A SON REMEMBERS
The founding members of SEH, left to right: Bill Banister, Duane Elliott, Norman Hendrickson and Roger Short.
Short Elliot Hendrickson – more
than 90 years in business – employs
engineers, architects, scientists,
planners and surveyors to help
government, industrial and commercial
clients find answers to complex
challenges. Its corporate headquarters,
located in Vadnais Heights since 1989,
was the first business to be built in
then-new City Center.
• 1927: Banister Engineering is founded
by Percy Banister in North St. Paul,
to design solutions for bringing
electricity to rural Minnesota.
• 1945: Percy’s son, Bill, joined the
company and developed a municipal
division.
• 1947: Roger Short – a 1942 University
of Minnesota civil engineering
graduate – joined the team; he
specialized in all phases of water and
sewage work and became a partner
in 1952.
• By 1952: The company had phased
out the rural electrification division
– after bringing power and light
to more than 60,000 farms across
Minnesota, Wisconsin and North and
South Dakota.
• 1960s: Duane Elliott and Norman
Hendrickson were hired. Sanitary
sewers and sewage and wastewater
treatment plants remained the
company’s primary line of work; other
projects incl. water supply, treatment,
storage and distribution system
projects, street and bridge projects,
cemetery layouts, airports.
• 1970s: The company became
Banister, Short, Elliott, Hendrickson &
Associates and handled design and
technical work, environmental and
social concerns, legal and funding
issues, and planning and inspection
processes. Downtown developments,
shopping mall projects and
complicated highway and interchange
designs were added to the company
catalogue.
• 1972: The Federal Clean Water
Act of 1972 had a huge impact on
the company and the industry as a
whole. Facilities had to be built with
more precision. To reach these high
levels of accuracy, they were often
computer-controlled, a technology
that was new at the time.
• 1977: Roger Short became company
president, when Bill Banister retired;
the company changed its name to
Short Elliott Hendrickson, Inc.
• 1982 – 1988: Short retired in 1982;
Hendrickson retired in 1985; and
Elliott, who became president after
Short left, retired in 1988.
• 1986: SEH welcomed its first female
engineer, Sue Mason, who remains
with SEH today, leading a team of
civil engineers focused on renewing
infrastructure across the Twin Cities
metropolitan area.
• 1995: SEH became employee-
owned – a dream of Short’s – with the
installation of the Employee Stock
Ownership Plan (ESOP).
• Today, SEH has 31 offices in nine
states, projects in 42 states, and a
total of over 800 employees; also, it
has expanded its work internationally,
in Canada and South America.
Roger Short’s son, Bill Short, is the Clerk-
Treasurer for White Bear Township and says
SEH has provided consulting services to
White Bear Township as long as he’s been
there – 30 years. The Roger Short family
lived in Roseville; Short died in 1999. Bill
says, “My Dad was particularly involved with
Roseville, serving as the city engineer and
then consulting engineer for many years.
The firm formed close friendships with
mayors, council members, city attorneys,
general contractors and legislators. They
worked all over the metro and state.”
In fact, noted on the SEH website is
a project in 1963 that included the
plans, specifications and supervision of
construction for a water booster station and
supervisory control system for a 1.5 million-
gallon elevated water tank for the growing
city of Roseville … a water tower still in
operation today.
Short says, “My Dad spent a lot of time at
city council meetings and public hearings
and often went back to the office on nights
and on Saturdays. He was intense, focused,
organized, disciplined, production-oriented,
no-nonsense … and sometimes “patience
challenged.” But, I enjoyed going to the
office with him when I was a youngster, and
my brother, Steve, or I would accompany
him on storm sewer inspections during
and following rainstorms on nights and
weekends.
“I was fortunate to work on survey crews
in high school and as an inspector while in
college. I was able to see my Dad through
the eyes of the other employees. They
worked well together. And, my Dad had
the utmost respect for the dedication
and skill of the survey crew chiefs with
whom I worked. Because I was a boss’ kid,
people treated me nicely. I got to know
many of the guys on a first-name basis. I
enjoyed watching their growth through the
decades.”
Interestingly, one of the company’s principal
engineers remembered by Bill Short is
Wilbur Liebenow, an early Vadnais Heights
resident who was the village’s first planning
commission chairman from 1959 – 1963.
Liebenow oversaw laws against improper
sewage disposal and was responsible for
submitting a workable comprehensive
zoning plan and for supervising many new
housing developments for the growing area.
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