Matt Jozwiak joined the Carpenter Marty Transportation team after graduating from Ohio University in 2019. Originally hailing from Pittsburgh, he is of course a big fan of the Steelers, Penguins, and the Pirates. Matt is one of our bridge engineers who works with the team on design and plan preparation for various bridge rehabilitations and maintenance plans, culvert design, reinforcing bar design, and estimating material quantities.

Why Matt Chose Civil Engineering

When asking Matt why he decided to pursue a career in engineering, he answered with growing up he remembers always playing with Legos, Lincoln Logs and K’nex. In school, he was always bored with reading and felt that he really excelled in math class, so engineering just made sense. During his high school years, one class in particular made him gravitate toward civil engineering. “I took a class called competitive technology- where over the course of the semester we made balsa bridges.” Towards the end of the course Matt and his classmates hung heavy metal weights from the bridges to see who’s was the strongest.

During his master’s courses at OU, he enjoyed taking structure specific classes, with much of his coursework including advanced steel design, advanced concrete design, foundation design, and finite element analysis.

Favorite Project

If you ever pass Matt’s desk in the office, you may see a large stack of plan sets of projects he has worked on throughout his career here. Out of all of these projects, Matt said his favorite has had to be Cheshire Road because he has been able to work on the bridge design from the ground up unlike rehabilitation and replacement projects. Like many engineers, he agrees that it’s neat to see the final product of a project you had your hands in.

When Matt isn’t working in the office on a bridge, he also enjoys going out and seeing the projects firsthand. He has traveled around Ohio and has helped complete bridge inspections with other members of our team. It’s always nice to get out of the office and enjoy some fresh air!

Most Challenging Project

Of course, there are always fun and interesting projects to work on, but other times there are projects that are extremely brain-racking and challenging. The most difficult project Matt has worked on has been TUS-250-12.32. This project consisted of a lot of complex geometry and one side of the bridge had a different skew and width than the other side, making the bridge difficult to work with. 

Outside of Work Activities

When Matt isn’t at the office working- he’s most likely not in Columbus—Or even Ohio at that. Being from Pittsburgh, he travels home to see family often and enjoys finding cool new places to go hiking. His favorite spot is Cooper’s Rock, WV. He has also hiked in Glacier National Park, the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone. When he’s not hiking, he enjoys skiing, snowboarding, and windsurfing in the Outer Banks on family vacations. You may also see him out on the green playing in the engineer’s golf league!

Fun Fact

The first time he was ever in an airplane he was jumping out of it! His friends and him planned on spending their $200 on skydiving rather than going to prom.