Getting Settled at the Milwaukee Office With Shannon Connolly

We sat down with Shannon Connolly, a Structural Engineer at TKDA’s Milwaukee office, to learn about her first few months at TKDA. With deep roots in both Minnesota and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Shannon brings a passion for bridge design and a commitment to strengthening communities across Wisconsin. From collaborating with TKDA’s leadership to working on major projects like the Rapidan Dam Bridge replacement, Shannon is eager to share what drew her to TKDA and what excites her most about the work ahead.

What excited you most about joining TKDA and being part of our new Milwaukee office?

I am originally from Minnesota, so it was pretty exciting to work for a company that has an office where a lot of my family lives. By now, I’ve spent over half of my life in the Milwaukee area and am excited to help bring TKDA’s history and expertise to the area. I have collaborated with Amber Thomas, TKDA’s Vice President for the Milwaukee area office, on previous projects and she’s just a great person to work with! I was super excited at the chance to work directly with her and work together to help build our office here.

Now that you’ve settled in a bit, what’s been your favorite part about working with the TKDA team so far?

Everyone at TKDA has been so welcoming and helpful! I am in the bridge group here, and they have been helping get me settled in. I’ve been working on proposals with several other groups too, and everyone has been really helpful and welcoming. Recently, I had to track down a lot of information from multiple different people quickly for one proposal, and everyone was very willing to help out and help wrap it up. Even though a lot of my team and my group manager are based in Minnesota, I can connect with everyone easily, whether it’s through scheduled meetings or impromptu check ins.

Can you tell us about your role on the Rapidan Dam Bridge replacement project?

The County Road 9 Bridge over the Blue Earth River, also known as the Rapidan Dam Bridge, is a cool project I have been working on. After historic flooding in June 2024 caused the partial failure of the west abutment of the Rapidan Dam, the upstream existing bridge was irreparably damaged and was demolished in spring 2025. TKDA is under contract with Blue Earth County to provide the preliminary and final design services for its replacement. The proposed bridge will be a three-span, 776-foot-long curved steel structure, designed to carry two lanes of vehicular traffic and shared-shoulder bike trails. The main span, measuring 350 feet, is configured to clear the river channel so the pier substructures remain outside the primary river channel. These substructures are going to feature pile-supported abutments and tall piers that are supported on drilled shaft foundations.

A lot of our bridge group has been hard at work on it, and it’s been great to get to work with people in our Minnesota office on this. I have been working on the barrier and railing design sheets and have coordinated a lot with our Assistant Project Manager Katie Ellis. The project is really interesting because we have to plan for both the current river conditions and future conditions when the dam is eventually removed.

If you could design any type of structure, what would it be and why?

It’s hard to choose one, but working on virtually any iconic bridge I think is any bridge engineer’s dream. I worked on the reconstruction of the Daniel W. Hoan Memorial Bridge right here in Milwaukee. It would be cool to work on another rehabilitation project of the Hoan Bridge if and when that comes up down the line. The Blatnik Bridge that connects Duluth, Minnesota, to Superior, Wisconsin, is getting replaced soon and that would be a really cool project to work on, too.

Aside from iconic bridges, I enjoy working on smaller, standard bridges and structures, whose functionality is so vital to communities across Wisconsin. It’s cool to visit a small town in Wisconsin and see a bridge that is designed to include aesthetics that reflect the town’s culture and identity. For small communities, it’s important to explore our options to keep the roadways and bridges open when they are being worked on. This is especially true for more remote areas when the alternative is an extensive detour that can drastically impact people’s days and commutes.

I’m also really excited to dive deeply into structural work here. One of the things that excited me a lot about working for TKDA is this company’s experience and history with rail projects. I haven’t worked on any railroad bridges yet, so working on a railroad bridge is something I’m looking forward to potentially doing in the future.