Volunteers from Otak’s Lake Oswego and Vancouver offices planted trees as part of an Earth Day celebration with other volunteers from throughout the Portland area. It began on Saturday morning near the I-205 Multi-Use Path in the Gateway area of Portland where volunteers were taught tree-planting basics. Then the volunteers set to work lugging trees and tools up the steep incline, digging holes in the rocky soil, setting trees in the holes, covering the soil around the trees with burlap sacks, securing the sacks to the ground with stakes, and driving wooden poles into the ground on the sides of the trees. After four hours of work, the volunteers had planted 180 native species, making it the largest-ever planting in over three years of planting along the I-205 Multi-Use Path.

The event was organized by Friends of Trees, a group which aims to bring people in the Portland-Vancouver and Eugene-Springfield metro areas together to plant and care for city trees and green spaces. The Otak volunteer group worked with Friends of Trees through EarthShare.

To learn more about Friends of Trees and find out how you can get involved, click here.

Otak recently had the pleasure of hosting a delegation from Kosovo as part of the International Visitor Leadership Program. The visitors from Kosovo met with key Otak staff and discussed a wide variety of issues related to planning, development, and maintenance of public infrastructure. Few members of the delegation had visited the United States before, and the visitors remarked that they found the exchange “very useful and appropriate to their program objectives and individual questions.” The feeling was mutual at Otak as our participants benefited greatly from the lively discussion with our visitors.

We would like to thank the World Affairs Council of Oregon for this wonderful opportunity to exchange ideas with visitors from around the world! To find out more about the International Visitor Leadership Program, please click here.

On March 1st the United Way of King County held its annual Spirit of Caring Celebration to honor the community’s most outstanding companies, most creative campaign coordinators, and most committed volunteers.

Otak’s United Way campaign team consisting of Curtis LaPierre, Tyler Christofferson, and Marissa Chargualaf, attended the event where they were nominated for a Spirit of Caring Award this year in the category of Campaign Coordinator of the Year. During our more than ten year history of participating in United Way, we ranked as one of the top firms for the amount of dollars pledged per employee among A&E firms in Puget Sound.

All of us at Otak thank the Kirkland team for serving their community and organizing Otak’s campaign—we are proud that they were considered for this award!

December 29th was the day we all dreaded—the day WSDOT would start charging us each $7 per day to drive to work across the SR 520 Bridge. Eight Otak Seattleites: Jeremy Andrews, Jessica Christofferson, Keith Bates, Kevin O’Brien, Mark Shelby, Ryan Hawkins, Tom Early, and Tyler Christofferson, decided to band together to beat the SR 520 toll by forming a carpool group. In the month of January alone this group saved approximately $400 in tolls and another $200 in gasoline. However, the real accomplishment of this group is we managed to keep 1, 120 lbs of carbon dioxide out of the earth’s atmosphere, practicing Otak’s mission of sustainability! If we keep this up all year, we will save approximately $7,200 and reduce the amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere by 13,440 lbs.

By Jessica Christofferson and Ryan Hawkins

This is our third consecutive year where several Otak staff volunteered at the Oregon Food Bank (OFB)! This year we were responsible for packaging elbow macaroni. We had an assembly line of workers who had one or several of the following tasks:

1. moving pasta from a very large container to a more manageable smaller container

2. scooping approximately 2 pounds of pasta into a plastic bag

3. weighing the bag and supplementing additional pasta or removing pasta to ensure the 2-pound limit

4. placing a twisty around the bag

5. placing 11 bags of pasta into a box and sealing the box

6. moving the box to another station where it was weighed to ensure accuracy

At the end of our session we helped box 10,500 pounds of macaroni for distribution! It was a rewarding few hours of our time.

Otak attended the 2012 ACEC Awards for Engineering Excellence event on January 11, 2012 at Portland’s Multnomah Athletic Club. The event highlighted over 30 award applicants for projects completed between 2010 and 2011. Otak submitted an entry for the SW Burnham Street | Green Street located in downtown Tigard, Oregon. The project received an honor award, highlighting the street’s unique stormwater planters, LED lighting, and challenging utility relocation environment. Otak’s Amanda Owings and SW Burnham Street project manager Darrin Stairs accepted the award alongside City of Tigard project manager, Kim McMillan.

The Kirkland staff is very excited to have had the opportunity to participate in the Adopt-A-Family program. Together, they collected just under $400. It is an honor knowing that we had the chance to help make Christmas very special for a family.  Below is a picture of the gifts they will be given this holiday season. Each child will receive a pair of pants and three shirts, plus at least one of their requested toys.

Last week, our crafty Kirkland Otakians sold a beautiful variety of handmade goods at the Otak Holiday Shop. Unique Items for sale included handmade cards and gift tags, cinnamon bun candles, paper white narcissus, sugar scrubs, quilted coasters, delicious jams, hats, fishing rods, and cutting boards made from recycled pallets…staying green.

Thank you to everyone who dropped by and made it a HUGE success! Our vendors sold over $800 worth of items, of which we donated ten percent to our Youth Eastside Services Adopt-A-Family.

Budding plans are developing for next year’s Holiday Shop!

Otak’s Lake Oswego office recently participated in the annual Bike Commute Challenge organized by the Bicycle Transportation Alliance (BTA). This year, 12 riders braved the traffic and elements and biked to work at least once during the month of September. The Otak team logged 79.5 rides (a round trip is 1 ride) for the month and traveled a total of 1,492 miles or about the distance from Portland to Tucson, Arizona. Otak’s ride percentage of 4.9% was several percentage points higher than last year. Using the BTA’s formulas, the Otak team saved 1,462 pounds of CO2 and burned 73,123 calories.

Overall, the challenge included 12,064 riders actively logging trips, and a total of 1,372,667 miles. BTA estimates the effort saved 1,345,213 pounds of CO2. Bike commuting is a great way to get exercise, relieve stress, save money on gas, and reduce your carbon footprint. 

Last month incoming 9th graders visited Otak’s Lake Oswego office to learn more about the architecture and engineering industry. The kids were part of the Summer Youth Connect program, a four-year series of interventions for targeted high school students supported by Mayor Sam Adams. The “Ninth Grade Counts” program “connects students with the academic support and life experiences to start high school on the right track.” At Otak, students were given brief presentations by surveyors, architects, planners, landscape architects and engineers and then students were given the opportunity to ask questions. Later in the morning, Otak professionals led small groups through the design process to design their dream school. “The kids were given constraints, not unlike those in real world situations,” said Ron Dean, Otak architect. “They had to consider context, natural obstacles, codes, programs and economics.