Houston professor wins three-year state grant to advance bridge safety technology
Vedhus Hoskere, an assistant professor at the University of Houston in its department of civil and environmental engineering, received a three-year, $500,000 grant from the Texas Department of Transportation to advance the use of robots, data, digital twins and artificial intelligence to improve the safety of state bridges. maintenance and inspection (pictured). Texas has more than 55,000 bridges, twice as many as any other state, and they must be inspected every two years, he says. The Federal Highway Administration says 2 percent of the state’s bridges are considered to be in poor condition. “Our project … is about figuring out how to better leverage technology like drones, cameras, sensors and AI to collect a lot of data … and use that data to make high-quality decisions” about aging bridge infrastructure , says Hoskere. The project is scheduled for completion in August 2026.
Flintco focuses on the employment of native tribes, team participation
Photo courtesy of FlintCo
For general contractor Flintco LLC, buying local is more than a transaction. The Tulsa-based company has worked with 77 Native American nations, out of 576 nationally, to deliver more than $2.6 billion in construction, including health care, education, hospitality and gaming projects “that benefit members and local tribal families,” says Vernelle. Chase, director of tribal relations for Flintco. The company says it was founded by a Native American family in 1908 and continued under that ownership for more than 100 years.
Flintco’s average use of tribal contractors and native labor on project work (pictured) since 2008 has been more than 50 percent, according to Chase, who is a member of the Gros Ventre tribe at Fort Belknap , Mt. He joined the company in 1994. In Oklahoma, one of Flintco’s largest tribal projects was the Cherokee Nation Outpatient Center in Tahlequah, completed in 2019. The $140 million, 470,000-square-foot medical facility square footage includes an ambulatory surgery center in Broken Arrow, Okla.
Flintco was one of the largest Native American-owned contractors in the US until 2013, when it was acquired by Alberici Corp., based in St. Louis. Alberici-Flintco now ranks 39th on ENR’s current Top 400 Contractors list, with $3.1 billion in construction revenue by 2022.
Developer Vesper closes $600 million financing for Swisher County solar project
Dallas-based solar project developer Vesper Energy said Feb. 1 that it has closed on $590 million in financing to build the 745 MW Hornet Solar project in Swisher County, Texas. When completed in early 2025, it will generate enough power for around 160,000 homes annually. The project is being built by contractor Blattner Energy, which sells its output to four major users through power purchase agreements. Vesper said it expects to monetize more than $500 million in federal production tax credits over the next 10 years. The utility-scale project is slated to interconnect with the Oncor Electric transmission system.
