PBN Leaders & Achievers 2024 Awards
Suzanne Courtemanche |
Tighe & Bond |
Vice president and technical director
AS A TEENAGER, Suzanne Courtemanche thought she would spend much of her professional life designing highways. But an environmental engineering class she took while attending the University of Rhode Island altered those plans.
“Hearing about the superfund site Love Canal was so upsetting and interesting that I changed my focus to wanting to do site cleanup and remediation,” Courtemanche said.
The vice president and technical director for the national engineering firm Tighe & Bond – which has offices in Providence and North Kingstown – has now spent most of her life and career protecting the environment and leveraging her expertise to mentor and educate other environmental professionals. Over the past 42 years, Courtemanche has served as the environmental assessment and remediation manager for numerous investigation and remediation programs, including rail-to-trail projects and highway expansion projects, such as the bikeway along the Blackstone River in Woonsocket and the Interstate 95 viaduct bridge.
Courtemanche’s work has involved identifying historic impacted properties along proposed project routes, developing plans to identify contaminated soil and groundwater along those routes, and designing remedial actions in conformance with the R.I. Department of Environmental Management rules and regulations about contaminated soil and groundwater management and site closure.
In 2018, Courtemanche joined Tighe & Bond, where she began as part of a small team building the brand in Rhode Island and establishing a solid client base.
“It was an intriguing opportunity to help them have a toehold in Rhode Island and expand the network while expanding my own knowledge and complexity of projects and still be in my backyard,” Courtemanche said. “Plus, I always like a good challenge.”
Since 2018, Tighe & Bond has expanded from a Rhode Island staff of two with one office to a staff of 37 spread across the two offices within the Ocean State.
Throughout her long, distinguished career, it’s the people she’s had the pleasure of working with that have continued to inspire her, Courtemanche says.
“The people you work with every day [and] the impact you have on them that’s there forever is what I get the most satisfaction out of, and I hope I’ve had a positive effect on them,” she said.
