Alumni Professional Award for Civil & Environmental Engineering: Benjamin Taylor

By Holly Hinson

Benjamin W. Taylor is a Principal with Terracon and Regional Manager for their operations in Kentucky. He obtained his Masters in Civil & Environmental Engineering and Environmental Certificate in 2006 from J.B. Speed School of Engineering. He began his career in design-build geotechnical construction and joined Terracon’s Myrtle Beach, SC office in 2007 as a staff engineer. He moved with his family back to Kentucky where he served in various roles before being promoted to current role of Regional Manager.

Taylor is passionate about leadership development and service to his team, clients, and community. In his role as board member on the Terracon Foundation he enjoys the opportunity to help guide philanthropic giving of community grants, university grants, and scholarships. “We must be willing to “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better,” said Taylor, quoting Maya Angelou.

The engineer said that Speed School’s lessons in resiliency, and learning to analytically break a larger problem into components that can be assessed and solved, have been valuable to his career trajectory. “This has served me well in business, innovating engineering solutions, and seeing the big picture in my personal life with relationships and working through hardships,” he said.

“To me, this award means a recognition of my achievements, regardless of the perfectionism or self-critic,” he said. “I am proud to be an engineer and very proud of my Speed School, it is an honor to be recognized.”

Taylor was presented the award during Speed School’s annual awards dinner at the Brown Hotel on Oct. 21, 2022.