Having always called Memphis home, Brad Davis knows as well as anyone that the story of that iconic “Home of the Blues” along the Mississippi River is a complicated one, right down to the most ambitious, unfolding infrastructure makeover the city has ever undertaken.
The same city that swaddles itself in musical influencers Elvis Presley, B.B. King and Johnny Cash as its favorite sons also is known for pain and struggle. Anguished strains of blues ooze from Beale Street’s clubs, not far from the former motel that’s now the National Civil Rights Museum.
But more than anything, this barbecue-revered place where Davis attended local schools, earned a college degree, served as an assistant city engineer and now raises his family is steeped in moxie and pride. And all of it is underscored by the sweeping sewer system improvement program that Davis proudly helps oversee for Kansas-based Black & Veatch, the global engineering and construction giant that hired him especially for the job.