Jerry Westhoff

Civil engineering ' 74

Jerry Westhoff, Lincoln, Nebraska, is president and founder of JJ Westhoff Construction Co., which builds sanitary landfills for municipalities and private companies such as Waste Management and Waste Connections, coal combustion residue monofills for coal-fired power plants, as well as wastewater treatment plants and utilities throughout Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa.

Westhoff earned a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Kansas State University in 1974 and became a licensed professional engineer in 1981. He began his career with Continental Oil Company in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and then Denver, Colorado, as a field engineer. He next joined a construction company in Lincoln, Nebraska, as a project engineer overseeing its wastewater treatment plant division. In 1980, he founded JJ Westhoff Construction Co.

JJ Westhoff Construction Co. has built more than 150 wastewater treatment facilities and 90 landfill projects throughout the Midwest. He is also the managing member of Green Acres LLC and Kenosha Creek Preserve LLC, which are involved in agribusiness. He has served on the K-State civil engineering advisory council, is a member of the board of trustees of the KSU Foundation and is a life member of the American Society of Civil Engineers. He currently serves on the Carl R. Ice College of Engineering advisory council.

He and his wife Robin, a 1975 K-State graduate in home economics/family and child development, have supported the College of Engineering and the College of Health and Human Sciences at K-State, including investing in the Jerry and Robin Westhoff Concrete Mixing and Curing Lab, each college’s excellence fund, an endowed scholarship with the College of Health and Human Sciences and other areas across campus.