John Cooney, P.E. :: Staff Engineer

John’s high school physics teacher drove him to engineering — literally. His class took field trips to analyze bridges, which later inspired him to earn an engineering degree from Montana State University. A few days after graduating in 2005, he joined BCE in the Bozeman branch office, and he has since worked on projects ranging from single-family residences to multi-story commercial buildings. John’s strong suit is wood and timber, but he also knows his way around steel and reinforced concrete. He recently acquired his Professional Engineer license in Montana and attained his Master’s Degree in Civil Engineering at MSU, specializing in structural engineering. In the summer John spends his evenings paddling through whitewater and in the winter he searches out telemark-worthy terrain. Year round, he feeds the tennis ball addiction of his golden retriever, Yaku.

Matthew Hubbard, P.E.

Matt was a math-and-science standout back in high school. Naturally, he went on to get a B.A. in Physics, and after fleeing his native Minnesota, he received an MS in Civil Engineering from Montana State University. Matt is now one of Beaudette’s go-to guys for heavy timber and log structures, especially in large high-end residential buildings. As he puts it, he likes “the challenge of making aggressive designs a reality, especially under severe conditions like seismicity and heavy snow loads.” Out of the office, he indulges his snow fixation with downhill skiing in the winter. When the snow melts, he puts on his water ski or clips into his mountain bike.

LEED Website
USGBC Website
Green Schools Committee

Family Site

Jami Lorenz, P.E.

Jami is a lean, green leader. By leader, we mean that she manages the BCE Bozeman office. Green refers to her certification as a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Accredited Professional. ( She also happens to be registered as a P.E. in both Washington and Montana.) And lean is a reference to her passion for rock climbing and skiing, which she shares with her husband Marc. Jami joined Beaudette in 2005 and has since worked on all types of jobs, although she especially loves historic renovation, which gives her a chance to play “Engineering C.S.I.” while giving new life to great old buildings. (One of her recent challenges was completely renovating just the main floor of an historic four-story building on the MSU campus — without touching the three remaining upper floors..) In general, she enjoys the challenge of keeping the architect’s vision alive while fact checking it against real-world physics. She finds working in a male-dominated profession “interesting,” but says that at the end of the day she’ll “take the dirty jokes over girl-talk any day.” Jami graduated from Montana State University in 1999 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering.

LEED Website

Zach Diede, P.E.

Zach spent his teenage summers “packing hod” for his dad in his hometown of Kalispell, MT. Looking for a different kind of construction challenge, he enrolled at the University of Wyoming and in 2000 he graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Architectural Engineering. After a five-year detour to the Tacoma/Seattle area, he returned to Montana in 2005 to join BCE. Despite his bricks-and-mortar upbringing, Zach specializes in timber-and-steel structures, primarily for commercial and multi-family projects. He enjoys the challenge of taking an architect’s ideas and “figuring out a way to make them work.” He also enjoys the outdoors in Montana with his wife and their three boys, Ethan, Coben, and Maverick. (That’s right. Maverick.)

Chris Schlegel, P.E.

Chris wears many hats: Problem Solver, Project Manager, and Head Guy at the BCE Kalispell Branch Office, where he works alongside four fellow engineers and a draftsperson. Building things is in his genes: His dad was a contractor, and Chris graduated from Montana State University with an engineering degree in 1999. He’s licensed in Montana and California, and since graduating has become an expert in both wood frame construction and log construction. His most interesting recent challenge was finding a way to support giant satellite dishes on the curved roof of an 80-year-old building. Chris and his wife spend their weekends introducing their young sons to the wilderness around Missoula.

Tom Beaudette, P.E.

The founding member of BCE, Tom has instilled his innovative spirit and extraordinary work ethic into the very fabric of the firm. He was raised under the big skies of Northeastern Montana, and then pursued his higher education at the University of Washington and the University of Montana. After graduation Tom began work for the Missoula engineering firm, Atwood + Hinzman. In 1991 he left to create Beaudette Consulting Engineers. With over 30 years of experience, Tom is recognized as an industry expert in historic renovations and timber and log design. One recent example of his expertise is the ongoing renovation of the Old Faithful Inn in Yellowstone National Park; Tom’s outside-the-box engineering strategy has helped to preserve the original structure for generations to come.

Pam Boggs :: CAD Technician

Pam hails from Oregon state and worked for SMI Joist and Blazer Building Solutions. She moved to Missoula in 2003 to be closer to her family and joined BCE’s drafting team in the fall of 2005.

Steve Brackman, P.E. :: Staff Engineer

Steve has lived in Montana all his life and joined Beaudette Consulting Engineers in June 1997 with a Masters degree from Montana State University. He is a self-professed jack of all trades when it comes to structural engineering, but does end up working on his fair share of high-end residential homes and timber projects. He is often found chasing his kids Drew and Rylee on the weekends.

Celine Burch :: Admin

Celine Burch has been working at Beaudette Consulting Engineers since August 2001. She manages the front desk; answering most incoming calls, handling reproduction of project drawings, shipping, receiving, professional licensing and organizing company retreats. Celine grew up on a farm and ranch in Eastern Montana and moved to Missoula in 1986 to attend the University of Montana.

LEED Website
USGBC Website

Maria Chesnut, P.E. :: Staff Engineer

Maria’s engineering career started early, during long play sessions with her brother’s Lego sets. A few years after grade school, she earned a Civil Engineering B.S.E. from Duke University, and went on to acquire an M.S.E. from Princeton University. For her graduate thesis, Maria researched thin-shell concrete structures, which helped her further appreciate the beauty of both architecture and engineering. (As she puts it, “The more creative architects are, the more creative we get to be.”) After starting her career in Seattle designing high-rise condos, she moved to Missoula in 2006 to work at BCE. One of her specialties is historic renovation, and she’s adding to her experience in the field by working in her spare time with her husband to renovate their house. Maria is known as BCE’s resident smarty-pants, although she often wears dresses.

Cory George :: CAD Technician

Cory is special in that he’s an Architect in Training that works for engineers! Cory comes to us from 6 years in the field of Architecture and is working as a CAD technician as well as a Designer when the opportunity presents itself. Cory’s a native Missoulian and we’re so excited to have him on board.

• US Forest Service
• Missoula City / County Board
• About Lutefisk :)

Bruce Haroldson

One of the early employees at BCE, Bruce serves as a project coordinator, structural designer, and computer network administrator. Bruce’s job titles have an expansive variety that is matched by his colorful background. Bruce claims that when he was 17, he managed the pig barn at the county fair and proudly wore a 4-H badge with his name directly above the word “Swine.” We’re reasonably sure that he earned a degree in Biology from Concordia College in 1976, and two years later started graduate school in Botany at the University of Montana in Missoula. After that he may or may not have taken a job with the US Forest Service climbing trees, and, when necessary, shooting rogue Ponderosa pines. He then progressed to Journeyman Carpenter and Joiner, which he defines as “Old Weird Craftsman.” He was also a founding member of Mountain Valley Carpentry, whose motto was “We’ve screwed up more than most people have attempted.” Bruce came to BCE in 1996, just after his all-you-can-eat lutefisk bar was closed by the county health inspector. As we said, that’s Bruce’s version. What we know for sure is that his recent accomplishments include the design and construction of award-winning informational kiosks made of roundwood harvested from fire-prone forests. When he’s not at BCE, Bruce is definitely a hockey coach, whitewater rafting enthusiast, and member emeritus of the Missoula Consolidated City/County Planning Board.

Jared Mogstad :: CAD Technician

Jared joined his brother Mathew in the drafting crew at BCE in the fall of 2005. His drafting experience includes a wide range of projects and he is proficient in AutoCAD. He is currently living in Missoula. He graduated from Geraldine Public Schools in Geraldine, MT. He will be looking to go back to school in the near future and is undecided on what he would like to study.

Hockey Club

Janna Moser, P.E.

Janna’s main interest is retro — that is, retrofitting historic structures in and around Montana, most notably the Old Faithful Inn in Yellowstone National Park. In the late 1990s she interned at BCE while studying Civil Engineering at Montana State University. After graduating in 1999, she joined the staff and gained experience in a wide field of projects. But since then she’s become one of our specialists in historic renovation. Janna enjoys waterskiing and playing league hockey with her husband Josh. She also enjoys esoteric engineering challenges, for instance, using a telescopic boom lift to do in-place masonry shear tests on historic unreinforced brick walls.

Richard Newman, P.E.

Richard is one of the main pillars of BCE, but he began his engineering career as a high schooler on a survey crew. Fortunately he went on to graduate with a degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Alabama. He began work in the heat of Texas as a consulting engineer, and then escaped to Missoula, where he served as a city Design Engineer. In January 1991, he joined Tom and has since designed structures using every kind of material and technique, including timberframe, log, masonry, steel, prestressed concrete, and reinforced concrete. In his off hours, Richard enjoys expeditions into the wilds of Montana to fish, hunt, camp, ski, and snowshoe.

• MSU

Mike Nielsen, E.I.T.

Mike isn’t a rocket scientist, but he did begin his engineering career at Boeing, working on the wing box structures of jet planes. Mike had grown up in Eastern Montana and graduated from MSU in 1987; eight years after Seattle, he landed back in his home state and turned his attention to bridges — not only designing but also constructing them. Needless to say, he has a strong background in both pre-stressed and post-tensioned concrete. But since starting at BCE in 2004, he has also gained experience in log and timber framed structures, structural insulated panels (SIP), and steel framed structures. Mike, his wife and two daughters live in the Missoula home he built himself. When he isn’t working or hiking with his family, Mike takes aggressively technical rides on his mountain bike and has the scars to prove it.

Matt Schmidt, S.E., P.E., P. Eng.

Matt began his engineering career as a science whiz kid who loved to build stuff. In college, the name of his rock band was, not surprisingly, The Naildrivers. After four years of playing keyboards and studying civil engineering, Matt got a B.S. from the University of Colorado in 1993, then spent six years working in Boulder, CO. He joined BCE in 1999 and has since become the corporation’s President, not to mention its big-building specialist. He takes charge of bridges, schools, municipal building, factories — in other words, large commercial projects that require structural steel, masonry, pre-cast concrete, and post-tensioned concrete. Matt has spearheaded projects throughout the United States and Canada and currently serves on the board of the Structural Engineers Association of Montana. A solid family man, Matt coaches youth soccer in the summer and hockey in the winter. With his better half, he’s raising three kids, a black lab, a terrier, and somewhere between five and 15 minnows.

Michelle Scribner :: Admin

Michelle Scribner has been working at Beaudette Consulting Engineers since September, 2005. She started in accounts receivable and IT and is now in the bookkeeping department. She received her Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with an IT minor from Montana State University-Billings in 2000. Michelle has 5 years of prior business administration experience. Michelle enjoys bike riding, camping and spending time with friends and family. She was born and raised in Montana and has lived in Missoula since 2000.

Connery Wiggin, P.E. :: Staff Engineer

Connery inherited a love of structures from his dad, who’s a commercial contractor. That attraction evolved into a Master’s degree in Civil Engineering from Montana State University, followed in the spring of 2004 by a job in the BCE Kalispell branch office. Since then, Connery has worked on commercial projects and designed a substantial number of timber frame houses on property from California to Montana. His most recent challenge was finding a way to support the all-glass façade of a four-story building. But he’s also worked on a number of pool enclosures, which has earned him the status of BCE’s resident guru on aluminum structural design. When he’s in non-work mode, Connery can be found in and around Flathead Lake, often in the company of a 5-weight fly rod.

Mark Robinson :: CAD Technician

I was born in Rapid City, SD and spent 13 years in Billings, MT before returning to South Dakota to graduate High School in Hill City (the heart of the Black Hills) where I now live with my wife Heather and raise our three boys Brendan, Craig and Tyler. I attended the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology for general studies with emphasis on engineering. I discovered had an interest in AutoCAD while taking an engineering graphics class and ended up transferring and graduated from WDTI with an Associates of Applied Science in Computer Aided Drafting.

I've worked the last 12 years for TSP a full service A/E/C firm with 7-8 locations in the Midwest. The majority of the projects I worked on are commercial including education, medical, office, financial, industrial and recreational facilities of all sorts with the occasional residence. One of the most interesting projects I worked on was a historical recordation project in Deadwood, SD. We used a 3D scanning process called LIDAR to record the entire building from the exterior to the interior and with software developed to read the enormous databases I was able to capture elevations, sections and floor plans of the building by slicing though 3 dimensional points of data in AutoCAD.

Hobbies I enjoy: landscaping, gardening and restoration

Forms of recreation I enjoy: hiking, biking, fishing, camping, skiing and 4-wheeling. I spend my time in the summer out in the Hills with the family camping, fishing or hiking (Harney Peak being one of our annual treks) or even spending a relaxing evening in the back yard burning marshmallows over an open fire.

LEED Website

Brett Oleson :: Staff Engineer

Brett has an artist’s eye and a scientist’s mind, and in fact he almost started a degree in architecture. But fortunately for BCE, he got a B.S. in Architectural Engineering instead, and now manages our Rapid City office in South Dakota. However his love of form still comes out in every project. As he puts it, “I enjoy blending the creative and technical side…and helping an architect’s vision become reality.” Since graduating in 1999, Brett has delved into designs of all types, sizes, and materials, including wood, steel, masonry, and concrete. He is currently licensed as an engineer in six states and has established a record with NCEES as a Model Law Structural Engineer (MLSE). Brett is also a hiker, a golfer, and a dedicated family man who enjoys helping his wife Kristy keep track of their three sons and two daughters.