Bronx Resident Ketty Paulino Named “Young Government Civil Engineer of the Year” | NYC DDC

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Bronx Resident Ketty Paulino Named “Young Government Civil Engineer of the Year” by the American Society of Civil Engineers Metropolitan Section

April 16, 2018

Contact:
Ian Michaels
718-391-1589

Long Island City, NY – Acting Commissioner Ana Barrio of the NYC Department of Design and Construction (DDC) announced today that DDC Resident Engineer Ketty P. Paulino has been named “Young Government Civil Engineer of the Year” by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Metropolitan Section.

DDC Resident Engineer and Bronx resident Ketty Paulino at the West Tremont Avenue Step Street, where she’s overseeing renovations

Ms. Paulino, 26, is a resident of the Castle Hill section of the Bronx, and has helped to manage several Bronx projects for DDC, including a $39 million water and sewer project on Bainbridge and Jerome avenues in Norwood. She is currently the Resident Engineer for the renovation of the West Tremont Avenue Step Street, a 35-foot tall stairway in Morris Heights connecting Cedar Avenue to Sedgwick Avenue, one of 63 step streets in the borough.

“Ketty is a young engineer who shows exceptional promise,” said Acting DDC Commissioner Ana Barrio. “She has been an outstanding employee, a talented engineer and has with a very bright future at DDC. She excels at project management and supervising field crews, and she has earned the respect of staff, contractors and every community she’s worked in. We’re very pleased to have her at DDC.”

“I’m honored to receive this award and it’s extremely satisfying to know that the fruits of all my hard work pays off, which motivates me to push harder towards my goals,” said Ketty Paulino. “I couldn’t achieve this without the support of my loved ones and fellow co-workers, who have supported me throughout my engineering career. Despite many challenges of being a young female in a male-dominated workforce, I always find a way to overcome each challenge by conducting my duties with respect and integrity. God has been good to me and I considered myself blessed. I’m truly humbled by this prestigious ASCE award and I’ll keep up the hard work in hopes to inspire other young professionals as well.”

Ms. Paulino is a native of the Dominican Republic, and was an honors student at Notre Dame Bilingual High School in Santo Domingo, becoming valedictorian in 2008. Visiting the concrete plant where her mother was a Quality Assurance Engineer inspired her to enroll in the Civil Engineering program at Technological Institute of Santo Domingo, where she graduated in 2012. After graduation Ms. Paulino travelled to the US to live with her aunt in the Bronx, and enrolled in the graduate Civil Engineering program at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), where she obtained her degree in 2014 at the age of 22.

“It was really scary coming to NY from the Dominican Republic on my own,” said Paulino, “but I had a plan and I was determined to get my Master’s degree. I was figuring it out one day at a time.”

She then volunteered in an AmeriCorps Program for Paterson Habitats for Humanity as an entry level Civil Engineer. In 2015, she was offered a position at the NYC Department of Design and Construction as a Civil Engineer Intern. After two years of service she was promoted to Resident Engineer to manage a school safety project.

Ms. Paulino is a Construction Management Association of America (CMAA) Construction Manager in Training (CMIT). She is also a National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES) Engineer in Training, as well as an ACI Concrete Field Testing Technician Grade 1. She is married to Eddy Reynoso, an inspector for the NYC Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).

About the NYC Department of Design and Construction
The Department of Design and Construction is the City’s primary capital construction project manager. In supporting Mayor de Blasio’s long-term vision of growth, sustainability, resiliency, equity and healthy living, DDC provides communities with new or renovated public buildings such as firehouses, libraries, police precincts, and new or upgraded roads, sewers and water mains in all five boroughs. To manage this $13 billion portfolio, DDC partners with other City agencies, architects and consultants, whose experience bring efficient, innovative and environmentally-conscious design and construction strategies to City projects. For more information, please visit nyc.gov/ddc.