Yu-Hwa Terry Ni, PE

Founder and Chairman of the Committee

CAREER SUMMARY

Ms. Ni was founder, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), and President of TN & Associates, Inc. (TN&A) from 1989 to 2008 when the company was acquired and merged into OTIE. Ms. Ni retired in December 2017 as Director of Special Initiatives and Strategic Planning for OTIE.

Ms. Ni started her engineering consulting business in Milwaukee, Wisconsin with a vision of providing civil engineering and scientific consulting services to federal, state, and municipal customers. Her early customers included the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA), the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, and the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District. Later the business expanded to numerous other customers nationwide and worldwide.

As the president of TN&A, Ms. Ni designed and led successful marketing efforts and, in the early 1990s, successfully marketed the USEPA in pursuit of federal contracts at the US EPA Drinking Water Laboratory in Cincinnati, OH and the US EPA National Center for Environmental Assessment in Washington, DC.

The company expanded to serve many other federal clients nationwide, including the US Navy, US Air Force, US Corps of Engineers, US Marine Corps, US Department of Agriculture and the Department of Energy. TN&A grew from a local engineering company in Wisconsin to a nationally known, well-respected engineering, science, and construction business. The company expanded from one location in Wisconsin to 14 office coast-to-coast, including offices overseas in Japan, Korea, and Guam, serving multiple clients.

ACHIEVEMENTS

Throughout her career, Ms. Ni has led her company into new markets by winning new customers as she grew her business from a small start-up to over 420 employees by 2017. As the President of company, Ms. Ni was recognized for numerous achievements including:

US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) Excellence Performance Award in 2003
Department of Defense Nunn-Perry Awarded two times in 1997 and 2006.
Nominated as Prime Contractor of the Year by U.S. Department of Defense.
Entrepreneur of the Year by the Governor of the State of Wisconsin in 1996.
Working Woman Magazine Awards in two categories – General Excellence and Customer Service in 2002.
Ardie Halyard Business Excellence Award
Business of the Year -- UW-Milwaukee School of Business Administration
Wisconsin Minority Business Person of the Year Award by US SBA
Metro Milwaukee Future 50 Award by the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce

Through her vision, leadership, and drive to excel, Ms. Ni grew and developed the company from a one person engineering firm to over 200 staff practicing in over 20 technical disciplines and serving over 50 federal, state, and commercial customers in 14 offices by 2008 when the merger and acquisition occurred and TN&A transitioned to the new company, OTIE.

After guiding the transition, Ms. Ni led corporate initiatives to grow the company as the Director of Special Initiatives and Strategic Planning. The new company grew to almost 350 in 2015. She sought new business development opportunities and new services to sustain diversification and growth for the next several years. Her focused energy and drive to succeed inspired the company to achieve national recognition as a premier engineering, science, and construction management services firm. Under her guidance until her retirement in 2017, the firm grew to over 420 total staff worldwide.

Ms. Ni’s commitment to accomplish the mission of enhancing and restoring the earth to improve sustainability is at the core of her drive to create and sponsor the original FREE program scholarship. And now she continues to fulfill that commitment along with broader goals with her TN Engineering Scholarship.