Joey Hudnall, PE
President,
Chief Executive Officer
Joey joined Neel-Schaffer in 1995, and on April 15, 2022 he was named President and Chief Executive Officer, responsible for the daily operations of a growing firm that now operates out of 38 offices across nine states.
Joey served as Chief Operations Officer from 2009 until he succeeded Hibbett Neel as firm President. Joey serves on the firm’s Board of Directors. He is based in the Corporate headquarters office in Jackson (MS) but frequently travels to Neel-Schaffer’s many other offices across the Southeast.
Joey joined Neel-Schaffer in 1995 as the Engineer Manager of the firm’s Columbus (MS) office. In 2005, after Hurricane Katrina decimated the Mississippi Gulf Coast and other parts of the state, Joey played a critical role in Neel-Schaffer’s involvement in recovery efforts, providing corporate oversight and staffing management for the firm’s short- and long-term projects, ranging from debris management to infrastructure reconstruction projects that totaled more than $100 million.
In 2009, Joey was named COO.
In the past decade, Neel-Schaffer has grown from a firm that provided services for local civil engineering projects to one of the leading firms in the Southeast, and Joey helped lead that transition. In 1994, Neel-Schaffer broke into Engineering News-Record’s list of the Top 500 Design Firms in the country, at 458th. Neel-Schaffer has been a mainstay in those rankings since, checking in at 197th in 2022.
As COO, among Joey’s many accomplishments was helping open Neel-Schaffer operations in Columbia, SC, Mobile, AL, and New Orleans, LA, and engineering acquisitions in Shreveport, LA, Houston, TX, and Arlington, TX, expanding Neel-Schaffer’s footprint while strengthening the firm’s core disciplines.
Joey has developed a broad technical background in planning, engineering, and construction management with emphasis in water, wastewater, airports, highway, urban drainage, structures, landfills, and municipal engineering. He has directed numerous large, complex projects in all these fields.
