A Pile of News - October 2020

A Pile of News: October 2020
A briefing on news and information from the pile driving contractors, associated manufacturers, construction suppliers and affiliated engineers who comprise the PDCA.
By Matt Bisbee, PDCA
From the Association & Chapters
Be sure to read the latest PileDriver magazine commemorating the 25th anniversary of PDCA! Bring your ideas to the team that develops our publications; consider joining the PDCA Communications Committee, which meets next on Oct. 9. Contact PDCA for more information.
 
PDCA pays you a virtual visit in the Regional Roundtable Series. The FREE, informational programs are scheduled in U.S. localities not presently served by a PDCA chapter. Each one-hour event, delivered through the Zoom platform, is designed for PDCA members and non-members. Remaining events:
*The Regional Roundtable Series updates Member Benefits. (Not a PDCA Member? JOIN TODAY.)
 
The PDCA 2020 Annual Conference Webinar Series resumes next week, and on the first Wednesdays of November and December. Registration is FREE to PDCA members; non-members can attend for $100 per session (ask about applying the registration fee to PDCA membership). Each program is delivered through Zoom and includes Professional Development Hours (PDH) credit. Click the program(s) below for registration; all times Eastern.
 
Deep Foundations Dynamic Testing & Analysis (DFDTA) is scheduled as a live event coming Nov. 1113 in Orlando, FL. It is held in partnership with Pile Dynamics, Inc. Early bird rates available until Oct. 16.
 
Palace intrigue: A serial contributor to A Pile of News is PDCA board member Buck Darling of Herbert F. Darling, Inc. in Buffalo, NY. This publication encourages your news "tips," however the content is largely built on items gleaned from your web and social sites. Curiously, Buck's company has neither. This begs the question, why is he so quick to share news about other PDCA members...is he deflecting our attention? Hmmmm.
Foundation Constructors Inc., you are this month's winner! Send an email to marian@piledrivers.org before the end of October to claim your prize!
News from PDCA Companies
Acquisitions & expansions:  
Anniversaries:
  • Golder started 60 years ago in a small apartment and today is a global engineering brand.
  • Holland LP of Crete, IL marks 85 years serving the rail industry.
 
Governmental relations:
Boh Bros. Construction of New Orleans, The Great Lakes Construction Company of Hinckley, OH and Vortex Marine Construction of Antioch, CA are among signatories of a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell calling for stabilization in the multiemployer pension system.
 
Nucor Tubular Products hosted U.S. Secretary of Labor Eugene Scalia for a tour of its Chicago facility.
 
ECS Limited's south region manager Benjamin Temple was part of a delegation making a special delivery from ACEC-SC PAC to South Carolina State Senator Scott Talley.
 
Recognitions:
Atlas Foundation Company of Osseo, MN earns "Veteran Owned Business" status due to newly elevated, majority owner Pete Moeller's service in the U.S. Marine Corps.
 
GZA GeoEnvironmental of Boston is among winning collaborators in a Project of the Year Award for the Encore Boston Harbor Project. The luxury hotel has a foundation that includes pre-stressed concrete piles on a remediated, redeveloped Mystic River location, once home to Monsanto.
 
Infrastructure Consulting & Engineering, PLLC of Columbia, SC shares "Best in Class" Award for work on the Gateway Interchange project in Greenville, SC.
 
Projects:
APC Construction of Algiers, LA awarded USACE contract to build a floodwall in New Orleans.
 
Boh Bros. Construction is set to begin a major initiative of the Louisiana DOTD; they received the "notice to proceed" on improvements at the I-10 and I-12 interchange in Baton Rouge.
 
Cajun Industries recently completed a bridge repair on an active, elevated rail line in Biloxi, MS.
 
Cape Romain Contractors of Charleston, SC is cleared to begin construction on the Folly Beach Pier Replacement in November; the project is expected to take 28 months.
 
Corman Kokosing is pictured on the job for an improvement at I-64 near the Richmond, VA airport in the American Cranes & Transport publication (see page 10...nod to Buck Darling).
 
Massman Construction completed a sheet pile dock at the Port of Little Rock in Arkansas; they continue performing infrastructure and site improvements on the project funded by a USDOT TIGER Grant.

Braun Intertec Corporation was tapped by NASA engineers to perform ground penetrating radar services to advance a project related to an aspirational visit to the moon by 2024.
 
Dewberry of Fairfax, VA lands contracts for public infrastructure projects through the New York City Department of Design and Construction and the Lake Dam Road Bridge Replacement in Raleigh, NC.
 
DuroTerra, Haley & Aldrich team up on the Hood Park development in this iconic Boston location.
 
Eustis Engineering recently completed a flood protection project in Jean Lafitte, LA.
 
Fugro wins a five-year contract (IDIQ) with the USACE St. Louis District for nationwide surveying and mapping services to support government owned property.
 
GeoQuip, Inc. supplied the hammers which are presently on-site for the high-profile Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel Expansion Project in coastal Virginia.
 
International project: Golder's team Down Under joins Sydney drivers celebrating what is described as the largest and most complex multi-disciplinary transport infrastructure project in Australia.
 
Giving back:
Ardaman & Associates of Orlando donates engineering services to the "Hero Homes" program, an initiative of Florida homebuilders that gives proceeds of a new home sale to local first responders.
 
Company Wrench, Ltd. sponsored the Community Giving Golf Scramble serving southern Ohio.
 
GROUP Industries, Eustis Engineering and Patriot Construction & Industrial all contributed to damage mitigation efforts in Louisiana following the late-August Category 4 Hurricane Laura.
Look Who Made the News!
ENR Mid-Atlantic published a story on the construction of a new wastewater pumping station in Wilmington, DE; Peirce Engineering designed the shoring, which was built with sheet and H-piles from Nucor Skyline, all driven into place with an International Construction Equipment (ICE) hammer.
 
The Florida Times-Union goes in-depth with Garrett Harrison, the project manager from Hal Jones Contractor in Jacksonville, FL, who leads the construction on the new pier at Jacksonville Beach. Find out how local surfers and a beach-going mom glued to her cell phone have impacted progress.
 
The Troy Record serving upstate New York, was at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new seawall. CD Perry & Sons Inc. was general contractor on the "largest infrastructure project ever" in their hometown. Dignitaries from U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer through city leadership participated in the event.
 
St. Charles Herald-Guide.com covers the ribbon cutting for a new pump station in Louisiana; a slew of dignitaries, including U.S. Rep. Garret Graves, attended; Thibodaux-based Sealevel Construction is credited in the DoTD project. Elsewhere, St. MaryNow.com, writes about Sealevel pile driving for the Bayou Chene flood control project.
 
The Post and Courier serving Charleston, SC, noted from a January news release that local contractor Jason Moore of Palmetto Pile Driving elevated to PDCA President in 2020.
 
WCSH 6 & WLBZ 2 TV reports on construction of an underground storage tank in Portland, ME; H.B. Fleming is installing two cofferdams to increase capacity and improve water quality.
 
#NYSEFloorTalk is a video series of the New York Stock Exchange which interviews leading companies in the exchange. Watch Gerdau CFO Harley Scardoelli discuss sustainability.
 
What Do You Do? Podcast features a discussion with Parker Meeks who became president of Infrastructure for TRC Companies in 2018 at 37 years old.
 
The History Channel program "Lost Gold of WWII" features Gerard Moulzolf of AET, Inc. who provides a demonstration of a petrography device.
 
Dewberry CEO Don Stone pens an essay on leadership skills he gained through military service, reflects on his recent induction into The Citadel Academy of Engineers
People on the Move
The monthly round-up:
  • Chris Normand elevates to vice president, Deep Foundations at Cajun Industries in Baton Rouge; also, Rusty DeBarge is introduced as the director of projects
  • Amanda Luong promoted to manager at Powell Foundations, Inc.'s sister company in Ontario
  • Dr. Jussara Tanesi joins American Engineering Testing as a principal engineer in St. Paul, MN
  • Mary Canino is the newest transportation group member at Braun Intertec in Minneapolis
  • Jay Harper, former official with FEMA and Dept. of Homeland Security, named VP at Dewberry
  • John Hill joins ECS Limited as senior engineer in Virginia, William Gaspar named office manager in Fredericksburg, VA. In Florida, Leslie Lawson becomes new marketing manager.
  • Jason Hertz, Caleb Welsh and Justin Smith P.E. are new additions to GeoStructures, Inc.
  • Mary Scarbrough joins S&ME, Inc. as chief human resources officer based in Raleigh, NC
  • Jeff Davis is new national director of federal services in Terracon's Orange County, CA office
  • Radha Swaminathan joins board of directors at TRC Companies, Inc.
  • Angelo Malicsi named instructional designer at Universal Engineering Sciences, Orlando
  • Matt Caskey, P.E. is the new, Memphis-based director of sales for DuroTerra of Boston
  • Gerrit van den Bos named manager of operations at PVE Equipment USA in Jacksonville, FL
 
Recognitions:
 
Our sympathies:
PDCA sends its deepest sympathies to the surviving family and dearest friends and colleagues of the late Doug Wakefield, who spent more than 40 years with Cape Romain Contractors in Charleston, SC.
Field Notes Back in Class Edition
Civics: The newest installation on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. is a Clark Construction-built monument honoring distinguished WWII general and two-term American President Dwight Eisenhower. More Civics: Holes, Inc. of Houston provides an important P.S.A. in advance of November's elections.
 
Geography: In just one week following ESC Steel LLC on social media, we learned our way around the globe. Among the several international locations to which they shipped product were Australia, Nigeria, Abu Dhabi, Mexico and the Philippines (cool bridge, btw).
 
Law: Ingenuity wins! Foundation Constructors, Inc. of Oakley, CA is cleared in federal court, which upheld a lower court's decision that a pile "end plate" in question is not protected by plaintiff's patent.
 
History: D.W. Kozera, Inc. of Baltimore is on the job in central PA and notes several historical events that have taken place near the newly installed test-piles they're evaluating.
 
Literature: Imagine fishing Bristol Bay off Alaska's coast, the hemisphere's most productive waters for Pacific salmon. It's easy to immerse yourself in that scenario; but see how the story might end if you are a civil constructor, like the founders of PND Engineers. To celebrate 40 years in business, the firm published their story in book format. [Read On a Fishing Boat at Sea].
 
Earth science or study hall, we weren't sure: The September Zoom events from GeoEngineers mark six years in a row that the firm hosted free study sessions to aspiring PEs in advance of the PE exam; firm professionals provided attendees an interactive review of the test's geotechnical section.
 
Music Quotable: "It is not the beauty of a building you should look at; it's the construction of the foundation that will stand the test of time." David Allan Coe said it and The Metaphorical Mullet shared it on social media. Regarding the latter, we will "never even call him by his name." 😉
Thanks for reading 2020's 10th installment of A Pile of News; please keep sending and posting your company announcements. And don't forget to include #PDCADriven on your social media, you might be randomly selected to win PDCA merchandise from The PDCA Store.
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