There is no higher standard that demonstrates the experience and excellence of an engineer than the designation P.E.

Richard H. Nettleton, P.E., was the Design & Construction Manager for the Virginia Beach Department of Public Utilities. It is likely that in his decades-long service to Virginia Beach, anyone involved in a public utility or engineering project has worked with Nettleton. He was the go-to.

Nettleton served in that role for the city since 1999 but has been a Virginia Beach engineer for 28 years.

“Sixteen hours ago, the lives of 12 people were cut short by a senseless, incomprehensible act of violence,” Virginia Beach City Manager Dave Hansen said Saturday morning.

WATCH: All 12 victims killed in the Virginia mass shooting are identified by name. https://t.co/4HsSoDz1gU pic.twitter.com/UzvjEtRFRv — MSNBC (@MSNBC) June 1, 2019

“All but one of the 12 victims were employees of the city of Virginia Beach. I have worked with most of them for many years. We want you to know who they were so in the days and weeks to come you will learn what they meant to all of us, to their families, to their friends and to their coworkers. They leave a void that we will never be able to fill.”

Here’s what you need to know:

Nettleton Began His Role as the Design & Construction Manager for the Virginia Beach Department of Public Utilities in 1999

Update: Police have released the names of the 12 victims. Most of them were residents here in #VirginiaBeach ? pic.twitter.com/hK2hgtAb17 — Kiahnna Patterson (@KPattersonWAVY) June 1, 2019

With a Master of Science in Civil Engineering Construction Engineering and Management, Nettleton was respected and known widely in his field. He was praised and endorsed as being highly skilled by peers and colleagues.

With his engineer colleagues, Nettleton was responsible for public utility policy implementation, RFPs, design standards, and he was a member of the Minority Business Council in the Department of Economic Development.

Nettleton was also involved in myriad city projects including the bikeways and trails plan.

Nettleton Served as an Engineer in the US Army

As he was naming the 12 innocent victims whose lives were taken Friday afternoon, Hansen said that he served with Nettleton in the 130th Engineer Brigade is an engineer brigade of the United States Army in Germany.

The engineer brigade specializes in combat engineering, construction, and bridging operations and supported the US Army in Europe from 1969 until 2007, during which it was based at Warner Barracks in the Bavarian town of Bamberg, Germany.

Nettleton had recently returned to work full time after a car crash in January, The Virginian-Pilot reports.

“You couldn’t ask for a better human being,” co-worker Dwight Farmer told the newspaper. “It was never about him.”

Tragically, Here Are the Other Victims of the Mass Shooting, All But 1 Were City Employees

All 12 Virginia Beach massacre victims identified https://t.co/T6APocx7Dv pic.twitter.com/5mCjeY3KEH — New York Post (@nypost) June 1, 2019

Laquita C. Brown, Chesapeake

Tara Welch Gallager, Virginia Beach

Mary Louise Gayle, Virginia Beach

Alexander Mikhail Gusev, Virginia Beach

Katherine A. Nixon, Virginia Beach

Christopher Kelly Rapp, Powhatan

Ryan Keith Cox, Virginia Beach

Joshua A. Hardy, Virginia Beach

Michelle “Missy” Langer, Virginia Beach

Robert “Bobby” Williams, Chesapeake

Herbert “Bert” Snelling, Virginia Beach