Val McCaw was recently elected to serve as the President-Elect of the Beacon Mental Health Foundation. Her work on behalf of Beacon, which follows a term as the President of the Northland Regional Chamber of Commerce, is a natural part of her core belief that she is here to improve our community. Improving communities is what she has sought to do professionally, as a civil engineer, and civically, as a dependable volunteer.

Val was born in Kansas City, but her father worked for Gulf, so she was able to live in Tulsa, South Korea, and Broken Arrow while growing up. In grade school, she recalls a unit on building cities, and she was hooked on civil engineering. When it came time for college, she was off to Oklahoma State, where she was surprised to find she was one of only 3 women in her graduating class. “Nobody ever told me that girls weren’t engineers,” she recalls.

After starting a career in Oklahoma, she moved to Kansas City in 2001 where she worked for a large firm. She decided to start her own firm, VSM Engineering, LLC, and her business took off when she was awarded the site design work for the Sprint Center. When she looks at the course of her career, she sees many alternate paths, but she is proud to have built the life she wanted. Her firm is thriving, and she is now the proud grandmother of a little girl who is just starting to walk.

Her work on the Foundation board has been rewarding. “I love learning about all the programs that Beacon has to help our community,” she reports, and “the mission is extremely important to me.” She notes that society is getting harder on people, and she works to make our community a safer place for people, whether it is through a safe and well-thought out civil engineering project, or through helping Beacon provide access to vital mental health services.

Val McCaw’s service to the Beacon Mental Health Foundation has helped her fulfill her mission to help her community, and Beacon is fortunate to have her working on behalf of our community.

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