership and organizational culture often prevented the department from reaching its full potential. 

Communication was inconsistent, priorities shifted frequently, and employees were expected to take on increasing workloads and responsibilities with limited support or authority. 

Long-term planning, succession planning, and operational organization were lacking, resulting in unnecessary inefficiencies and an overreliance on a small number of high-performing employees to keep the department functioning.

As a department leader for cultural resources embedded in environmental, I experienced many of these challenges firsthand, but I also heard the same concerns repeatedly from employees over multiple years. Concerns about inconsistent management, public criticism and outbursts, fear of speaking openly, job security, and limited professional development made it difficult to build trust, retain talented staff, and maintain morale.

The company had exceptional technical talent and tremendous potential. Meaningful improvements in leadership, accountability, communication, and organizational planning would go a long way toward making it a place where that talent can thrive.

As an engineering intern, I had many opportunities and experiences exploring the field of water engineering by attending wastewater treatment plants site visits, completing research for land parcels and environmental studies for water supply projects and researching past water engineering projects.I was also been an active member of the Vista Ridge Regional Supply Project's scroll completion, Comal County Wastewater Treatment Plant design and have assisted in the refinement/final stages of project OPCCs. This engineering internship provided me with tools in both technical and business aspects and I have enjoyed the vastness of projects that I have been a contributing member to.

What is the best part of working at the company?
Nothing at all....

Office in Plano is absolute chaos....

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Field coordinater and survey manager have no idea what they are doing.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Zero culture and zero commaderie....management does not prepare scope of work and neccesary data up to the bare mimimum standards.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Waiting on data for hours and then rushing to complete tasks in a timely manner as we're always behind thanks to management.

I did not feel supported in my role there and was often left out of the loop. Never updated by supervisor on work flow status.  Sink or swim management, told to ask coworkers for guidance and not to bother superiors as they were “too busy” with other important matters, but when coworkers could not offer the help, subpar work was the result. The atmosphere was also very high school clique mentality with higher level coworkers. The enthusiasm and vitality I had when starting at Pape-Dawson quickly faded once realizing the sink or swim work ethic. 

Benefits are great and the company heads do a great job of making sure us blue collar guys felt appreciated.   Your direct department however is very biased and clique aligned.   The immediate supervisors of the survey department will weed you out eventually if they don't like you.  Survey crews have a wierd culture of settling problems in house and you are frowned upon for following chain of command to deal with crew related issues that can't be handled personally. 

What is the best part of working at the company?
Meeting and interacting with guest and employees.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Office manager uses inappropriate language when she would talk with me. I have never experience that with any corporate position I held. I asked her too not use that language when she talks with me.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
It was a good environment, except for the language from one of the managers.

I had a chance to work for Pape-Dawson nearly 6 months. I found it fast developing company look after well being of its employees. work environment is very professional and employees are treated with respect.
There are get together functions to release work stress. Games events and social events celebration.

•a typical day at work =
- working along side engineers on various jobs, 
•what you learned =
- civil engineering aspects and skills

•management =
- top notch, gave reviews, positive and supportive

•your co-workers =
- happy, productive

•the hardest part of the job =
- getting laid off

•the most enjoyable part of the job =
- working with positive and supportive professionals

this job requires being gone from home a lot the days are early from 6:00am usally end the day 7:30pm you learn about traffic road regulations and pedestrian right a ways the managment is great the only thing is coming up with solutions can be challenging being inside of a car for hours at a time can get difficult most enjoyble part is understand the big picture of projects for roadways

Pape-Dawson Engineers live & breathe their Mission Statement daily and those values are passed onto their employees.  In addition, no matter, which location your office is, you too, are of value.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Engineer 8 salaries reported	$90,063 per year
Project engineer 3 salaries reported	$99,352 per year
Intern 3 salaries reported	$22.67 per hour
Designer 4 salaries reported	$73,357 per year
Project manager 1 salary reported	$160,000 per year

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