New York Society of Professional Engineers Honors Chris Bruno
July 8, 2011
Chris Bruno
Chris Bruno arrived at Brookhaven Lab in April of this year and just two months later, the New York State Society of Professional Engineers recognized him for his work at his previous job at the Suffolk County Water Authority.
A facility complex engineer in Brookhaven Lab’s Facilities & Operations Directorate, Bruno was awarded the Society of Professional Engineers’ Professional Engineer in Government Award on June 28. The award recognizes a professional engineer in government who, during a career in public service, has made outstanding contributions to public health, safety and/or welfare, the engineering profession, and the goals of the Society of Professional Engineers through demonstrated managerial ability and professional engineering achievement.
Bruno is a licensed professional engineer and has been a member of the New York State Society of Professional Engineers since 1998 — two years after he joined the Suffolk County Water Authority nearly 14 years ago. He was in charge of all electrical systems, water treatment control systems, and communication systems. One project Bruno oversaw involved implementing a wireless monitoring and control system that transmits data such as chlorine/pH residuals, flow rates, and water pressure from the Water Authority’s 600 wells and 250 pump stations in real time. He also designed and managed the construction of a 10-kilowatt solar system for the Water Authority.
“I’ve always been a tinkerer — a mechanical person who takes things apart and puts them back together to understand how they work. At the Water Authority, I was involved in the mechanical and accounting aspects of managing projects. That’s what I’m here to do at Brookhaven,” said Bruno, who earned a bachelor of science in electrical engineering at the New York Institute of Technology and master’s of business administration in corporate finance from Dowling College.
At BNL, Bruno, Jim Feeney, Joe Levesque, and Brian McCaffrey are the Lab’s four facility complex engineers. Each works in a different facility complex under the Lab’s new Integrated Facility Management program (IFM), a Blueprint initiative, to help the facility complex managers solve engineering challenges and ensure that all facilities within their complex are compliant with building codes and mission-ready to support the scientists and researchers at BNL.
And this is exciting to Bruno, who said: “Few engineers ever have the opportunity to see the sheer complexity of the equipment and the facilities here.”
Managing BNL’s facility configuration is a big job that requires many good people. Bruno may be new here, but he has the chops — and with his new award, he has even more street cred.
2011-2447 | INT/EXT | Newsroom
