VICKSBURG, MS — The U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) has tasked the joint venture of Taylor Engineering and Woolpert with providing research and development services for its Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory (CHL). The $49 million, single-award task order contract will support CHL projects that advance navigation, flood risk management, water resources management, sediment management, and military engineering.

Woolpert Vice President Eric Dillinger said that the joint venture leadership team has extensive experience managing projects for CHL, ERDC, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). The team includes Woolpert Director of Advisory Services Jeff Lillycrop, a former ERDC Technical Director with 33 years of experience serving CHL, and Taylor Engineering President Jim Marino, a former USACE Officer with over 20 years of USACE experience.

"The Taylor-Woolpert joint venture represents decades of focused and complementary expertise coming together," Dillinger said. "This contract will be led by a team intimately familiar with and fully capable of meeting the complex research needs of the Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory."

Taylor Engineering Vice President Christopher Bender said this is the first contract executed under Taylor and Woolpert's new Mentor-Protégé Program agreement, which was approved by the U.S. Small Business Administration last year.

"Taylor and Woolpert are currently working as professional partners on multiple projects across a variety of service lines," Bender said. "We look forward to this next chapter working alongside Woolpert and providing a truly world-class team of engineers and researchers for ERDC and its missions."