Airport Business - 32

TECHNOLOGY
AUTHOR Mary Jo Wagner

An Airport Takes Off

A North Carolina firm flies high using new technology on
a major expansion
CHARLOTTE DOUGLAS International Airport (CLT)
is the 10th busiest passenger airport in the U.S.,
ranking it higher than some of the country's biggest
names: Orlando, Miami and Houston.
In one decade, it f lew from the
18th busiest airport to the 11th in
2016, landing in the top ten last year
by welcoming 46.4 million domestic
travelers and 3.2 million international
passengers through its 114 gates and
five concourses. Such growth has been
putting CLT on a collision course with
overcapacity.
With all indicators showing
increased passenger demands, airport
executives developed "Destination
CLT," a master blueprint that defines
the construction and renovations it
needs to ensure it has the capacity to
handle future growth through 2035.
Enter CES, a Denver, N.C.
engineering and sur veying f irm
founded by Judy Heleine, whose
reputation for delivering work on
time and on target has earned her
high-prof ile projects. For the last
f ive years, CES crews have been
at the facility nearly every day in
support of CLT's roughly $3.1 billion
program to renovate its concourses

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MARY JO WAGNER

Mary Jo Wagner is a freelance writer who
has been covering the geospatial industry
for 25 years. She can reached by email at:
mj_wagner@shaw.ca.

and expand its roadways, curb front,
airfield and terminal. Being an integral
part of such a high-profile project is
impressive, given the company's entry
into surveying services eight years ago.
"We've experienced tremendous
growth in a notably short amount of
time because we fulfill a significant
need for professional land surveying
services, an expertise that's been in
short supply in this region since the
2008 recession," says Heleine. "Our
surveyors and engineers are out in
the field nearly every day and they
get noticed for the quality work they
do. That experience, knowledge,
r e s p o n s i ve n e s s a n d e n a b l i n g
technology allows us to deliver the
required precision on one project and
helps seal the deal on the next. It's a
winning formula that has earned us a
place on some of the highest-profile
projects in the region."
Being early adopters of advanced
survey and geomatics technologies has
also enabled CES to expand its breadth
of services and pursue substantial
contract opportunities with more
confidence.
"We invest heavily in varied
technology that allows our licensed
land surveyors and field crews to tackle
any surveying job out there," says Kent
Hudson, PLS and CES' geomatics
division manager. "Each new piece
of equipment builds our expertise,

32 \ AIRPORTBUSINESS / AUGUST | SEPTEMBER 2020

which helps us deliver specified results
on time and on budget, heightening
our profile and enabling us to secure
immense projects like CLT."
Indeed, equipped with a pool of
modern survey instruments and newly
acquired scanning technology, CES
survey crews have been providing
first-class data to help engineers arrive
at CLT's final gate.

Destination CLT
Given CES' proven performance on
previous design and construction
surveying projects at the airport,
and its knowledge of the facility,
multiple CLT prime consultants and
contractors chose the company to
serve as the primary survey provider
for more than 24 individual projects.
Since construction work began in
2015, CES survey crews have been
on the ground f loor of the majority
of the anchor projects designated in
Destination CLT, including the $200
million expansion of Concourse A, the
first completed project in the initiative,
which added nine gates, constructed a
new ramp and taxi lanes for the new
gates and modernized its amenities.
Airport Business

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