Together we are building a company inclusive of diverse capabilities, perspectives, lifestyles, and cultures. We aim higher. We are CValdo.
In 2004 while working at a large A&E firm Mike Cairns, CValdo founding partner, realized that the idea of working his way up the corporate ladder while having a happy and healthy personal life was out of reach. The sixty plus hour weeks, growth at any cost corporate culture, infighting over clients and revenue, and countless hours spent in meetings, all coalesced to create a vision in Mike’s mind of finding a place where a successful challenging career in a healthy environment could be pursued in addition to, rather than instead of, an enjoyable fulfilling home life. With that in mind, Mike formed CValdo Corporation, with fellow SDSU graduate and friend Joel Valdovinos.
In the years since the CValdo doors first opened, we have gained the trust of numerous public agencies as a firm that can be relied upon to provide problem solving expertise and responsive service for reasonable compensation. As a requirement of employment, CValdo team members are technically strong, service oriented, easy to work with, and relentless in pursuit of delivering a high-quality work product, be it a design, study, or recommended course of action. We focus on our projects and engage with our team and our clients to achieve excellence.
And while we may identify in our professional lives as engineers and scientists, we at CValdo are parents, coaches, instructors, volunteers, and productive members of our community. To balance the mental challenges of our work week, you might find us carving time out of our day to hit the gym, or walk, run, swim, or bike. We have the freedom to structure our work days so we can attend our children’s athletic events after school, make time for friends, and get home for dinner at a decent hour. If this sounds like a great place to pursue your professional goals, it is, by design.
Senior Staff
Mike Cairns, PE
President
Gary Yagade, PE
Principal Engineer
Cory Jones, PE
Senior Engineer
Mark Wills, PE
Senior Engineer
CValdo Emeritus
CValdo Emeritus are former employees who have either retired or moved on from CValdo after at least ten years with the company, and have made significant contributions to our success. We are indebted to each of these former team members.
Joel Valdovinos
Lombardo Detrinidad
Ken Horsley
Mike Cairns
Mike offers 27 years comprehensive experience in the planning and design of public and private infrastructure projects, 18 years of which he has been a principal with CValdo Corporation. He provides management of municipal and institutional capital improvement design and planning projects with experience in projects up to $10 mil in construction cost. Mike also has considerable experience in the management of on-call plan check contracts, having performed or provided oversight on the review of over 3,000 submittals of engineering plans and supporting studies. Offering specialized expertise in drainage and flood control, his representative projects include design and planning of major drainage infrastructure projects, including storm drain systems and culverts, detention facilities, flood control channels, energy dissipaters, and scour mitigation measures. He has prepared and provided peer review of master drainage plans, dam inundation studies, hydrologic and hydraulic studies, and floodplain studies, including successful processing of over 30 FIRM revisions through FEMA.
Gary Yagade
Gary’s enthusiasm, experience and vision have factored heavily into smart engineering solutions over the past 40 years. His experience includes the design of roadways including complex freeway interchanges, water and sewer relocations, and major drainage facilities. Gary has extensive experience in managing on-call contracts that includes two on-call contracts for Caltrans, County of San Diego As-Needed Stormwater Inspection Services, and various on-call projects for the Metropolitan Transit Development Board. Gary’s drainage experience includes performing hydraulic analysis of over 100 stream miles in California. Several of these studies were performed for FEMA Flood Insurance Study or map amendment projects. He also has experience in the design and construction of various stormwater facilities including pipelines, box culverts, and open channels.
Cory Jones
Cory is a Registered Civil Engineer, CASQA Certified Qualified Construction and Industrial Storm Water Pollution Prevention Plan Developer (QSD and QISP), and Sustainable Professional certified by the Institute of Sustainable Infrastructure (ENV SP) with over twenty years of experience in strategic planning, project management, water/wastewater engineering, stormwater management, green infrastructure engineering, municipal engineering, general site-civil engineering, environmental permitting, and sustainable engineering practices. He has practiced municipal engineering, discretionary permit review plan checking of grading and drainage plans and related studies, and is proficient in general civil engineering calculations and report writing. Cory leads the development of plans and specifications for water, wastewater, and stormwater infrastructure, green infrastructure, harvest and re-use projects, pump stations, reservoirs, flood control structures, industrial wastewater treatment systems, street improvement plans, and park and recreation facilities for both public and private clients. Cory has lead the advocacy of sustainable engineering practices in Southern California’s civil engineering community through his initiative and leadership developing the Joint ASCE/APWA/ACEC San Diego Sustainability Committee (www.sdsustainableinfrastructure.org) and promotes awareness of investing public funds in infrastructure and natural resources management as demonstrated by his leadership of the 2017 San Diego and Imperial County Sustainable Infrastructure Report Card.
Mark Wills
Mark offers over 35 years of comprehensive experience in a wide variety of civil engineering projects. He has been a senior engineer / project manager with CValdo Corporation since retiring from the Riverside County Flood Control and Water Conservation District, where among other roles, he served as the District’s Planning Division Chief, Environmental and Regulatory Services Chief, and as a senior level civil engineer.
Joel Valdovinos
Joel was a founding partner of CValdo. His friendship and hard work through the early years was critical to getting the company off the ground. In 2004 after both working at large A&E firms, Joel and Mike found themselves in offices sitting on opposite sides of an empty suite as the only two CValdo employees. To break the silence, they would frequently yell to each other across the suite and start laughing about the echoes and emptiness, making light of the struggles of starting a new business. While busy times and a full suite of two to an office would shortly follow, the recession starting in 2008 and adversely impacting our industry until 2012 forced Joel to find more stable employment outside of the private consulting industry. Joel is still an active practicing civil engineer and friend of CValdo. Joel’s tenure with CValdo spanned 11 years.
Ken Horsley
Joining CValdo after a career in private land development engineering that included running his own engineering firm, Ken’s expertise and natural curiosity about all things engineering made him our go-to team member for any design related question. From mapping and surveying, to roads, water and sewer, drainage and water quality, and all things between, Ken could do it all. A true classic civil engineer that every company would love to have on board, Ken was irreplaceable and his presence in the office is missed. He was to say the least a real pleasure to work with. Ken’s tenure with CValdo spanned 14 years.