Holly Rybinski, P.E.
Holly Rybinski is a Professional Traffic Operations Engineer and a licensed Professional Engineer in Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. She was first inspired to pursue traffic engineering at the University of Delaware. She further developed her academic roots at the University of California at Berkeley, where she had a small role in shaping the architecture of US intelligent transportation systems (ITS).
Holly founded Rybinski Engineering ten years ago. The company’s mission is to create safe, efficient, and sustainable transportation solutions by fostering an exceptional environment for its team of experts to perform at their best. Her persistence and assertiveness in helping teams achieve project goals – as well as her dedication to animal rescue – took form in her company’s logo, which shows a bird dog on point. Holly's fascination with team building and professional relationships has built a unique work environment at Rybinski Engineering. Employees work from home, enjoying a shorter work week and a flexible work schedule.
For more than ten years, Holly developed and taught traffic and ITS course material for the University of Delaware. She has continued to teach as a consultant for DelDOT’s Transportation Management Center. In recognition of her academic influence, Holly was awarded the 2018 Outstanding Alumni Award by the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UD.
Holly enjoys working on all stages of projects, from research to planning to design, construction, and operations. She has served as traffic engineer and/or project manager for dozens of engineering projects in Delaware, including some of the state’s first roundabouts on Choptank Road in southern New Castle County, traffic studies in all three counties—multiple times in the past 20 years—and helping the City of Wilmington and DelDOT manage traffic during the I-95 Restore the Corridor project that is currently under construction. Today, as Rybinski Engineering’s President and CEO, she still enjoys contributing her technical expertise to solving transportation challenges.
Nicholas Dean
Nicholas Dean is a Project Engineer with the Bridge Design section at the Delaware Department of Transportation (DelDOT). Nick was born and raised in Frederica, Delaware and graduated from Polytech High School in 2005. Nick earned both his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Civil Engineering from the University of Delaware in 2010 and 2018, respectively. He has been a registered Professional Engineer in the State of Delaware since 2016.
Nick began his career at DelDOT in 2012 as a Project Engineer in the Bridge Design group. He was promoted to the position of Supervising Engineer in 2018, where he led a group of engineers and consultants from project initiation through project completion. In 2021, Nick elected to return to the role of Project Engineer to pursue his passion for design.
At DelDOT, Nick has been instrumental in advancing the Department’s Accelerated Bridge Construction (ABC) program and ensuring that Delaware is at the forefront of innovation. Nick was the lead designer on Bridge 1-438 in New Castle County, Delaware’s first all-prefabricated bridge. This project utilized precast bridge elements and Ultra High Performance Concrete (UHPC) joints to accelerate the construction timeline from the typical 75 days to 31 days; it also employed Delaware’s first, and the nation’s second, application of a UHPC overlay. In addition, Nick was the lead designer of one of two overpasses replaced as part of the I-95/SR-141 Interchange Project, where the Department employed precast columns and pier caps, and prefabricated steel superstructure modules, which resulted in a time savings of over 250 bridge construction days. Currently, Nick is managing a CM/GC project involving a proposed lateral bridge slide, and he is also the lead designer on a bridge replacement project involving Delaware’s first fully precast approach slab, precast sleeper slab, and precast deck bulb tee beam. Because of his work with innovative ABC techniques, Nick has been invited to present papers at conferences like the National Accelerated Bridge Construction Conference, International Bridge Conference, International Interactive Symposium on UHPC, and the World Steel Bridge Symposium.
Nick is also involved in a number of outreach programs aimed at developing an interest and excitement for civil engineering. Along with his colleagues, Nick helped to develop a Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) outreach program to teach Delaware students (2nd-12th grades) about civil engineering concepts through presentations, career fairs, and hands-on activities. In 2015, Nick was honored as a State of Delaware Employee of the Year in recognition of his student outreach efforts. For the past five years, Nick has managed DelDOT Bridge Design’s STEM outreach initiative, spearheading an effort to extend the reach of the program throughout the state. He has encouraged other DelDOT Bridge Design engineers to participate, allowing them to share their own unique experiences while continuing to further develop the initiative. Prior to 2020, Nick and his team gave over 40 presentations and reached over 2,000 students per year; since then, DelDOT Bridge Design has continued its outreach efforts virtually. In 2021, Nick and a colleague received the “Rookie of the Year” Award from Junior Achievement USA, a non-profit that inspires and prepares young people for success, in recognition of their accomplishments in student outreach.
In 2018, with the support of his supervisor, Craig Stevens, Nick initiated the Delaware Bridge Design Competition. This event is a hands-on engineering competition geared towards students interested in the math, science, and engineering fields, and is designed to encourage middle school and high school students to address real-world problems and inspire them to consider careers in transportation and civil engineering. In its first year, the competition consisted of 11 teams from five schools; under Nick’s leadership and with the help of DelDOT Bridge Design and other staff, the competition swelled to 81 teams from 25 schools in 2019. Returning for its third year, 72 teams will complete virtually in the 2022 Bridge Design Competition.
Nick currently resides in Frederica, Delaware with his girlfriend, Alex. He enjoys playing golf, exercising, coaching baseball at Polytech High School, and spending time with family, friends, and dog.