Craig West, P.E
Practice Builder
Kimley-Horn
Age: 39
- Alma Mater: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Favorite Aircraft: Boeing 787
- Favorite Book: Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives our Success, Adam Grant
- Favorite TV Show: College Gameday
- Favorite Movie: National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
- Favorite Hobbies: Anything sports related and attending country music concerts
When Craig West was starting out in career, he ended up getting hooked on aviation.
West said he was working as an intern for a small pavement engineering firm and got exposed to aviation project. He continued to meet people and found himself wanting to take his career in the aviation direction.
“It’s the people in this industry,” West said. “As big as you think the aviation industry is, it’s truly a small network of people. There’s certainly a business side of it, but the friends with colleagues, clients and other folks in the field, that camaraderie is something really special to me.”
West is an aviation engineer and project manager in Kimley-Horn’s Chicago office. He has more than 16 years of experience, specializing in airport pavement management, evaluation and design.
In addition to his experience in pavement engineering, West is experienced in airfield design and construction administration that has resulted in him being in high demand at airports across the country and beyond.
West enjoys the technology associated with his skillset and leverages it to deliver solutions that are cost effective, useable and easy to implement. As a result of his recognized industry expertise, he was invited to provide comments on several FAA Advisory Circular updates, most notably 150/5320-6F, Airport Pavement Design and Evaluation.
“I think that my experiences from childhood and how I was raised to now being surrounded by great mentors and working for an organization that provides tremendous opportunities have led me to where I am today,” he said. “Growing up my parents taught me the importance of working hard, being humble, respecting others and doing what you commit to doing all of which are traits that I have lived by in my professional career serving clients.”
West is also a project manager. Numerous projects have seen a successful completion with the constant guidance of his logical thinking and negotiation skills. Airport clients have benefited from his ability to think beyond the short-term aspects of a project, offering options and solutions with long-term positive impact.
He is a member of several industry associations and regularly attends the Airport Consultants Council (ACC), as well as the National Association of State Aviation Officials (NASAO) conferences to present case studies drawn from his project experience.
West’s impact in the aviation industry has also been recognized in various project articles related to pavement evaluation and data collection technology. Originally from Illinois, Craig attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he obtained his BS in Civil Engineering.
