Patrick Post picked up many interests growing up in his family and hanging out with his two brothers. His father worked for the University of Michigan (Highway Safety Research Institute) and enjoyed hunting for wild mushrooms. These formative years foreshadowed Patrick’s talents and career path.
Patrick graduated from Calvin College with an education degree and began his career teaching 5th/6th Grade in 1997 at North Hills Classical Academy. After teaching for 8 years, he went back to school at Michigan State University to join his brothers Scott and Stephen in the world of civil engineering. Upon Patrick’s graduation in 2008, there were very few civil engineering positions available, and Patrick went back to teaching, this time high school math and science at Zion Christion School in Byron Center.
As Rod Korhorn was checking on the construction progress of a sidewalk along Zion Christian’s frontage, he and Patrick struck up a conversation that ultimately led to Patrick joining VK Civil in the summer of 2014. After only one summer serving as a construction observer, Patrick was thrust into the position of managing VK Civil’s construction observation team due to the need to shift responsibilities because of Rod’s sudden death that December.
Patrick rose to the challenge, and what an amazing fit the new role turned out to be. Patrick uses his engineering and teaching skills along with his patient and kind spirit to manage the construction observation of all public water and sanitary sewer projects in Byron, Gaines, Caledonia, and Jamestown Townships along with many other projects throughout VK Civil’s service area. His heart of a teacher is evident as he explains what is necessary to interns and other new observers, and his calm and patient demeanor has diffused many tense situations with contractors and developers.
Patrick’s desk has many rock, plant, and bug specimens. He is continually teaching our team new words. It is not uncommon for Patrick to come back to the office with a beetle, praying mantis, walking stick, or fossil to add to his (many) collections or a pile of mushrooms to try. We learn so many interesting facts from Patrick that in every offer letter we list as one of VK Civil’s benefits: “Random lessons from Patrick Post on subjects such as plants, bugs, rocks, periodic table elements and vocabulary should you spend some time in the Byron Center office.”
We would like to publicly thank Patrick Post for choosing to be a part of the VK Civil team for the past 10 years. He is appreciated and excellent at his craft.
