January e.Geo

Happy New Year!

January 2018

In this issue:

1. New Year Resolutions
2. Loss Prevention Seminars
3. More Deadlines??!! Project Awards - GET ON IT
4. Conference Sneak Peek & Short Courses - Early Registration deadline approaching!
5. Member Highlight
6. Upcoming Events
7. Oroville Spillway Presentation & Dinner Meeting
8. Its Raining... Jobs
9. We're Growing! Welcome CalGeo's Newest Members
10. Thank you thank you thank you for your generosity in 2017.

This year I resolve...

To participate in the CalGeo salary survey! Its free to members that participate, otherwise you have to cough up $350. So in 2018 when you get that e-mail, make sure to spend a little time completing our new, easy to use spreadsheet so you can be a lucky recipient of the updated salary survey next fall.

PURCHASE A SALARY SURVEY (if you did not participate)

If you need a little help adjusting to 2018, here are some tips on how to have a Positive New Year (from John Gordon):

1. Stay Positive. You can listen to the cynics and doubters and believe that success is impossible or you can trust that with faith and an optimistic attitude all things are possible.

2. Take a daily "Thank You Walk." It will create a fertile mind ready for success.

3. Eat more foods that grow on trees and plants and less foods manufactured in plants.

4. Talk to yourself instead of listen to yourself. Instead of listening to your complaints, fears and doubts, talk to yourself and feed your mind with words of truth and encouragement.

5. Post a sign that says "No Energy Vampires Allowed." Gandhi said, "I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet."

6. Be a great team member. When you help your team improve, you improve.

7. Don't chase success. Decide to make a difference and build meaningful relationships and success will find you.

8. Get more sleep. You can't replace sleep with a double latte.

9. Don't waste your precious energy on gossip, energy vampires, issues of the past, negative thoughts or things you cannot control.

10. You don’t have to be great to serve but you have to serve to be great. Look for opportunities to Love, Serve and Care.

11. Live your purpose. Remember why you do what you do. We don't get burned out because of what we do. We get burned out because we forget why we do it.

12. There's no such thing as an overnight success. Anything worthwhile takes time to build.

13. Trust that everything happens for a reason and expect good things to come out of challenging experiences.

14. Implement the No Complaining Rule. If you are complaining, you're not leading.

15. Read more books than you did in 2016. I happen to know of a few good ones. : )

16. Don't seek happiness. Instead live with love, passion and purpose and happiness will find you.

17. Focus on "Get to" vs "Have to." Each day focus on what you get to do, not what you have to do. Life is a gift not an obligation.

18. The next time you "fail" remember that it’s not meant to define you. It’s meant to refine you.

19. Smile and laugh more. They are natural anti-depressants.

20. Enjoy the ride. You only have one ride through life so make the most of it and enjoy it.

Loss Prevention Seminar DEADLINE APPROACHING

Last chance to register for CalGeo's Loss Prevention Seminars. These 4-hour seminars are designed for technicians, staff engineers and geologists of all skill levels. By increasing the knowledge and skill base of your field personnel, we hope to reduce your liability and losses and increase productivity.

Southern California LPS: January 20, 2018, Embassy Suites Hotel, Santa Ana, CA

Northern California LPS: February 10, 2018, Courtyard Marriott Hotel, Fairfield, CA

REGISTRATION DEADLINE: Online registration will close January 12 for the Southern California Seminar and February 3 for Northern California. If mailing a check, please post-mark payment at least 10-days in advance of your course date.

View full program on our website through the links above.

Cost

Members: $150, Non-members: $200

Register for NorCal LPS HERE

Register for SoCal LPS HERE - DEADLINE Friday January 12!

More Deadlines??!!!

You only have 10 days to get in your Outstanding Project Award submissions! Don't put it off any longer, this could be your year to win the award.

Each year at our Annual Conference, CalGeo puts the spotlight on the best geotechnical projects in the state with our Outstanding Project Awards. A panel of your peers select the year's finest work in a number of categories, providing winners with a powerful new marketing message, and everyone with the opportunity to learn from exciting, innovative approaches to challenging situations.

Call for Entries

Download the entry forms below. The deadline for Outstanding Project Award Entries is January 20, 2018. A fee of $100/members and $300/non-members is required for each entry. Firms/individuals may submit multiple entries but will only be awarded a maximum of one award.

DOWNLOAD ENTRY FORM

PAY ENTRY FEE ON-LINE

Member Highlight: Robert Tadlock

CEO 
Matriscope Engineering Laboratories, Inc.

As Chief Executive Officer, Robert Tadlock is responsible for overall firm leadership, including implementing core values, mission, culture, and vision to staff. Robert brings over 30 years of industry specific experience in the geotechnical, construction inspection and materials testing field. His passionate commitment ensures that high-quality service is provided to all clients and that any necessary action is taken to maintain the firm’s high reputation for excellence in engineering and customer service. His responsibilities also include participation as Project Principal on selected key assignments.

Conference Sneak Peek & Short Courses

The 2018 CalGeo Annual Conference will be held April 19-21, 2018 at the Flamingo Conference Resort and Spa in Santa Rosa, CA. The Outstanding Project Awards luncheon will take place the final afternoon, Saturday, April 21, 2018. Click HERE for event details.

The Flamingo hotel was built in 1957, but don't worry, its been nicely renovated. Movie stars like Jayne Mansfield were often found sunning themselves by the pool. In modern times, production crews from such films as “Mumford” and “Bandits” have used the Flamingo as headquarters. The Flamingo has been a privately owned, family-run business for thirty years. In 1996, the City of Santa Rosa declared the hotel a historic landmark.

Download our full (and updated!) conference brochure

Early-bird registration deadline is Feb. 22! If paying by check, payment MUST be post-marked by Feb. 22 to get the early-bird price of only $650. Register On-line Now!

We have added 3 short courses ahead of the annual conference. You must register for the short courses seperately from the conference as they are NOT included in your conference registration. Check out the details on our website:

Wednesday April 18 from 10am-5pm: Financial Management fo A/E/C Firm Leaders by PSMJ

Thursday April 19th from 8am-12pm: 2D & 3D Slope Stability by Rocscience

Thursday April 19th from 1pm-5pm: Site Characterization by Dr. Jason DeJong, UC Davis

Upcoming Events

Mark you calendars for these upcoming events, or download Outlook and iCal events through our new calendar.

CalGeo Loss Prevention Seminars:

SoCal Loss Prevention Seminar - January 20, 2018, Santa Ana, CA

NorCal Loss Prevention Seminar - February 10, 2018, Fairfield, CA

 Emerging Professionals:

NorCal Dinner Meeting with ASCE-GI Cross Country Lecture Series - January 25, 2018, The WELL @ Sacramento State University, CA

Pitfalls and challenges for reliable analyses of staged construction on soft ground

Speaker: Andrew Whittle

The construction of embankments and levees on soft ground is often enabled by staging the sequence of loading events to allow for consolidation of low permeability clay and associated changes in the available undrained shear resistance.  Although it is apparently straightforward to use numerical methods to solve these problems, it has proved surprisingly difficult to achieve accurate predictions of performance. This paper will review some of the pitfalls associated with analyses of staged construction on soft ground and two enduring challenges: 1) lateral spreading during consolidation, and 2) settlements associated with creep and consolidation.

Register and pay before Jan. 20th for $35 or $40 at the door. Students $10

Register NOW.

Oroville Spillway Dinner Meeting Presentation

Northern California Dinner Meeting - February 27, 2018, Blueprynt Restaurant, Sacramento

Southern California Dinner Meeting - March 1, 2018 The Hacienda, Santa Ana.This meeting will be a joint meeting with ASCE-GI Orange County chapter. Come out and meet your colleagues in the area. ASCE-GI members get the member rate of $45!

Oroville Spillway Damage & Repair

Presented by Holly Nichols, Department of Water Resources

On February 7, 2017, a hole formed in a portion of the concrete-lined spillway at Oroville Dam.  Continued operation of the gated spillway caused additional erosion and damage to the concrete structure.  The areas of deepest erosion occurred in portions of the spillway that were mapped during original construction as strongly weathered to decomposed amphibolite rock.  On February 12, 2017, during operation of the emergency spillway, rapid, deep headward erosion was observed in the northern portion of the unlined emergency spillway.  This presentation will discuss the geologic conditions that were understood at the site prior to construction, the geologic conditions that were documented during construction, the geologic exploration completed since the spillway failure, and the spillway reconstruction design, construction, and status.

Holly Nichols has been with the California Department of Water Resources since 2008, after working in the private sector for several years in Southern California.  She is currently a Senior Engineering Geologist in DWR’s Division of Engineering.  She has worked on a variety of water infrastructure design and construction projects including pipelines, canals, and dams throughout California’s State Water Project.  She received her B.S. in Geology from the University of Texas in Austin, and her M.S. in Geology from Washington State University, and is a licensed Engineering Geologist in California.  She has been AEG’s Sacramento Chapter Vice Chair for several years and has spent most of 2017 as the lead geologist for the Oroville Spillway Recovery efforts.

Register for Sacramento meeting Feb. 27th

Register for Santa Ana meeting March 1st.

Come early on March 1st and enjoy a drink sponsored Hayward Baker!

Its raining....jobs!

Its a New Year and if you are out there looking for a change, check out our job board on the website - lots of new postings are available.

If you are a young professional just looking to get more involved in the CalGeo community, think about joining our Emerging Professionals group. We have a Northern California and Southern California chapter. They hold their own dinner meetings, bring in speakers and plan fun events.

Contact: Jonathan Ontiveros for Southern California EP and Lindsey Angell for Northern California.

Welcome our new members

We are pleased to welcome the following new members to CalGeo! Make sure to stop by and meet them at our next event.

Organizations:

 Thank you for your generosity

CalGeo would like to say a big THANK YOU to all the generous donations we recieved for our General Fund and our Student Fund during our membership renewal. These donations go a long way towards CalGeo's goal of strengthening and advancing California's geotechnical consulting industry.

We would like to recognize the following companies and individuals that contrubuted to our General Fund:

We would like to recognize the following companies and individuals that contrubuted to our Student Fund, allowing CalGeo student chapters to participate in our Annual Conference and events: