Alumni’s Projects Enhance Baha Mar’s Destination Status
Aniebo Ebong (MS ’10) lives and works in what most people would call paradise. As the Director of Projects at Baha Mar, a luxury resort destination in Nassau, Bahamas, he manages all of the property’s capital improvement and construction projects.
Working for a high-end resort means that Ebong must complete all projects with minimal disruption to the visitor experience. This takes creativity, says Ebong, because no two projects are ever the same.
During his time at Baha Mar, he’s overseen the reconstruction of the resort’s coastal breakwaters, a 13,000 square foot art gallery, and two new pickleball courts.
Finding innovative solutions to keep these projects moving forward doesn’t always go to plan. “On the many projects that I've worked on over the years, I can't think of one where there wasn't a surprise,” he says. Ebong mentions that these issues usually relate to discrepancies between the design’s intent and real-world conditions in the field.
“This is where the problem-solving nature of engineers is best displayed,” he continues, stating that he draws on previous experience and training on the fly to come up with practical solutions.
Ebong credits his education at CEE with giving him a strong technical foundation—but adds that the social and personal connections within the department were equally beneficial. ”I remember that CEE almost immediately felt like an extended family. I was able to build lasting connections with a diverse group of people that I can still reach out to now.”
He says that relationship-building and strong communication skills are extremely important in today’s civil engineering industry, “[A successful project] requires a team of stakeholders, consultants, and inspectors—all with different backgrounds and all with different ways of doing things—to get any one project across the finish line.”
He takes that mantra into his daily work at the resort, which he says is “constantly growing and practically a living organism.” The growth is necessary to keep the property’s buzz as a premier vacation destination. To keep the forward momentum, Ebong and the Baha Mar team recently completed budgeting for 2023’s resort projects. Next up is a 10-year long-term plan.
While the warm weather and sandy beaches of Nassau are far from a Pittsburgh winter, Ebong says that he’s grateful for the time he spent at CEE. “A dozen years after graduation, I am still learning and growing, and building on the foundations that were set at CEE. The school helped me to perform at a very high level in the kind of work that I enjoy. As Andrew Carnegie said, ‘My heart is in the work.’"