Rafael Ortega is nationally known as one of the leading engineers in water and wastewater pipeline engineering, condition assessment, and rehabilitation. With more than 36 years of experience serving clients from California to Florida, and the Great Lakes to Texas, he set out on his own and opened Aurora Technical Services, LLC (Aurora). Mr. Ortega has spent his entire career serving municipalities and agencies on some of the largest and most complicated water and wastewater systems in the U.S. This experience, coupled with serving on multiple national standards committees and pipeline-focused organizations, has taught him to meet project challenges successfully requires a high level of expertise, current and relevant technical aptitude, and knowing how to construct the project.
Before starting Aurora, Mr. Ortega served as a Vice President and Director of Lockwood, Andrews & Newnam, Inc.’s (LAN) Large Diameter Infrastructure Division. With LAN for more than 33 years, he led the firm’s team serving the City of Houston’s multi-year, multi-phase, multi-million-dollar Surface Water Transmission Program. He oversaw the design of more than 500 miles of large-diameter pipelines including nearly 100 miles of tunnels. This work has included route alignment studies, the development of project-specific phasing plans to mitigate potential operational impacts, detail design including the development of technical specifications, coordination with the general public to address community concerns, and constructability reviews. This work also included modifications to several groundwater pump stations, metering stations, and pressure-reducing valve stations.
Mr. Ortega’s designs have included various materials such as PCCP, steel, ductile iron, PVC, HDPE, and FRP as well as different installation methods, including open cut and trenchless construction such as HDD, micro-tunneling, TBM, augering/bore-and-jack and pipe insertions.
Mr. Ortega takes an active part in the total quality of design for all projects. As part of this effort, he performs technical engineering, constructability reviews, and quality control checks of each design. Mr. Ortega's reviews encompass the various reports prepared by others (geotechnical, environmental, etc.) and the project specifications. He has also performed these quality control tasks on numerous other projects for public-sector clients.
Education
Master of Business Administration, Business Administration; University of Houston
Bachelor of Science, Civil Engineering; University of Houston
Registration
Professional Engineer No. 60253, Texas
