April 2021

In this issue:

1. CalGeo CONNECTIONS 2021: Going Virtual
2. Salary Survey Call for 2020 Data
3. Legislative Visit Week: Register now!
4. Contracts course coming in May: Register now!
5. Rocscience Technical Conference April 20-21
6. Write-Right Web series starts this May
7. Bachner Blog: Free for 2-months
8. Looking for new hires? Use CalGeo's Career Center
9. Upcoming Events - the e.Calendar

CalGeo CONNECTIONS 2021: Going Virtual

CalGeo's is excited to announce our first VIRTUAL conference! We are calling it CONNECTIONS 2021. Join us on April 28-30th for a chill 3-days of technical, management and fun sessions to increase your knowledge and share experience with our industry.

We've spaced out the program to include just two main sessions per day. Lots of time to get your regular work done and still sign-in early to chat with long lost friends!

Download a PDF of the program HERE or read it on-line HERE

Now more than ever we need to reconnect with others in our industry to share our experiences from the good, the bad and the ugly. Plan for the future and learn from each other's triumphs and tribulations.

We are excited to bring you some great speakers, networking/video chat opportunities and some fun events this year.

Another ZOOM call or webinar? NO WAY!

Our conference platform, Pheedloop, allows for a lot of great features we think you'll love:

Don't miss our exciting FUN social events included in your registration (alcohol shipments are an extra charge):

• Wednesday April 28th, 6pm: Trivial Night! Winning team members will each receive a $100 Amazon gift card. More fun prizes available so don't miss it!
• Thursday April 29th, 6pm: Wine Tasting with Brown Estate Winery, Napa Valley
• Friday April 30th, 5pm: Happy Hour Mixology with BTL SVC

Cost & Registration:

$150/CalGeo Members, $250/Non-members. Discount for sending 3 or more employees, use code: 3ORMORE to save $50/pp!

Program Details:

Full Program On-line HERE >>         Download printable program HERE >>

Register Now >>

Deadlines:

Register by April 7th if you want to order the wine shipment!

Early registrants will receive a mailed swag bag with some sponsor give-a-ways and a printed program.

Thank you to our Sponsors:

Pavement Recycling Systems - Happy Hour Sponsor too!

California Nevada Cement Association - Wine Tasting Sponsor too!

Middle Earth Geo Testing - Trivia Night Sponsor too!

Keller

Densification, Inc.      Farrell Design-Build      Tensar      Geopier      Griffin Soil      Rocscience

Graymont 

Golf Tournament:

Don't fret - we haven't forgotten about our Annual Golf Tournament. We hope to organize TWO golf tournaments later this year in NorCal and SoCal to allow you to see some friends face-to-face without traveling too far.

Save the date for a tentative October 14 at Torrey Pines South Course in San Diego!

Spring into Action: Call for 2020 Salary Survey Data

We are now collecting data for our 2020 salary survey - DUE MAY 1st!

Please download the 2020 template and send e-mail the completed excel file to Kelly Cabal by May 1st! We plan to have the salary survey completed by early June so there will be very little wiggle room and extensions. Rest assured that your data will be kept confidential.

Only members have access to the salary survey and if you don't participate it will cost you a cool $500. Save your money and submit your data.

Please note the following for faster processing:

Keeping the data consistent will save us time in creating the final report.

SAVE $500 and submit your data now. This will be the best tool for keeping your staff and new hires.

CalGeo Co-Hosts Legislative Visit Week

We are proud to announce that CalGeo is partnering with ACEC California, APWA - Region VIII, ASCE - Region 9, and SEAOC for the first time to host a joint Legislative Visit Week! California Engineers and Public Works Professionals will gather virtually beginning on Monday, May 10, 2021 to advocate for infrastructure and other industry issues before our state legislators. Stay tuned for registration details and sponsorship opportunities coming late February.

During these difficult economic times, new infrastructure investment will create well-paying construction and other employment opportunities. There is no economic development without infrastructure. Our infrastructure systems play a critical role in continued economic prosperity and preserving our quality of life.

We look forward to joining with you in our commitment to increase infrastructure investment to repair our existing networks and plan for California’s future!

Cost: Only $40/pp - meet with your legislative rep and tell them what you think about prevailing wage and all the other issues facing geotechnical engineers!

For more information about the event click the link or image below.

VISIT ACEC-CA.ORG/LVW

Geotechnical Contracts Short Course Coming this May!

Manage Risk & Improve Loss Prevention

CalGeo is partnering with the Geoprofessional Business Association (GBA) to deliver a two-part interactive web-based workshop series focused on managing risk and improving loss prevention through thoughtful terms and conditions in geoprofessional contracts.

Topics to Include:

• Why contracts matter
• Common contract terms that become problematic
• Techniques for negotiating favorable contract terms
• Resources you can use to manage risk and improve contract terms
• Lessons learned from contract disputes\

Workshop Presenters:

• Lisa Gamblin, Esq. – Vice President, Claims & Risk Management at Terra Insurance Co.
• Terry Scanlan, Esq. – Attorney at Cairncross & Hempelmann
• Ji Shin, Esq. – General Council at Earth Systems, Inc

Dates:

Two-part web series: May 19 & 26th, 2021 from 12-1pm Pacific Time

Cost: Only $50 for CalGeo and GBA members. Non-members $150.

Attendees who are not current GBA members will receive a discount code to purchase the GBA Contracts guide at a LARGE DISCOUNT. This guide is highly recommended for anyone dealing with your firm's contracts.

Registration is now open:

Register HERE >>

Rocscience Conference: Evolution of Geotech

In celebration of Rocscience’s 25th year as a company, they will be hosting their first technical conference on April 20th- 21st, 2021.

Click on the video below to see the announcement from Dr. Thamer Yacoub, Rocscience CEO and President.

Geotechnical professionals from around the world will be presenting technical papers authored by them, on themes, including:

    Tunneling in challenging environments
    Open pits slope stability
    Numerical modelling of high-stress environments
    Settlement and Foundation Engineering
    Artificial intelligence and virtual reality technologies in geotechnical engineering
    Advancements in probabilistic analysis of slopes
    Advancements in three-dimensional geotechnical analysis
    Dynamic and Liquefaction Modelling
    Discrete fracture network modelling of rock masses

All the technical papers will be included in the conference proceedings published by Taylor & Francis.

As a part of Rocscience International Conference 2021, there will be a technical short course on Finite Element Modelling of Civil & Mining Excavations. The course will be conducted online and will be spread across April 22nd - 23rd, 2021. Read the course outline here.

More information on the conference & registration here >>

Online Write Right Seminar May-June

CalGeo is partnering with John Bachner, President of Bachner Communications to bring his popular Write Right Seminar to our online community.

The seminar will be a series of four (4) webinars, held each Tuesday, starting May 18th, 2021 from 12-1:30pm Pacific Time. The webinars will be recorded if you are unable to attend live. Practice quizzes will be available through CalGeo's Online Learning Library to test your knowledge and enhance your learning.

About John Bachner

A Harvard English major with more than 250 published books and 2500 published articles and columns, John’s first involvement with technical professionals came in 1968, as a consultant to the Consulting Engineers Council of Metropolitan Washington (CEC/MW). When his employer ceased operations in 1971, John established his own firm; CEC/MW became his first association-management client. Later, in 1973, the Associated Soil and Foundation Engineers (ASFE), since renamed the Geoprofessional Business Association (GBA), retained Bachner Communications to manage the group and, soon thereafter, to provide professional-liability loss-prevention guidance. John collected case histories and reviewed them in depth, coming to realize that inadequate “soft skills” were involved in every loss. John prepared books, guides, monographs, case histories, seminars, webinars, computer games, and much more to help professionals improve.

He is the creator of the profoundly influential Fundamentals of Professional Practice (FOPP) program, a six-month basic-training course whose alumni include more than 2,000 engineering and environmental firms’ rising stars, more than 100 of whom are today the CEOs of the firms that enrolled them.

Write Right Seminar

The emphasis is on writing fundamentals: understanding the “five C’s” of effective communication, sentence structures, key elements of the parts of speech, obtaining full information, and, time permitting, issues related to e-mails and preparing lists.

This seminar is essential to engineers regardless of their experience level! Loss prevention to reduce liability and professional development all in one.

Dates

May 18, 25, June 1 & 8, 12-1:30pm Pacific Time.

Cost

CalGeo Members $100, Non-members $300. Students are free!

This course will be recorded and available for purchase after the conclusion of the live course, although interaction and feedback by John Bachner will not be available in the recorded version.

Looking for more Bachner? FREE 2-month Access to Blog

John Bachner has generously granted CalGeo a link for two months of free access to his popular weekly writing/speaking blog: Bachner on English. After the trial, you may choose to purchase access for an entire year for you or your company.

Feel free to share this with your employees, co-workers, family and friends!

Added Bonus: With your subscription, you also gain access to John Bachner's advice line. Email him your questions, writing samples or wording that you may have questions about. This invaluable access is worth the subscription alone!

Here's the link to sign-up for your free two month access to the blog: Bachner on English

John has designed the blog for a 2-3-minute read once a week, PLUS anytime access to him to answer English-language questions as they relate to proposals, reports, field notes, etc.

Here's a short sample from his recent post from March 23, 2021

Five Words and Phrases Never to Use in Business Writing

“If it isn’t in writing, it didn’t happen.” Contemporary loss prevention has turned this well-worn maxim into a truism, more or less, but the reporting involved – the writing – needs to be accurate and free from ambiguity. Ahhh, ambiguity: That wonderful bad habit that enables so many attorneys to send their kids to high-cost private schools. Want to write/document with less ambiguity? You should. And to help, here follow five words and phrases you need to eliminate from your vocabulary. All five are subjective modifiers, meaning that, while all who read or hear them know what they mean in general, their specific definition varies from person to person. Here they are:

1. Several

In essence, the word means more than two, but we don’t know how many more. Three? Six? Eleven? When does “several” become “a lot” or “a ton”? Here’s what I think: “Several” really means, “I guess I could figure out exactly how many if I wanted to take the time to count, but you’re not worth the effort.” As a result, the reader’s “several” may be far different from the writer’s “several,” creating what could be a severe miscommunication.

To read more, sign-up for your 2-month trial HERE >>

Looking for New Hires? Use CalGeo's Career Center

Some of our member firms are running ragged with loads of new work and struggling with employees working remotely or dealing with child-care issues. If you are in the market for some new staff, consider posting your positions on CalGeo's Career Center.

Check out our current postings plus more from ZipRecruiter here

FEATURED Geotechnical Branch Manager Terradyne Engineering Inc - Carlsbad, CA Full-time

Posted: Mar 23, 2021 Salary: $85,000.00 - $125,000.00 Annually Application Deadline: Apr 12, 2021

FEATURED Senior Engineer Farrell Design-Build, Inc. - Placerville, CA Full-time

Posted: Feb 9, 2021 Application Deadline: N/A

FEATURED Mid Level And Senior Level Geotechnical Engineer Giles Engineering Associates, Inc. - Orange, CA Full-time

Posted: Feb 8, 2021 Application Deadline: N/A

FEATURED Geotechnical Project Engineer Earth Systems Pacific - San Luis Obispo, CA Full-time

Posted: Feb 2, 2021 Application Deadline: N/A

Project Level Geotechnical Engineer GeoSoils Consultants Inc - Los Angeles, CA Full-time

Posted: Mar 29, 2021 Salary: $90,000.00 - $100,000.00 Annually Application Deadline: May 15, 2021

The e.Calendar & Online Learning Events - The Geo-Calendar

All in-person events are cancelled for the immediate future due to COVID-19. We will notify you when we plan to hold an in-person event.

April 28 @ 9am: General Membership Meeting during our Annual Conference

April 28-30, 2021: Join us virtually for CONNECTIONS 2021 - Explore a new way to connect using our integrated virtual conference platform.

May 1, 2021: Salary Surveys DUE!

May 19 & 26, 2021: Two-part web series on Geotechnical Contracts

May 18, 25, June 1, 8, 2021: Four-part web series, Write Right course by John Bachner

October 2021: SoCal & NorCal Golf Tournaments - More info coming soon!