Industry-leading professionals and several manufacturers were honored Monday as the 2025 NASTT No-Dig Show opened with its opening breakfast and Celebrate Trenchless Awards.
The No-Dig Show, being held in Denver, presented awards to volunteers, students and manufacturers who have made impacts this past year in the trenchless industry.
NASTT began the awards ceremony by presenting its volunteer award. THe NASTT Volunteer Award recognizes members who exemplify the mission, vision and core values of NASTT and make an impact in the trenchless industry through their dedication, leadership and volunteer contributions during the past year. The award is chosen by the NASTT staff.
This year’s volunteer award was presented to Kim Hanson, a project manager and tunnel design engineer at Hazen and Sawyer. Hanson also serves on the NASTT executive board as secretary.
“Kim has taken so much time to really bring collaboration and build relationships at the local level and the national level,” says Matthew Izzard, NASTT executive director. “She always goes above and beyond to connect with staff, make sure staff is supported, boost morale amongst board members by planning special events at every board meeting, and traveling to regional shows nationwide to support NASTT the best she can.”
NASTT then honored students in the trenchless industry. A big part of the No-Dig Show and NASTT is the organization recognizing its many student chapters at college campuses throughout the U.S. and Canada.
Receiving the Argent Memorial Scholarship this year were six students, including Fadilat Amisu, University of Massachusetts Lowell; Parisa Beigvand, University of Texas - Arlington; Chetan Chalumuri, Arizona State University; Jimmy Hanashian, Arizona State University; Sonja Kozak, Cal Poly Pomona; and Ehsan Rajaie, University of Texas - Arlington.
The next awards presented were the NASTT Rising Stars. The rising stars are young professionals whose record reflects ongoing and exceptional growth in their contributions to the profession and increasing levels of leadership, responsibility and sphere of impact.
These early career professionals have a track record that reflects a strong career trajectory and the potential to reach the highest levels of achievement in the profession.
The three individuals named as NASTT Rising Stars were Paige Gilliam, civil engineer, GHD Consulting Services, Inc.; Jacob Klingaman, assistant engineer II, Hazen and Sawyer; and Inshik (Justin) Park, Ph.D. candidate and research assistant, University of Alberta.
Continuing with the theme of honoring the young professionals, NASTT shifted to presenting the Ralston Young Trenchless Achievement Awards. This award applauds members under 36 years old who have demonstrated excellence early in their career by making valuable contributions to the trenchless technology industry, achieving noteworthy professional success, and actively participating in NASTT or its regional or student chapters.
The two winners for this year are Kyle R. Friedman, project engineer and Mountain West trenchless lead for Brierley Associates; and Phill Perron, vice president, projects, The Crossing Group.
The awards ceremony wrapped up with the four awards to companies making impacts on the trenchless industry this past year with either equipment or new processes.
The award for Best Big Data Innovation was presented to BGC Engineering for its drill analytics program. Northwest Pipe Company won the award for Best Overall New Installations Innovation for a Permalok HDD joint.
R&R McClure Excavations won the New Breakthrough in Transforming Trenches to Trenchless award for its trenchless grounding system, while the Best Overall Innovation award went to Azuria Water Solutions for its close tolerance pipe slurrification (CTPS).
The No-Dig Show continues through Thursday with educational sessions each day and a trade show Tuesday and Wednesday.
