We’re proud to share that J.F. Brennan Company received three awards at the 2025 World Dredging Conference & Expo, hosted by the Western Dredging Association (WEDA) in San Diego, California. These honors underscore our longstanding commitment to safety, environmental responsibility, and meaningful partnerships within the dredging and marine construction industry.
Brennan was recognized with the Safety Excellence Award for a Dredging Project for our sustained, high-performance safety culture on the Grasse River Remediation Project. Two of our collaborative projects were also honored with Environmental Excellence Awards in the remediation category—one for our work on the Torch Lake Drum Removal Pilot Study, alongside Anchor QEA, EA Engineering, and Honeywell International —and the other for the Milwaukee River OU2 Remediation Project, in partnership with GEI Consultants and We Energies.
These awards reflect the talent, integrity, and hard work of our team members, and we are particularly grateful to our project partners and clients who contributed to the success of these efforts. We view recognition like this not just as a milestone, but as a reminder of the trust placed in us to do this critical work safely, collaboratively, and with care for the communities and waterways we serve.
We invite you to read the full official press release from WEDA below, which highlights all of this year’s award recipients.
PRESS RELEASE
July 9, 2025
Contact: Jessica Bridges, Executive Director
WEDA Issues 2025 Industry Achievement Awards
The Western Dredging Association (WEDA) announced the dredging industry achievement awards for 2025 at the 24th World Dredging Conference & Expo in San Diego, California.
Selected from peer nominations by committees comprised of industry leaders, the awards are presented in the categories of industry service, safety excellence, and environmental excellence, and recognize individuals, corporations, and dredging projects that have contributed significantly to the development of the dredging and marine construction industry.
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WEDA Award |
Recipient |
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Lifetime Achievement Award |
William Hanson, Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co.
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Innovator Award |
Steve Becker, Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co.
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Dredger of the Year |
Dylan Davis, US Army Corps of Engineers Dylan Davis is named the 2025 Dredger of the Year in recognition of extensive and outstanding contributions to the dredging community and to the Western Dredging Association. |
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Dredger-On-Deck |
Mark Hale, Weeks Marine Mark A. Hale is named the 2025 Dredger on Deck in recognition of extensive and outstanding contributions to Weeks Marine, Inc., and to the dredging community. |
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Dreger-On-Deck |
Mayo J. Broussard, US Army Corps of Engineers In recognition of extensive and outstanding contributions to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and to the dredging community, the Western Dredging Association is pleased to honor Mayo J. Broussard by naming him the 2025 Dredger on Deck. |
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Young Professional of the Year |
Jeremy Gasser, Geosyntec Jeremy Gasser is presented the WEDA Young Professional of the Year award in recognition of early-career achievement and contributions to the dredging community. |
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Safety Excellence Award for a |
Weeks Marine, Inc. At Weeks, the “Nobody Gets Hurt” philosophy makes safety a shared responsibility across every level of the organization. After joining Kiewit Corporation in 2023, Weeks adopted transformative programs including Craft Voice in Safety and Weekly Project Manager Safety Walks, achieving a 43% reduction in workplace injuries in one year. |
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Safety Excellence Award for a |
J.F. Brennan Company, Inc. J.F. Brennan Company’s culture empowers every employee on every job site to recognize and act on any potential risk at any time. This commitment came through at the Grasse River project, whose Safety-Based Observations and unannounced live Man Overboard drills helped deliver innovative, sub-1 safety results from 2019 through 2024. |
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Safety Excellence Award for a |
Conrad Shipyard, LLC Conrad Shipyard’s success is reflected through its transition from a “bolt-on” to “built-in” safety culture which emphasizes employee engagement. Conrad lives safety as a core value, protecting team members while simultaneously boosting operational efficiency, driving project success, and benefiting the marine industry overall. |
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Environmental Excellence Award, Environmental-based, Beneficial Use-Focused |
Houston Ship Channel Expansion Project 11 Project 11 includes six segments, fourteen major construction packages, with a focus on beneficial use for the new work dredged material. Port Houston and USACE-SWG have committed nearly 100% of the engineering-grade (non-silt) material dredged — equating to over 15 million cubic yards — from the Galveston Bay portion of Project 11 to beneficially create approximately 10-acres of bird islands, 276-acres of instant intertidal marsh, and 324-acres oyster reefs. Additionally, over 600 acres or 12.4 million cubic yards of future HSC Operation & Maintenance capacity will be available because of project construction. The improvements designed and constructed by Port Houston and USACE-SWG seek to ensure that the waterway continues to safely accommodate growth of commerce to the benefit of the industrial users of the channel as well as the national economy. |
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Environmental Excellence Award, Environmental-based, Remediation-Focused |
Implementation of an In-Lake Drum Removal Pilot Study in Torch Lake, MI The presence of hundreds of drums with unknown contents on the bottom of Torch Lake poses a unique challenge for remediation of contaminated sediment from historical mining operations in the Torch Lake Area of Concern (AOC) in Houghton County, Michigan. Anchor QEA designed the pilot study; EA and J.F. Brennan Company, Inc (Brennan) implemented it in Fall 2024. Data gathered during the pilot study informed the evaluation of drum removal effectiveness and associated environmental impacts contributing to the development of best practices for future projects if drum removal is deemed necessary as part of the FFS. Specifically, pre-, and post-construction surveys using multibeam bathymetry, side-scan sonar, and underwater video provided confirmation of the effectiveness of removal operations. In addition, water quality monitoring around the perimeter of work zones allowed assessment of the effectiveness of different resuspension control measures, including fixed silt curtains, mobile silt curtains, and bubble curtains. |
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Environmental Excellence Award, Environmental-based, Remediation-Focused |
Milwaukee Estuary Area of Concern (AOC) – Milwaukee River Operable Unit 2 (OU2) Remediation Project We Energies partnered with GEI Consultants, Inc. (GEI) and J.F. Brennan Company, Inc. (Brennan) to complete the remedial design and construction for Milwaukee River Operable Unit 2 (OU2), a critical component of the Milwaukee Estuary Area of Concern (AOC) restoration initiative. The two-year project (2022-2023) addressed historical NAPL contamination from century-old industrial activities, including a former manufactured gas plant, along a 0.6-mile stretch of the Milwaukee River. The project removed 44,000 cubic yards of contaminated sediment from the river ecosystem; capped 6,500 cubic yards of inaccessible contaminated sediments near utilities and infrastructure; treated and safely discharged 110 million gallons of water back to Lake Michigan: recovered over 30 tons of metal debris (steel/cable, pipe piles, cast-iron sewer pipe) from the riverbed; and installed 42,150 square feet of engineered sediment cap and 79,300 square feet of residual sand cover to prevent future contamination migration. The project’s management approaches, monitoring solutions, and stakeholder engagement strategies provide a scalable and replicable model that can be implemented across future remediation efforts. |
For details on dredging, remediation, water treatment, and restoration, check out our Environmental Services page and connect with our team.
About J.F. Brennan Company
J.F. Brennan Company, Inc. (Brennan) is a fourth-generation, family-owned marine construction firm specializing in environmental remediation, dam construction, commercial diving, harbor management, and submarine cable services. Since 1919, Brennan has worked closely with public and private owners of water-based infrastructure, operating nationwide throughout coastal and inland waterways.
