In our Ciorba Spotlight fall edition, we talked with Alexander Durbak, PE, SE, Structural Project Engineer. Alex was born and raised in Tallahassee, Florida. Alex chose to study engineering because “It’s a technical field and I didn’t want to do pure science and disliked programming”

Alex is a valuable member of our Structural Group and has contributed on many Ciorba Group projects including the award-winning Roselle Road Pedestrian Bridge and the Forest Avenue Bridge Replacement  projects. Alex’s proudest moment at Ciorba was being part of the team that designed the Roselle Road Pedestrian Bridge, not just because he likes to design things that he can point at, but because this particular project has a bicycle path, a sport that Alex is pretty passionate about.

Alex’s passion for cycling has taken him for a more than 350-mile ride from Chicago to Madison, IL. He bikes on a regular basis when the weather allows it. One of his favorite places to bike around the Chicago area is the Fox river trail which has over 40 miles of bike trail.

In his leisure time, Alex enjoys a wide range of interests and hobbies such as reading classic novels and cooking Austrian-Hungarian Empire cuisine which is close to his western Ukrainian roots. His favorite dish is Szeged-style goulash which consists of pork and sauerkraut seasoned with paprika and other spices. Alex recommends going to the Magic Jug restaurant located in Irving Park road to enjoy a good goulash and perhaps order his favorite beer, the Augustiner Helles Lager.

Alex is very fond of classic novels and enjoys reading history books, and he recommends reading The Little Demon by Fyodor Sologub a classic Russian novel full of black humor.

When asked about one piece of advice he would give to young engineers, Alex said “Get out of engineering… not because I had a bad experience but because I think it’s essential for engineers to develop more practical skills for the future, young engineers and students should work in the field before being allowed to be Engineers, so when the time to design comes they already know how things really work”.