Six Kimley-Horn Employees Recognized on ENR’s 2025 Top Young Professionals List

March 18, 2025

Top Six ENR Professionals

The Engineering News-Record (ENR) Top Young Professionals designation is awarded annually to dedicated industry leaders who are under 40. These professionals are selected due to their passionate innovations within their fields, thoughtful leadership and mentorship, and community service. This year, six Kimley-Horn employees received recognition in ENR’s Midwest, Mountain States, Texas & Southeast, and West regions.

ENR Midwest: Colleen Marnell, PE

Beginning her career at Kimley-Horn by joining a small development services team in Chicago, Colleen has brought an eagerness to improve everything she touches—which has shone through her contributions to the firm and the AEC industry. In her first nine years, Colleen proved herself to be an indispensable member of the firm, spearheading the creation and integration of solar services across 50+ Kimley-Horn offices. Her efforts resulted in multi-million-dollar contracts in solar and natural gas services, significantly contributing to Kimley-Horn’s revenue.

Recognized for her exceptional leadership qualities, Colleen has served the firm in various roles, including as a member of the Midwest regional team since 2017. As of January 2024, she is one of the youngest regional leaders in the history of the firm. Colleen has provided support and leadership to the Midwest region, having added more than 10 new service lines and grown from four offices in 2017 to 13 offices and counting in 2024.

This track record of excellence and commitment to industry growth stems from Colleen’s work ethic and deep personal commitment to STEM. She has actively mentored young professionals—from interns to emerging leaders—through Kimley-Horn’s robust training programs. As a mentor, Colleen has been able to guide students on their educational paths, some of whom have eventually joined Kimley-Horn.

ENR Mountain States & Southwest: Matt Ciarkowski, PE

Over 17 years, Matt has established himself as an industry innovator—evidenced by his successful and award-winning multimodal projects, presentations at industry events to help other professionals learn from his experiences, and history of leadership within Kimley-Horn. Matt started his career as an intern at Kimley-Horn in 2007 while earning his Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from Texas A&M University, and he now serves as a firmwide multimodal, traffic signal, and intersection design technical expert.

In his role, Matt has provided enhanced safety and mobility solutions to communities across the country. His expertise in multimodal transportation and mobility has shaped key projects across the state of Colorado and the Country, such as intersections design and implementation of the first two-way cycle track in the City and County of Denver along South Broadway, multimodal facilities for METRO Green Line in the Twin Cities, and multimodal improvements for the Atlanta Streetcar East Extension project. Matt relies on his own experiences to shape innovative transportation solutions, and his passion for biking is evident in his daily bike commute and his pastime of cycling around Denver with his two daughters.

Matt’s contributions to the transportation industry extend beyond his project leadership. As a member of the Denver Mayor’s Bicycle Advisory Committee, he provides technical expertise and advises city leaders on all matters relating to bicycles. Matt also participated in the Transit Alliance Citizen’s Academy, which works to enhance metropolitan communities and help people cultivate a transit-friendly lifestyle. Additionally, he has been actively involved in the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals and the Colorado/Wyoming Institute of Transportation Engineers Executive Committee. Beyond his work in the transportation industry, Matt is involved in volunteering at Food For Thought, a non-profit in Denver that aims to eliminate child hunger by providing prepared food for students at 75 schools.

ENR Mountain States & Southwest: Anthony Pratt, PLA, ENV SP

Anthony Pratt’s extensive career as a landscape architect and transportation planner stems from his lifelong passion for sustainability. A valued member of Kimley-Horn since 2020, Anthony spearheads transportation planning projects as well as bicycle and pedestrian planning and design efforts. His breadth of work highlights innovative multimodal solutions—such as protected intersections and low-stress bicycle/pedestrian transportation networks—which demonstrate his dedication to advancing sustainable urban development.

Anthony has worked on various innovative projects throughout the country. He led the concept designs for Denver’s first bicycle-protected intersection, concrete-protected bicycle lane, and neighborhood bikeway. He was also involved with Boulder’s first protected intersection. Building on this experience, Anthony was key in the recent Federal Highway Administration study evaluating protected intersections and refining their design. He feels a sense of pride in designing projects that create safer communities and is particularly honored to have been involved with more than 350 miles of bicycle infrastructure across more than 20 states.

In addition to his professional achievements, Anthony has demonstrated exceptional leadership qualities throughout his tenure at Kimley-Horn. A well-known leader in the firm, he was asked to lead the Broomfield office opening. Under his guidance and involvement in day-to-day operations, recruitment, and retention efforts, Broomfield has grown from nine people in 2021 to 40 people in 2024, representing more than 10 different practice areas.

ENR Texas & Southeast: Jenny Brown, PE

Jenny has a demonstrated record of exceptional professionalism, leadership, and service at every stage of her career, first during her tenure at Clemson University—where she graduated top of her class—and now as a senior civil engineer and shareholder with the firm. Jenny leads our industry in developing innovative solutions to complex problems in efforts of improving the efficiency and reliability of all systems within our public infrastructure networks. Having served as project manager and lead designer on multi-million-dollar contracts throughout the Southeast, she has developed a wide range of skills related to the planning, design, construction, maintenance, and operation of municipal systems and is well-versed in managing each phase of complex, large-scale design projects.

In 2021, Jenny relocated to Huntsville, Alabama to open a new Kimley-Horn office, where she now serves as the local Public Sector and Federal Sector practice leader. Jenny currently serves as the secretary for the Society of American Military Engineers Huntsville Post and sits on the advisory board for the USDOT Center for Connected Multimodal Mobility. She served as secretary of the Intelligent Transportation Society of Georgia (ITSGA) from 2014-2017 and later became the youngest and first female president of ITSGA, serving as president from 2018-2019 and immediate past president from 2019-2020.

In 2024, Jenny was named by Huntsville Business Journal as a Top 40 Under 40. She was also named as one of the “Top 100 Influential Women in Georgia Engineering” in 2018 and 2020 as well as one of the “50 Women in the Know” in 2019 by Engineering Georgia Magazine. In her personal life, Jenny is an Ironman triathlete, wife, and a mom to five, including 2.5-year-old twins.

ENR Texas & Southeast: Ashlyn Morgan, PE

Since joining Kimley-Horn in 2011, Ashlyn has cemented her practice as a water/wastewater engineer and an advocate for parents in the workplace. A dedicated leader in the Dallas office, throughout the firm, and in the water/wastewater industry, Ashlyn champions philanthropy, participating in industry organizations and events, and inspiring the next generation of engineers. With 14 years of experience in the industry, Ashlyn’s breadth of work includes large-diameter pipeline rehabilitation, tank and facility design, construction phase services, and master planning and modeling.

Ashlyn enjoys leading especially complex projects for public clients. In addition to navigating fundamental engineering design and constructability challenges, she advises clients on project procurement and phasing, public communications content and strategy, and multidisciplinary/interdepartmental collaboration. At Kimley-Horn, she has championed benefits for parents, particularly mothers, by advocating for Kimley-Horn policy improvements. She has helped influence annual bonus evaluation, stock purchasing, and maternity leave benefit philosophies with firmwide leadership. She is passionate about mentoring and connecting parents both within Kimley-Horn and in the water/wastewater industry.

Ashlyn has been active in professional organizations throughout her career. She served in several chair roles in the American Society of Civil Engineers’ Dallas Branch and was named the Young Engineer of the Year in 2018. She is a member of the American Water Works Association, has presented at multiple state and national conferences, and facilitates STEM outreach activities at local schools. Ashlyn also has a history of volunteerism dating back to her college days as part of Texas A&M’s Habitat for Humanity chapter. Continuing that record of service at Kimley-Horn, Ashlyn served as a Core Volunteer with the Dallas Area Habitat for Humanity for eight years, securing over $21,000 in grants from the Kimley-Horn Foundation. She was invited to serve on the Kimley-Horn Foundation Board for a three-year term and has been instrumental in brainstorming annual charitable giving initiatives and crafting new funding mechanisms, including ad-hoc funding requests and a pilot corporate grant program.

ENR West: Chris Miller, PE

Chris is passionate about providing affordable housing, with a history of spearheading projects that have created more than 1,300 affordable housing units across the country. Since joining Kimley-Horn in 2021, Chris has been essential in facilitating the firm’s growth in the Pacific Northwest (PNW) due to his breadth of clients, projects, and industry knowledge across 17 years of experience.

Chris’s main priority is continuing to grow Kimley-Horn’s presence, services, and impact in the PNW, and he serves as a member of the PNW senior leader group that guides regional growth strategies as well as recruit and retain top talent. As a result, Kimley-Horn’s PNW presence has grown from one office in downtown Seattle to locations in Everett, Bellevue, Spokane and Portland over the past four years. Kimley-Horn has also expanded in the region from 22 to more than 135 employees. Chris led the Bellevue office opening, which he calls home base, and has been responsible for its scaling and prosperity.

Because of his impact, Kimley-Horn asked Chris to serve as an office practice leader. In that role, Chris has facilitated the regional strategies he helped develop since 2021 and is excited to continue building a culture in which all employees flourish. In addition to his leadership and mentorship within the firm, Chris has been heavily involved in the NAIOP Washington State chapter for more than 10 years, building strong relationships with a range of professionals through his service on the Developing Leaders Committee, Summer Social Committee, East Side Committee, South Sound Committee, and Membership Committee.

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