Abe Adewale, co-founder and CEO of ABNA Engineering Inc., has spent most of his life ensuring the integrity of the foundations for bridges and transportation systems. Yet, Adewale is equally passionate about supporting programs that inspire and mentor young people – strengthening the integrity and foundation of the engineering profession.
On Feb. 22, Adewale will be recognized as the Engineer of the Year at the St. Louis Chapter of the Missouri Society of Professional Engineers’ Annual Awards Dinner.
“It’s certainly an honor for your peers in the engineering community to think so highly of you to recognize you as Engineer of the Year,” said Adewale, who has been a member of the society for 20 years. “It says you are doing everything to properly represent the profession. You are helping to solve problems in the community.”
Adewale is the second African American to receive the award, said his wife, Nicole Adewale, co-founder and president of ABNA.
“It goes to recognize a change in the face of leadership – literally,” Nicole said. “It is important to recognize leaders from all backgrounds and that leadership doesn’t have one look.”
Abe Adewale likes to think of engineers as problem solvers, he said, and he prides myself on bringing people together to find solutions. Especially when it comes to the youth.
His eyes light up when he talks about ABNA’s internship opportunities for high school and college students because hands-on experience is crucial, he said.
“We are not training or growing as many engineers in this country as in others,” he said. “It’s important to not only spend time to improve engineer technology but to help create pathways for young people to get into the profession so we don’t lose our standing on the world stage.”
Adewale is actively involved in FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) programs, where young people design robots. He’s the chairman of the ACE Mentor Program at the Construction Careers Academy, which helps the city’s high school students learn about careers in architecture, engineering and construction. His leadership also extends to the Science Center and Rotary Club of St. Louis.
When Adewale receives an award, he said his biggest hope is that it inspires a child somewhere to know that making a career as an engineer is possible. His own inspiration came from his father, who was a telecommunications engineer.
“Ironically, I was soaking a lot in, but didn’t know it,” said Adewale, who was born in Nigeria and moved to Washington, D.C. at 16. “They always pushed me towards medicine.”
He started his education path in physics, but he knew he didn’t want to teach or do research. After he received his bachelors in physics from Clark Atlanta University in Georgia, he went to speak with the engineering department at Georgia Tech University. And that was a conversation that changed his life’s course.
“I love bridges and anything transportation related,” he said, “And that’s how I got into civil engineering. But underneath I’ve always had the desire to be a business person.”
When he earned his civil engineering degree from Georgia Tech, he went to work for the Illinois Department of Transportation in Chicago. Shortly after, he was transferred to the Collinsville office and has been in the St. Louis area since. With IDOT, he started as a design engineer and then became a project manager for bridge construction projects. One of the bridges he’s most proud of is the Chain of Rocks Bridge, for which he was the project manager.
Yet, owning his own business lingered in the back of his mind. He went back to earn his MBA at Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville, though he knew it would take more than a degree to succeed.
“I learned all of my business skills from my mother,” he said. “She held a variety of businesses and that gave me an intuition that it takes a lot more than book smarts to be a good businessman.”
In Nigeria, his mother was a general contractor who sewed uniforms for schools and furnished apartments for expatriates. She was also a distributor for Coca Cola, and she only had two years of college experience.
“Her ability to see around the corner, the hazards and the risks, and the ability to form relationships with people has become engrained in me,” he said. “Those things I didn’t learn from business school.”
First office in St. Louis
After 10 years with IDOT as a resident engineer for major roadway and bridge construction projects, Abe opened the first ABNA office in St. Louis with his wife Nicole in 1994.
ABNA has worked on the Metropolitan Sewer District’s storm systems, the Interstate 64 construction, Cross County Metrolink extension, Interstate 55 reconstruction and IDOT for major interchanges and tollways. They were involved in the Lambert-St. Louis International Airport expansion for 12 years, which got them heavily invested in aviation. With all of the talent and experience that they gained from working on Lambert, they wanted to seek out other opportunities in aviation.
They decided to shoot for projects in Chicago, seeing that they had Illinois contacts. The aviation contracts didn’t work out right away because they were seen as outsiders, he said. They established a Chicago office in 2003 and began working on transportation projects with IDOT. After a few years in Chicago, they established a strong rapport in the city and were able to secure contracts during phase two of the airport expansion.
Adewale is a leading voice in the engineering profession, both regionally and nationally. He is on the Missouri Board for Architects, Professional Engineers, Professional Land Surveyors & Landscape Architects. He also serves on the Board of National Council of Engineering Examiners, and served on the board of directors for the Engineers Club of St. Louis.
Adewale beams when he talks about Nicole’s leadership as company president, his team’s talent and his community that continues to support ABNA.
“It’s been a long time since we have been a mom and pop operation,” he said. “When Nicole or I receive awards, we are really only the face of the achievement. It’s all about what people here do.”
