Excellence in Diversity and Inclusion Award 

Kenneth O'Dell, SE

2025-26 Excellence in Diversity and Inclusion Award Recipient (Individual)

Ken O'Dell is a driving force behind the SE Pathways Program, an initiative he helped launch in 2022 to expand opportunities for students and emerging professionals within our industry. Through his leadership, the program has connected dozens of participants with mentorship, networking, and professional development opportunities while advancing equity and inclusion across the profession. Ken’s unwavering advocacy, personal investment, and commitment to reducing barriers for underrepresented groups have created a lasting impact, making him a truly deserving recipient of the 2026 SE3 Award.

Degenkolb
2025-26 Excellence in Diversity and Inclusion Award Recipient (Firm)

Degenkolb has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to fostering a more inclusive and equitable profession. Through its clearly stated DEI values, active employee resource groups, diverse leadership and workforce, and meaningful community engagement, ABC has embedded inclusion into its culture and operations. By championing diversity both within the organization and throughout the broader industry, ABC continues to create opportunities, strengthen communities, and serve as a model for positive change. 

Lorena Arce, PE

2024-25 Excellence in Diversity and Inclusion Award Recipient (Individual)

She was instrumental in creating the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (now called SE3) committee here at SEAoSC back in 2020. Her accomplishments with the committee are numerous and include helping create the Pathways program, the SEAoC Stories series of short films, and the implementation of these awards! Outside of the SE3 committee, Lorena was also part of the initial cohort that created the WISE committee at SEAoSC. Now that SE3 is being led by a new generation, we want to recognize and thank her for all of her hard work with this award.

Holmes
2024-25 Excellence in Diversity and Inclusion Award Recipient (Firm)

 They spent much of the last year working towards earning their Just certification. This is an increasingly popular DEI accountability metric that tracks various indicators including diversity and inclusion of the employees, equity in benefits and pay, and also outward stewardship of DEI values. We also would like to congratulate them for putting in the hard work to earn this certification. Some examples of their exemplary efforts in DEI include the creation of an internship-scholarship program directed towards minority and disadvantaged students in STEM and also providing paid time off to their employees to spend volunteering in the community. Thank you to Holmes for all of the hard work you have done so far and we look forward to seeing where you take DEI next. 

Aileen Santos-Redman, PE
2023-24 Excellence in Diversity and Inclusion Award Recipient (Individual)

After facing a lot of challenges in the start of her career, including being undocumented, Aileen has long been a tireless advocate for DEI in our industry. Her DEI work has mainly focused on ensuring structural engineering is a welcoming industry for women. To that end, she is currently a co-chair of Women in Structural Engineering. In addition, she maintains regular contact with her alma mater to ensure that women aren’t lost in the transition from school to career. She also regularly supports DEI in other ways including organizing community volunteer events and working with the charity arm of AIA LA in the organization of Diversity by Design Day. We here at SEAoSC thank Aileen for all of the good she has done so far and recognize her with this award.

Simpson Gumpertz & Heger
2023-24 Excellence in Diversity and Inclusion Award Recipient (Firm)

This firm recognized several years ago that they needed to do more to promote DEI both internally and externally. To that end the firm leadership created a DEI council that is empowered to enact change throughout the company. This council has already accomplished much including: changing hiring and salary negotiation practices to promote equity in hiring, bringing in an outside DEI consultant to aid in training, and promoting volunteer work to better our community including work with ACE mentoring. The efforts of the council are proudly shown on the SGH website to serve as an example for the rest of our industry. The council also recognizes that there is much work to be done in the future and among their current initiatives, they have started the work to create community specific employee resource groups. Thank you to SGH for the great work you have done so far and congratulations from all of us at SEAoSC.

Matthew Barnard, SE
2022-23 Excellence in Diversity and Inclusion Award Recipient (Individual)

DLR Group
2022-23 Excellence in Diversity and Inclusion Award Recipient (Firm)

Buro Happold
2020-2021 Excellence in Diversity and Inclusion Award Recipient

The recipient of our first annual Excellence in Diversity & Inclusion Award truly exemplifies and promotes meaningful actions in support of diversity and inclusion. Their internal D&I employee resource group promotes diversity externally through their website and social media posts, and in their community involvement. They promote diversity internally as well through company policies, monthly wellness & diversity discussion meetings, anti-racism training, and the use of healthy materials in structural engineering design. This firm can pave the way for a more diverse and inclusive structural engineering profession and set an excellent example for other firms to follow. Congratulations to Buro Happold