Mamo Assefa dreamed of becoming an engineer since ninth grade, however he says that it was after earning a degree in civil engineering at the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities, that he became truly inspired. He then learned about Delon Hampton, Ph.D., a trailblazer in the industry, who founded the black-owned design and construction firm, Delon Hampton & Associates (DHA), in 1973.  Assefa read about the challenges Dr. Hampton faced early in his career, during the 1960s, when there were not many African American civil engineers, and noted that “His writings in ASCE magazines directly spoke to my experience of being the only African American engineer on a construction site , he understood what I felt. That’s when I decided I wanted to work for DHA.”

After leaving Minnesota and moving to the DMV, he worked for a few engineering firms before eventually joining DHA in 2001. From there Mamo worked alongside Dr. Hampton as DHA grew in size, and stature to become of the premier minority-owned engineering companies in the country.

When Dr. Hampton officially retired in 2018, Mamo became the Owner, President and Chairman of the Board of Delon Hampton & Associates (DHA).  The Member Firm has distinguished itself as a partner on transportation, transit, aviation, water, wastewater, land development, and infrastructure projects in Washington, D.C., Baltimore, New York, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Chicago, Memphis, Florida and Puerto Rico.

Since taking an ownership stake in the company, Mamo has brought his 20 years of experience with the company, and nearly 40 years in the engineering expertise, to help shape the future for DHA. Mamo’s superior technical knowledge combined with excellent management skills, enables him to customize services for each client. He is focused on exceeding client expectations, and constantly pushing DHA to the forefront of the engineering industry, through unparalleled design, construction management and inspection services.

Before becoming President, Mamo lead DHA’s Engineering department, and worked on numerous projects in Building & Land development, Infrastructure, Water & Wastewater, and Transportation. Mamo has specific experience in the design and management of civil engineering projects. Mamo’s technical expertise includes stormwater management, environmental permit compliance, sediment and erosion control, grading, drainage, and hydraulic and hydrologic modeling studies of watersheds and sub watersheds. Mamo is knowledgeable of policies and procedures for the design of facilities, and the preparation of studies, data analysis, and rehabilitation recommendations, developing sewer rehabilitation design alternatives, evaluations and reports, schematic design, design development, construction documents, construction bid evaluation, construction phase services and design reviews for various clients.  He is also a Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) approved expedited reviewer, having reviewed numerous storm water management and erosion and sediment control plans on behalf of MDE.