Excellence. Innovation. Solutions that work.
Aurora Technical Services, LLC is a Houston-based civil engineering consulting firm. Owned and operated by Rafael Ortega, PE, Aurora was founded to provide its clients with cost-effective solutions that work resulting from more than 36 years of proven, hands-on experience serving clients from California to Florida and from the Great Lakes to Texas. Mr. Ortega is nationally known as one of the leading engineers in pipeline engineering and has spent his entire career serving municipalities and agencies on some of the complicated capital improvement projects most importantly here in the greater Houston area.
For more than 35 years, Rafael led the team serving the City of Houston’s multi-year, multi-phase, multi-million-dollar Surface Water Transmission Program (SWTP) and oversaw the design of more than 500 miles of large diameter pipelines including nearly 100 miles of tunnels. This work has included performing the route alignment studies for all the SWTP projects, development of project specific phasing plans to maximize local contracting capability while at the same time mitigating potential operational impacts, detail design including development of project specific details, coordination with the overlapping governmental agencies, creating technical specifications, coordination with the general public in order to address community concerns, and constructability reviews.
Founded in 2015, Aurora has grown and provided full-service engineering, consulting, and construction management work serving public infrastructure projects for cities, counties, and other public agencies. Representative areas of engineering expertise on water, wastewater and construction field services include:
ENGINEERING
Planning + Preliminary Engineering: Hydraulic Model Reviews; Route Alternative Analysis; Rights-of-Way Determination; Permitting Support
Detail Design: Program + Project Management; Pipe Material Evaluations; Facility Connections; Metering + Regulating Stations; Technical Specifications; Tunnel Design; Value Engineering; Traffic Management; Quality Control/Assurance
Specialty Consultant: Scoping; Negotiations; Implementations
Asset Management: Prioritization; Condition Assessment; Pipe Rehabilitation
CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT
Management: Contract Negotiations; Construction Sequencing/Phasing; Claims Resolution; Cost Estimates; Schedule Evaluations; Alternative Project Delivery
Inspection Services: Site Observations; Facility Inspection; Constructability Reviews; Material Testing Oversight
