Congratulations and Well Wishes to Douglas Sabin, P.E.
By: Tori Elliott| Marketing Coordinator
In December of 2020 management and employees of MTC said a fond and grateful farewell to Douglas Sabin, P.E. after more than 30 years of dedicated service to our company’s commercial and municipal clients.
Like many Michigan engineers, Doug graduated from Michigan Tech. After working in the geotechnical and materials testing fields in Illinois and Indiana, he joined MTC in 1987 and quickly received promotions until he was the Geotechnical Department Manager, Engineering Division Manager, and Vice President.
“For 33 years Doug has provided calm and confident management along with sound judgment on engineering projects that have served our clients extremely well,” stated Steve Elliott, P.E., MTC’s president. “With wisdom and humility, he has mentored younger engineers and embodied our core values of trust, ethics, service, and technical expertise. We congratulate Doug on his well-earned retirement.”
Doug was an MTC board member for over 20 years and helped guide and support the firm through strategic growth and numerous initiatives.
Over its 50-plus year history, MTC has worked on some of the most important projects that shaped Michigan communities. Doug was an integral part of many of those projects.
“My goal after being hired was to work for five years at MTC, then move on to something else,” Doug reflected. “But we really always aren’t in control of our destiny and bigger and better plans were in store for me. It was great to see how much the company changed and grew over the three decades I was there, yet it still remained true to its core of trust, ethics, service, and technical leadership.”
He continued, “I came from national firms that seemed to stress more the business side of things over the technical merits of getting the right information, engineering analysis and recommendations that would best serve the clients’ interests.”
Doug recalled his early days at MTC working on projects for the Army Corps of Engineers and the earliest Meijer expansions.
“I loved having that type of hands-on control of the process, and it really helped a young engineer to learn,” he noted. “Steve Elliott from day one was a great mentor to me: he always took the time to explain analyses needed for a given problem and provided input which led to much of my growth. I tried to pass this type of mentoring on to the young engineers working for me.”
Doug and his wife Jocelyn are looking forward to having more time to spend on traveling. According to Doug, they plan to start by exploring parts of Michigan they have not seen (including finding some new trout streams!) then expanding to other states and countries. He also hopes to spend more time outdoors enjoying hiking, biking, golfing, and hunting.
Good luck, Doug! We wish you the best.
And if you do find those new trout streams – well, we’d like to know about them!
