The Aquaterraian

I’m a geotechnical engineer. I’m proud to say that. I worked hard in school, interned under excellent engineers who taught me a lot about engineering judgment, took (and passed) the fundamentals of engineering and the engineering practice exams. Now, having held my P.E. license for over 23 years, I attend and present continuing education seminars every year, pay my fees and document to the powers that be that I should keep my license to practice geotechnical engineering.

I knew that I would be a geotechnical engineer since my junior year, when, in my first geotechnical engineering class, Mr. John Grosch, the managing partner at the time for the Baton Rouge office of Woodward-Clyde Consultants, Inc., visited our class and explained that the geotechnical profession required two specific things that much of civil engineering did not require. The first thing was: geotechnical engineers must get dirty. OK, no problem, I grew up getting dirty. The second thing was more daunting: geotechnical engineers must get an advanced degree. This one made me think a while, but the more I thought about the opportunities that would be afforded me as a geotechnical engineer, the more I realized that the additional education would be tolerable. From that moment on, I never looked back, and I thank the Lord that I stumbled into this profession.

I have come to realize, with the years of practice, that geotechnical engineers must use extensive judgment and is very much “art” as well as “science”. Young soils engineers, heed my words; find an intelligent, ethical and hardworking geotechnical engineer as your mentor, and listen to what he or she has to tell you. Then, enjoy the ride!

Now, I have a particular concern about our profession. We seem to be losing our grip on the professionalism side of our business. We seem to look the other way when non-engineers take it upon themselves to take technical data, make engineering calculations, render engineering opinions, and provide professional recommendations without so much as a college degree. We let our structural engineer friends tell us what to do, such as where to make borings, how deep to explore, what foundation system to use, etc. We even relegate ourselves to a contractor who provides no professional service by submitting price competitive “proposals” (a euphemism for bids) for geotechnical investigations associated with new construction. When questioned by the geotechnical engineer, many clients will say, “I would not let you bid if I didn’t think you were qualified”. The same clients would not dare choose their site development or their structural engineer based on lowest bid. The lowest price geotechnical will usually get the job. But does the client get the lowest price construction?

Let me present a hypothetical situation to make this point. Say the county is planning to build a new elementary school. The school, comprising approximately 20,000 square feet in usable classroom space, will cost about 2.5 million dollars to build. It’s time to get the geotechnical investigation done. The architect (on what basis was he/she hired?) contacts the structural engineer (same question) and says, “get me three bids for soil borings”. Well, the structural engineer is wary of the geotechnical firms who don’t seem to get things done quickly, or don’t seem to provide reasonable recommendations, so he works up a “request for proposal” for the work, and sends it out to three, “good” firms. He is a professional, fully cognizant of his limitations related to geotechnical engineering, so he makes no recommendation about the number of borings, the boring depths, the amount and type of laboratory sampling, or what aspects of the design that the geotechnical engineer must address.

Geotech no. 1, used to doing this work for decades, plans 5 borings to 25 feet for the work, a few classification tests, and gives the architect a price of $4,200 for the project. Geotech no. 2, is somewhat concerned about the expansive potential of the soils, and she plans to perform four relatively expensive swelling pressure tests. Other than that, the scope is about the same, and her price is $5,000. Geotech no 3, plans a program that includes soil borings with CPT testing, and plans to investigate 8 locations. He also thinks the soil may be expansive, and he plans swelling pressure tests. He also wants to make sure that the parking and driveway area will not provide a poor subgrade, and he plans 4 borings there, along with dynamic cone penetrometer (DCP) tests to evaluate subgrade support conditions. His price is $5,750.
Mr. structural engineer gets the proposals back. He is concerned about the CPT testing, because he has little experience with this. He doesn’t know why DCP is needed. This proposal was too high anyway (the highest of all three), so he says “no” to this ”Cadillac” proposal. He thinks that the concern over swelling potential is probably unjustified. He has done many projects in this area, and can’t remember this being a problem, so he thinks that the additional $$ for swelling tests are not necessary. He thinks that the Geotech no 2 price would be lower than Geotech No. 1 so he emails Geotech No. 2 and asks for a deduct for swelling pressure tests if unnecessary. Geotech no 2 acquiesces, and resubmits the proposal, hopeful that this cooperative spirit will show that client just how easy she is to work with. So, after spending about a day preparing request for proposals, receiving and reviewing three proposals, and negotiating changes, the structural engineer recommends to the architect to select Geotech no. 2.

The project is done, the soils, in fact, appear to be expansive, so additional swelling pressure testing is performed (after fee revision requests) and the work is satisfactorily accomplished. A good design is forthcoming for the school.
During construction, the contractor encounters variable subgrade conditions in the parking lot. The testing lab ( ABC Testing - not the geotech who performed the work) is consulted, a few test pits are performed, and the contractor, with the “lab representative” there determines that three feet of soil must come out over an approximate 8,000 square foot area. The contractor submits a change order for $10,000 to overexcavate and replace the bad area (approximately twice the total price of the original geotechnical investigation). The architect again wonders why they even worry about getting geotechnical investigations done; it seems like each project has its own set of unknowns.

One day, about a year later Geotech no 2 drives by the school on her way to work and thinks, “here is another job that went well, because I never heard a word from anyone about problems”. She turns in to take a look at the construction, curiosity about her projects being the driving force. The structure looks great. Those architects really know what they are doing. However, much to her dismay, she notices several areas where the concrete in the parking lot is cracking, and fines are migrating to the surface. “Oh well, good pavement contractors are a thing of the past”, she thinks as she heads on to the office. She also wonders if anybody even tested the subgrade or the concrete for this segment of the pavement.
About 4 years later, after the main driveway had deteriorated to the point that it was completely removed and replaced, the school board looks into what went wrong. Things got ugly, and lawyers had to get involved. This repaving had cost the school board $15,000, and somebody needed to pay them back. The architect, the structural engineer, the civil engineer, and the geotechnical engineer all had to defend their actions. A separate geotechnical engineer was hired to sort out the issues. He could not define the source of the problem with certainty, although he did either see or suspect many design and construction issues that were at least contributors to the problem. The quality control records were inadequate to really understand if the construction had met all of the requirements of the specifications. Everyone spent a lot of their own money, but no one was satisfied that the problem was satisfactorily resolved.
Geotech no 2 looked back at her original invoice for $5,500 and thinks that any profit that may have been associated with that work went away very early in the parking lot inquisition process. She has no real complaint compared to the school board, however. They were out of pocket about $30,000 in repair and consulting fees, to no avail. The contractor and the testing lab didn’t really care, they only did what they were told, because they weren’t the experts, and they had gotten all of their invoices paid.

OK, this situation is not completely hypothetical. It is like many that I have seen in my practice. The reason that everyone is unhappy here is: all three geotechnical engineering firms are not adhering to the standards for professionalism in the manner that they should. There is NO REASON why we should provide a price competitive proposal in this manner, as we develop our unique scope for the work and submit this to a relatively uninformed client. When we do perform a geotechnical investigation for a project of this nature, we MUST impress upon the client, the owner, and all professionals involved, that our investigation has just begun with the geotechnical report. Our borings and CPT tests have sampled a small space on the ground of a large site, and we have made designs on the assumption that the soil and groundwater conditions have been completely defined by these few borings. When the construction starts, the clearing and grubbing process, combined with proof rolling and foundation construction will inform us in much greater detail about the site conditions, and this work will almost always uncover a variable condition. The geotechnical engineer must be there to understand the ramifications of the change, and to implement design and construction variations to address the changes. The geotechnical engineer has the education and the experience to represent the client’s best interests when these conditions are encountered.

At Aquaterra, we will do our very best to inform out clients of these misunderstandings that exist in the professional nature of geotechnical engineering. If we remain apathetic about this growing issue, we are doing our part to rid the civil engineering profession of geotechnical engineers and replace them with drillers and engineering technicians. People often tell me that geotechnical engineers can be “strange birds”. If we don’t begin to take our profession more seriously, our flock may also be on our way to extinction.

Victor R. Donald, P.E.

I’ve been saying in posts throughout this blog that business is about relationships. Harry Beckwith in his book What Clients Love: A Field Guide to Growing Your Business has this to say about sales:
“What the best sales people sell in order:

Themselves,
Their company,
Their service or product, and last
Their price.

What do ordinary salespeople sell?

Their price,
Their service or product,
Their company, and last
Themselves.”

That is, they focus on the relationship to build trust and a desire for the client to have an experience with your firm. They then sell the company, to let the client know they can trust that they’ll get what they need. Next they sell the service to let the client know that the service provided matches their need. And last, they sell the price. The price has to be in line; but, it is often not the most important factor. If it is, then perhaps the client does not value adequately the service, the company, or your relationship. Experience indicates that this client will be much more difficult to satisfy and will likely not be loyal to the next transaction. Build relationships. Build a great company. Have a great service. Lastly, provide a price that matches the value of the service and the relationship.