It has been a busy time since our last post, so it is time to “catch up” on the growth of our staff over the last year or so since the last update. Here are the newest faces of DBA. You can find resumes on the About US – Other Engineers page.

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Cody Coonradt, E.I. (Staff Engineer) He had several years of experience as a field and laboratory technician before completing his BS and MS degrees in Civil Engineering at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York. While completing his BS and MS degrees, Cody worked at a geotechnical engineering firm in Buffalo, NY. His experience includes site investigation, stormwater management, slope stabilization, load transfer platforms, retaining structures, and ground improvement. Cody and his family have moved to Knoxville, Tennessee where Cody will be based.

Tayler Day, E.I. (Project Engineer) joined us in Knoxville in October of 2016. He is a graduate of the University of Missouri, with BS and MS degrees in Civil Engineering. Talyer is in the process of completing his Ph.D. at Mizzou as well. Tayler is applying his experience in field testing to many projects with a wide variety of foundations types, working from our Knoxville office.

Isaac Jeldes, Ph.D. (Project Engineer) started at DBA in August, 2017. He is a native of Chile and is a civil engineer whose passion is geotechnical engineering. He holds MS and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Tennessee. Dr. Jeldes specializes in slope stability analyses and design based on mechanical, erosional, morphological evolution concepts, and numerical techniques for geotechnical modeling. He has international experience in field exploration, foundations, ground improvement, pavement geomechanics, and retaining structures, including sheet pile walls, braced excavations, soil nailing, and active/passive anchored systems. Before Joining DBA, Dr. Jeldes served as faculty for the Engineering Fundamentals Program at the University of Tennessee and as the assistant engineer for research stations at the same university.

Will Shaffer, E.I. (Staff Engineer) is our first new team member for 2019. Will graduated with his BS in Engineering with a Civil Emphasis from Marshall University in 2017, and then obtained his MS in civil engineering from Virginia Tech at the end of 2018. While at VT he was the Charles E. Via Scholar and he conducted research on geophysics and construction vibrations. He has joined us in the Knoxville office.

Sam Sternberg, P.E., D.GE (Senior Engineer) came aboard in April of 2018. Sam joins DBA with over 16 years of geotechnical engineering experience.  He received a BS degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Kentucky, M.Div degree from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and a MS degree in Civil Engineering from the University of South Alabama.  He has worked in consulting  on numerous private and public projects with primary focus on DOT Transportation projects around the Southeastern US.  He has managed and supported numerous bridge foundation designs, shallow and deep foundations, soft soil remediation, retaining walls (including cantilever, and mechanically stabilized earth walls), bulkhead and relieving platforms.  Sam will be working based in Daphne, Alabama