Chris Hill ’92: a civil engineer solving complex problems, stewarding natural resources, and building the invisible systems that allow communities to thrive.

Most people never think about the grading beneath a parking lot or the stormwater systems hidden under a city block. Chris Hill does. That invisible layer—the infrastructure that keeps buildings stable, streets dry, and communities functioning—is where his work begins. A civil engineer based in Colorado, Chris has spent his career designing the connective tissue of the built environment—translating ideas on paper into systems that shape how people live, move, and interact with the world.

“If you have an architectural design for a building,” he explains, “you bring in a civil engineer to connect it to the outside world—utilities, parking, roadways, grading… everything that makes it function.”

It’s functional design that is both highly technical and deeply rooted in human experience. It is a profession focused on solving problems but also on anticipating them.