Sherwood Design Engineers

The healing power of nature, in progress...

Sherwood Design Engineers is seeking a Chief Financial Officer (CFO) to help us build our growing firm—to help us shape both our business systems and our culture. We’re on a mission to engineer an environmentally and socially regenerative planet, motivated by art, innovation, community and ecology as we design resilient and sustainable infrastructure. Our diverse team members share a passion for positive impact, and we know that we must stay curious and open to new ideas in order to get there. When we collaborate, the ideas become richer and ordinary projects turn into something remarkable. If this resonates, check out the detailed description of our San Francisco-based CFO role on our website, where you’ll also find a link to apply: https://lnkd.in/eujEznRK In this video, hear directly from Sherwood team members about the collaborative culture that’s been embedded in our firm since its founding. Will you join us?

Whether she's speaking in front of a UC Berkeley classroom, exploring the site of an innovative project, or scuba diving in the ocean depths, Sonya Gabrielson is passionate about raising awareness of sea level rise—and about sharing solutions that protect communities from its impact. Her appreciation for the power of water grew at a young age and fueled her civil engineering career as well as its focus on resilience. In our latest Voices of Sherwood blog post, we're pleased to introduce Sonya: https://lnkd.in/ertxXZAq

As the WateReuse Association's WateReuse Symposium 2025 wraps up in Tampa, Florida today, Sherwood's Allison Good, PE and Shannon Brown are coming home from another successful event of knowledge-sharing and networking. This is the 40th anniversary since the first Symposium in 1985, and yet the topic of water recycling and its impact on community health, sustainability and prosperity has never been more timely. Earlier this week, Allison co-presented with Vincent Gruffat of Natural Systems Utilities about navigating the waters of implementing on-site reuse—sharing design and operational strategies for translating modeled water use performance targets into real-life operational outcomes. Separately, Shannon presented our team's development of a nature-based community wetlands at the Fairfield-Suisun Sewer District (FSSD) that is designed to provide multiple benefits, including nitrogen reduction, community green space, and sea level rise resilience. We've recently begun working on a similar wetlands project with the City of Hayward, underscoring the important role that nature-based systems play in each community's critical water infrastructure and long-term resilience. Learn more about this work on our website here: https://lnkd.in/gQZyBqKD Sketches of the FSSD Wetlands by Amy West.

It's an honor to be part of this effort. Congratulations to the full team!

Our approach to coastal resilience is not about finding a new highly engineered system but about trying to figure out what nature has already solved, and we've stunted for so long, and just let it reestablish itself. Hear from Jason Loiselle and Thomas Jost, and get their take on coastal resilience in our latest Voices of Sherwood video. These are big challenges, but we're optimistic that the right people are working together to solve them. Are you with us?

The news of Ryan Gregory joining Sherwood's Napa office was featured in this week's "Movers & Shakers" column, published in The Real Deal. Check it out here: https://lnkd.in/eBUCPfDf

The water temperature might be a chilly 53 degrees, but that doesn't deter the surfers, swimmers, hikers and bikers who love this picturesque spot on the San Francisco coast: China Beach. If you've visited recently, you've noticed that the first phase of a multi-year rehabilitation project is now complete. Road and parking lot improvements, a strengthened retaining wall, and stormwater biotreatment basins are all in place. A new accessible overlook also offers stunning views of the water and Golden Gate Bridge. Sherwood has been proud to work on the restoration of this historic China Beach site alongside Architectural Resources Group, SWA, Interface Engineering, Inc., the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, and the National Park Service. As construction on the second phase kicks off this year, stay tuned for more updates about the renovation of the historic bath house and the promenade that links the beach with a plaza and picnic area. You can read more on our website here: https://lnkd.in/enFfS6-r Rendering courtesy of SWA.

As communities across the country consider ways to boost their resilience to climate change, one Oakland neighborhood is already demonstrating the big impact of relatively small infrastructure upgrades. This is EcoBlock: a pilot project led by the California Institute for Energy and Environment at the University of California, Berkeley, that is transforming an existing block of residential and commercial properties with shared energy-efficient and water-efficient technologies. Our team, led by Craig Boman, P.E., recently helped to install a stormwater management facility to treat, detain and retain the entire block’s stormwater within the existing city right of way. Craig will be speaking this Monday, February 24 at the Stormwater USA Conference in Orange County, CA. He'll first be part of a panel discussion of urban stormwater solutions; then, he'll present the ways that strategic planning and creative engineering of stormwater infrastructure can balance ecology, cost-effectiveness and community needs. Learn more about EcoBlock and its actionable approach to block-scale community retrofits here: https://lnkd.in/e7Ytk7RV And check out the full conference program here: https://lnkd.in/ex_3asxA We hope to see you in Irvine!

At first glance, this location might not look conventionally "coastal" but the Community Wetlands Project that's been proposed here can play a pivotal role in protecting the San Francisco Bay and strengthening the resilience of Bay Area communities. The site is Suisun Marsh, adjacent to the Fairfield-Suisun Sewer District (FSSD) water treatment facilities, and it's the largest brackish water marsh in the US. Sherwood has been working with FSSD to envision nature-based infrastructure that will have multiple benefits for the land and water, and for the community of 150,000 people served by the FSSD. One of the principal benefits is protection from sea level rise and flooding through the use of carbon-capturing wetland plants that, over time, turn into biomass and elevation gain. Check out our story here to learn more: https://lnkd.in/ew3ZNmHs #coastalresilience Photos by Andrea Gaffney