Coffman Promotes Stielstra to Principal
Coffman Engineers announced the promotion of Matt Stielstra to Principal and Structural Department Manager at the Anchorage Office.
Stielstra received his bachelor’s in architecture from Oklahoma State University and his master’s from Penn State University. He worked at an A/E firm in Springfield, Missouri his first year after graduate school before moving back to his home state of Alaska and joining Coffman in the fall of 2008. Matt is a licensed civil engineer in Alaska, a license structural engineer in Alaska & Hawaii, and a licensed Building Systems Engineer (Architectural Engineer) in Washington.
Stielstra has worked on an array of building and nonbuilding structures for industrial, oil & gas, commercial, and government clients. Project types have varied from steel framed modules on Alaska’s North Slope, to wood framed rural schools, to concrete warehouses in Guam. He has designed structures utilizing lumber/timber, light gauge steel, structural steel, masonry, cast-in-place and precast concrete.
Current Issue
September 2026
What happens when a city with fewer than 300 residents becomes a major freight and tourism hub, despite being accessible only by boat, plane, or a one-lane highway/railroad tunnel managed on a strict schedule?
If you’re in the City of Whittier, you get busy. The city has two separate transportation planning efforts underway, including a safety action plan under the federal Safe Streets and Roads for All initiative, which focuses on improving safety for pedestrians, cyclists, motorists, and emergency responders. The second is Whittier Moves, the city’s transportation master plan, which serves as the long-term roadmap for growth.