VAA News

A two-hour weather delay did not deter Team VAA from participating in the 2016 Warrior Dash. The Team, sixteen employees and seven honorary VAA members, clad in blue conquered a 5K obstacle course by wrangling mud mounds, crawling through water-logged trenches and clamoring over cargo nets and more. The Team’s participation contributed to raising over […]

VAA’s connection with True Friends has included many activities over the past decade. Initiated by one of VAA’s founders in 2006, involvement at the camps began with individual volunteering, Eagle Scout mentoring and small “handy man” projects on site. As employees noticed a need for larger improvements, VAA offered and completed facility designs at Camp […]

What is it about VAA’s culture and project work that resonates with Dunwoody College of Technology graduates? “The work ethic was a huge part of the training at Dunwoody,” said Bernie Jansen, VAA Partner and Dunwoody alumni, about his experience at the school. Read the full story in the Dunwoody Alumni & Friends spring 2016 magazine to […]

In collaboration with Cargill, Inc. and multiple contractors, the team won Minnesota Concrete Council’s Cast-In-Place Concrete Award in the pavement category. VAA engineers used concrete paving for the site’s access road, which was the majority of the project’s civil design. The road consists of 22,400 square yards, or approximately four acres, of concrete. Starting from […]

As the latest ACEC Explorer Post, over 20 students joined us at our Plymouth, MN office in an exploration of industrial engineering. VAA’s activity created an assembly line that produced two Lego people (complete with tools). Participating as the machines throughout the line, students were asked to alter the process in ways that would improve […]

The project team responsible for the design and construction of Wheat Growers’ high-speed shuttle loading and fertilizer terminal located in Kennebec, South Dakota was recognized for their “Excellence in Concrete.” In close collaboration with GCC Ready Mix, VAA engineers provided structural designs for the entire facility. The design team incorporated concrete into the foundations and […]

Join us in congratulating Senior Structural Engineer, Brian Dalton (lower right) and Senior Civil Engineer, Andy LaPalme (upperleft) to Partner. In addition, Human Resources Manager, Mary Pettit (lower left) and Senior Project Manager, Paul Murphy (upper right) were promoted to Associate.

VAA was “Piling on the Food” at the 10th Annual Canstruction competition. Shaped like a front end loader, the structure depicts unloading food into a pile. A time-lapse video features the VAA build which won “Structural Ingenuity” and “Honorable Mention.” Sponsor support helped the team donate over 5,600 pounds of food and $5,500 to Second Harvest Heartland […]

The Works Museum recently hosted “Girl Time.” VAA was a sponsor and Paula Barker, Civil Engineer and Kyrstyn Haapala, Structural Engineer, volunteered to show elementary school girls how nifty, and useful, engineering could be. At the event, women engineers led hands-on activities such as building structures out of paper or toothpicks, creating a circuit to […]

Having a functional work environment goes without saying in today’s business market. VAA’s office space goes beyond function by incorporating materials used in many of its projects. VAA engineers worked closely with RSP Architects (a client of VAA’s for over 25 years) to integrate engineering elements, create inviting architecture and comfortable collaboration spaces for employees. […]