Dan will be honored at the DFI36th Annual Conference on Deep Foundations in Boston, October 19 to 21. He will receive the award at the annual awards banquet on Thursday, October 20th. From DFI:
The Deep Foundations Institute is pleased to announce Dan Brown, P.E., Ph.D., as the recipient of the DFI 2011 Distinguished Service Award. The award, in its 31st year, honors individuals chosen by their peers for exceptional contributions to DFI and to the industry.
Brown began his career with a B.S. from Georgia Tech, and later received his Ph.D. at the University of Texas, Austin, in only 28 months, while working. He then taught at Auburn University for 22 years before setting up his own consulting firm in Tennessee. The Winter 2011 issue of the DFI magazine included a profile of Brown that chronicled the universal admiration and regard for him within the industry. He was cited by others for his expertise, his intelligence and ability to teach others. Brown and his firm are sought out for advice everywhere.
The May/June 2011 issue of ASCE’s Geo-Strata focuses on bridge geotechnics. Dan contributed an article to this issue summarizing key constructability considerations for bridge drilled shaft designers. Specifically, the article focuses on fresh concrete properties and reinforcement design. Discussion of self consolidating concrete (SCC) and column-shaft connections is also included. The article has been added to our publications page and is available through the link above. Additional details related to bridge drilled shaft constructability can be found in the 2010 FHWA Drilled Shaft Manual here.
We are pleased to announce that John P. Turner, Ph.D., P.E., has joined our firm as a Senior Principal. Turner is Professor Emeritus, University of Wyoming, where he spent the past 25 years teaching and conducting research in geotechnical engineering. He has undergraduate degrees in both Geology and Civil Engineering and earned his doctorate in Geotechnical Engineering from Cornell University. John will bring his considerable expertise in design and construction of deep foundations to our practice. He is a co-author of the 2010 FHWA manual “Drilled Shafts: Construction Procedures and LRFD Design Methods” and the author of NCHRP Synthesis 360, “Rock-Socketed Shafts for Highway Structure Foundations”, as well as over 100 technical publications on the topics of deep foundations, earth retention, and landslide stabilization. Early in his career John was an engineering geologist with Herbert and Associates and he maintained his involvement in consulting throughout his academic career. Recent projects include design of rock-socketed drilled shafts for bridges at Pitkins Curve in Big Sur and the Antlers Bridge on I-5 in northern California. John is a recipient of the President’s Award and the Distinguished Service Award from the ADSC: International Association of Foundation Drilling. He has maintained active membership in ASCE for over 30 years and is a past chairman of the Committee on Deep Foundations of the Geo-Institute of ASCE.
Dr. Erik Loehr, P.E. was honored by the ADSC with the ADSC Outstanding Service Award, presented at the President’s Luncheon at their 2011 annual meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana (Feb 1 –5, 2011). The award recognized Erik’s research in the use of micropiles for slope stabilization and as foundations. From the March/April 2011 edition of Foundation Drilling:
We here at DBA would like to say Congratulations! to Robert Thompson for receiving the specialty certification Diplomate, Geotechnical Engineering (D.GE) from The Academy of Geo-Professionals (AGP). Robert received the certification at the recent Geo-Institute’s Annual Conference, GeoFrontiers, in Dallas, Texas. The excerpt below comes from the AGP web site. Robert is on the bottom row, second-to-last on the right.
AGP’s 5th Ceremony in Dallas, TX
AGP’s latest ceremony was held in conjunction with Geo-Institute’s Annual Conference, GeoFrontiers, in Dallas, Texas on March 13th at 7:00 PM Central. The ceremony, which was the Academy’s fifth, was the first held 2011. About 25 Diplomates were in attendance at this event, bringing the total number of Diplomates to over 200!
After 5 years, Dan Brown and Associates finally has a logo! We tried to keep it simple, yet still reflect what we do best – deep foundations. That means piles, micropiles, CFA piles, as well as drilled shafts! While not necessarily the most exciting thing an engineering firm can do, it is part of growing up as a company. Hopefully you will see it more often at conferences and in publications.
The Winter 2011 issue of Deep Foundations features Dan in its “People, Projects and Equipment” column. Virginia Fairweather with DFI talked to several folks in the geotechnical engineering community to learn about Dan, including yours truly. If you are interested in getting a glimpse inside the man who is Dr. Dan Brown, just check out the link below. This column is just one of many items featured in each issue of Deep Foundations, only from DFI. If you aren’t a member of DFI, then consider becoming one!
DBA is part of a team led by Parsons Transportation Group that was selected to design the replacement of the Hurricane Deck Bridge over The Lake of the Ozarks in Camden County Missouri. MoDOT has awarded the design contract to Parsons. DBA will be the lead geotechnical engineer with Terracon on the team providing drilling and laboratory services, as well as some foundation engineering support services. Parsons was chosen due to the innovative approach the team proposed that includes reusing the existing piers (from ENR.com):
MoDOT chose Parsons for proposing an innovative approach to construction that involves the use of temporary pier widening and shifting the existing superstructure over. This method will allow traffic to be maintained on the existing bridge while the new bridge is constructed, potentially resulting in significant cost savings.
A little history of the bridge can be found at Go2Lakeofthe Ozarks.com, including how it got its name:
Hurricane Deck Bridge of Ozarks crosses the main channel of the lake of approximately mile marker 35. It carries Missouri highway 5 between Versailles and Camdenton. It was built in 1936 –five years after the lake filled. It was named as Hurricane Deck because it was heard that a tornado struck that area which was locally "Hurricanes". It is a nautical term associated with river steamboats. The Hurricane Deck was the uppermost deck which provides and allows everyone to experience the pleasant breezy place and the passing scenery.
The new I-70 bridge over the Mississippi River near St. Louis, Missouri is quite the project. When completed, it will be the third longest cable-stayed bridge in the United States, with a 1,500-ft main span. Most significantly for the geotechnical community, the bridge made history when one of its 11-ft diameter drilled shafts resisted a world record breaking 36,000 tons (bi-directional) during an O-cell load test. The bridge has already seen press in Civil Engineering Magazine(July 2010, page 30-32), at ENR.com, and in a post by Robert on this blog. Now, an article by DBA’s Paul Axtell is featured in the September/October issue of Foundation Drilling Magazine. The editor summarized the article saying:
The information in the following article is a composite of material that came to Foundation Drilling Magazine from three separate sources. Part I is based on information gleaned from an article that was published on the Associated Press news wire. Part II is excerpted from ENR’s August 18th, E-Newsletter. Part III was provided by Paul Axtell and Dan Brown of ADSC Technical Affiliate company, Dan Brown and Associates. The bridge project is of interest in general. The Osterberg Load Cell test will be of particular interest to professionals in the deep foundation industry, and specifically for those who work in the drilled shaft segment.
