Stantec is beefing up its Rhode Island presence with two additions to its New England transportation practice.

Former Massachusetts Department of Transportation official Walter Heller will join Stantec’s Providence office as a senior associate, managing the design and construction programs for roadways, bridges and transportation facilities throughout Rhode Island. Derek Hug is the company’s newest senior transportation engineer and will support the transportation group’s planning, design and engineering for various state projects.

Heller was previously MassDOT’s District 6 highway director, overseeing transportation design and construction programs in 20 Boston-area municipalities. He was the statewide director of MassDOT’s $3B accelerated bridge building program before his six-year highway director tenure.

Hug was a project manager at Fuss & O’Neill, a civil and environmental engineering consulting firm, before joining Stantec. He spent 16 years at the company managing a variety of traffic and transportation engineering projects, including traffic studies and road reconstructions.

Stantec has a nearly 800-person New England regional team, and the timely transportation hires come as President Donald Trump is looking to notch his next legislative victory with a sizable infrastructure bill. He called for $1.5 trillion in infrastructure spending during his Jan. 30 State of the Union address, much to the relief of a country in dire need of repair.

The American Society of Civil Engineers gave the U.S. a D+ in grading the state of its aging infrastructure, and the organization highlighted Rhode Island’s bridges and roads as ones in need. The ASCE said driving on roads in need of repair in the state cost each driver $810 annually, and nearly 25% of Rhode Island’s bridges are structurally deficient.