Our Team
A. Jake Gusman P.E., D.WRE
Jake is a water resources engineer and project manager with over 25 years of experience in hydraulic modeling, floodplain studies, hydrology, bridge scour analysis and countermeasures, and stream restoration and fish passage. He has worked extensively on FEMA map revision submittals for projects in Hawaii and California, and has served as project manager for many U.S. Army Corps of Engineers task orders throughout the western U.S.
Darren J. Bertrand, CFM
Darren is a senior hydrologist and hydraulic modeler with over 20 years of experience in hydrologic analysis, hydraulic modeling, and 2D floodplain studies. He's worked with clients at the local, state, and federal level on a wide range of studies including dam break analysis, levee certification, floodplain mapping, FEMA map revisions, stream restoration, and flood forecasting and warning system development.
Jacey Cloninger
Jacey is a administrative assistant with over 5 years of experience. She assists the River Focus team with internal operations and external proposals and submittals. Jacey also performs GIS tasks for projects using the QGIS program.
Evie Croft, EIT
Evie is a water resources engineer with 9 years of experience in stormwater design, including 1D and 2D hydraulic modeling, hydrologic analysis, and 1D floodplain studies. She has worked with clients on a wide range of projects including commercial and residential developments in rural and urban settings, floodplain mapping, FEMA map revisions, landfill design, groundwater availability analysis, water quality analysis, and environmental assessment and monitoring.
Sydney Doidge, P.E.
Sydney is a water resources engineer with 4 years of experience in hydrologic analysis and 1D/2D hydraulic modeling. She has worked on many bridge and culvert replacements across the US, and is also a part 107 certified drone pilot.
Grant Doty, EIT
Grant is a water resources engineer with 2 years of experience. His previous experiences in the public sector include large-scale data integration and visualization, statewide water use reporting, community workshop facilitation, and water demand modeling. Grant’s technical expertise includes hydraulic and hydrologic modeling, bridge scour analysis, GIS mapping and analysis, computer programming and data visualization, and graphic design.
Haley Erickson, P.E.
Haley is a water resources engineer with over 7 years of experience. She has progressive and diverse experience from her roles as an engineering consultant, a hydraulic engineer for large scale design-build construction projects, and as a project manager and engineer for a regional flood control district. She is registered as a Professional Engineer in Colorado and Washington State and has worked on a wide range of studies and designs for both private and public clients at the local, state, and federal level. Her experience includes GIS analysis, hydrologic and hydraulic modeling, drainage design, fish passage design, project management, and management of project partner relationships. Her background also includes conducting and managing a variety of fieldwork, as well as technical reviews of proposed watershed master plans, floodplain mapping, and commercial and residential land development designs.
Sebastian Ferraro, EIT
Sebastian is a water resources engineer and hydraulic modeler with over 4 years of experience working as a hydropower consultant focusing on dam safety and H&H analyses. He specializes in hydraulic modeling with HEC-RAS 1D & 2D, and hydrologic analyses. He has worked with private, public, and government clients, performing dam breach analyses and inundation mapping, rainfall-runoff modeling, inflow design flood determination and hazard classification, FEMA floodplain mapping, dam decommissioning design, and fish passage design.
In addition to his work at River Focus, Sebastian is working on finishing his master's degree in Water Resources Engineering, and aims to continue his research in predicting future flood magnitudes as he pursues a doctoral degree.
Brady Halvorson, EIT
Brady is a water resources engineer with around 4 years of experience in floodplain management, hydrologic and hydraulic modeling, drainage design, and FEMA floodplain mapping. He has worked on various projects involving impoundment site design, channel restoration, watershed floodplain delineation, stormwater management design, iron enhanced sand filtration, watershed permit review, groundwater treatment, and closed landfill monitoring. In addition to his work with River Focus, Brady is also pursuing his PhD in coastal engineering at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa. His research involves modeling wave energy dissipation, wave frequency analysis, and coastal flooding.
Tyler Hileman, EIT
Tyler Hileman is a water resources engineer with five years of experience working with hydraulic and hydrologic analyses of riverine systems. He specializes in hydrologic and hydraulic analysis, hydraulic modeling, construction inspection and oversight, and GIS mapping and modeling. Tyler has experience with various 2D and 1D software, including AutoCAD Civil 3D, FHWA Hydraulic Toolbox, HY-8, SRH-2D, and HEC-RAS. Tyler also has experience in GIS using software such as ArcMap and ArcGIS Pro from ESRI. He has led in data acquisition, design, formation of deliverable packages, construction oversight, and post-construction monitoring on bank stabilization, water quality, culvert replacement, and bridge installation projects. Tyler believes that our waterways are critical to survival. He strives to find solutions to waterway challenges that are optimal for local communities as well as organisms endemic to waterways.
Peter Kickham
Peter is a water resources engineer with 2 years of experience in hydraulic modeling using HEC-RAS and SRH-2D and bridge scour analysis. His master’s thesis studied the impacts of hydraulic modeling methods on bridge scour analysis. He has worked extensively on scour projects in collaboration with various state DOTs in addition to revising and building scour analysis tools used by the River Focus team. His background also includes GIS and data collection for scour analysis, erosion, and restoration projects.
Jess Straub
Jess is a habitat restoration engineer with over 5 years of experience. She has studied streams and rivers statewide in Alaska for the last five years. She specializes in surveying, mapping, and analyzing existing and future waterway and floodplain conditions. Jess has six years of experience with AutoCAD and in Civil 3D, four years of experience in project management, and over two years of experience in hydraulic modeling and analysis.
Vicki Tripolitis
Vicki is a senior hydraulic engineer with over 17 years of experience in water resources engineering, specializing in 1D and 2D hydraulic modeling, floodplain studies, dam and levee breach risk analyses, sediment and geomorphology studies, scour analyses, and channel design. She worked for over five years with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) as senior hydraulic engineer performing hydraulic analyses for complex civil engineering projects involving dams, levees, channel, dikes, and local drainage.
Jon Viducich, P.E.
Jon is a senior hydraulic engineer and assistant project manager with over 14 years of experience working on complex water resource engineering projects on four continents. He’s worked with public and private clients on a range of hydrologic, hydraulic, and sediment transport analyses, including 2D HEC-RAS dam break models, large-scale FLO2D models, long-term unsteady HEC-RAS sediment transport models, and flood forecasting and warning systems (CWMS and RTS). In addition to his work at River Focus, Jon is also an adjunct professor at a local university and consults for international development organizations.