GeoEngineers, Inc. is closing out 2017 by creating a new Pipelines business unit to help its professionals focused on pipeline services collaborate and work across geographic regions even more effectively. GeoEngineers’ busy pipelines practice has ranked in the top half of Trenchless Technology Magazine’s Top 50 Trenchless Design Firms industry survey for the past 10 years.
Principal Mark A. Miller, PE, who works from GeoEngineers Springfield, Missouri office, will lead the new Pipelines Business Unit with support from two team leaders; Principal Jonathan L. Robison, PE, also located in Springfield and Principal Trevor N. Hoyles, PE in the Raleigh, North Carolina office.
GeoEngineers also hired veteran pipeline industry project manager, Gary Castleberry, in November 2017 to help grow its pipelines practice. Castleberry is a senior construction consultant with 17 years of experience in the pipeline industry. He started his career as a drilling mud technician, monitoring drilling mud volume and properties on trenchless construction sites, and worked his way into project management of large pipeline routes. Most recently, Castleberry was a field engineer for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which is comprised of 600 miles of natural gas pipeline extending from West Virginia to North Carolina. Now at GeoEngineers, Castleberry continues to collaborate with project and construction management and engineering staff on the Atlantic Coast Pipeline’s 28 horizontal directional drills (HDDs) and one Direct Pipe® installation. Other recent projects Castleberry has worked on include the nearly 500-mile-long, award-winning Sabal Trail Pipeline extending from Alabama to Florida with 21 horizontal directional drill (HDD) installations and the New Jersey-New York Expansion Project extending from Linden, New Jersey to Manhattan, New York. The 20-mile project route included nine HDDs, a marine tie-in of two HDDs in the near shore Hudson River waters adjacent to Jersey City, New Jersey, and a landfall HDD tie-in in Manhattan, New York.
Most of GeoEngineers’ business units are organized geographically and tend to serve clients within their regions. The company’s pipeline work is distinctly different. Oil and gas projects are geographically dispersed, and staff are regularly deployed to project sites throughout the country.
“Our work is international. Our clients are everywhere, and our projects are everywhere, so from a structural standpoint, this made sense,” said Miller.
GeoEngineers’ pipeline services include the entire life cycle of trenchless projects—from concept to completion. This includes geohazards analysis and geological desktop studies; pipeline route selection assistance; feasibility analysis of trenchless methods, including geometry, workspace and constructability; and geotechnical investigations before engineering and construction even begins. GeoEngineers continues to assist in pipeline projects with trenchless design engineering, bid specification preparation and pre-construction support, permitting, construction observation with detailed daily reporting, and post-construction documentation.
“The new unit will improve our ability to support clients and give them more consistent relationships and work products,” Miller explained.
GeoEngineers, founded in 1980 and headquartered in Seattle, Washington, is an integrated earth science and technology firm with 13 offices in Missouri, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, California, Utah, North Carolina and Louisiana. GeoEngineers specializes in crafting unique environmental, geotechnical, and ecological solutions for the energy, transportation, water and natural resource, federal, and development sectors, and it is currently ranked #223 in the 2017 Engineering News Record Top 500 National Design Firms survey. For more information, please visit www.geoengineers.com.