Agenda

Paul Nicholas has spent 40 years in the oil, heavy infrastructure and tunneling industries with a geological background and extensive engineering experience. He specializes in tunnel boring machine (TBM) engineering and operation both on the contractor and consultant side. His background in geology and experience with tunneling equipment manufacturing allow a unique ability to analyze ground conditions and recommend means and methods, as well as complete constructability and risk assessments for tunnel construction.

Carl graduated with a bachelor of science in construction engineering from Oregon State University. After school he worked for Kiewit Construction on the SR520 Floating Bridge in Seattle as the structures engineer. In 2015 he left the bridge world for pipes and started with Thompson Pipe Group. Carl recently passed the Professional Engineering exam and is licensed in Washington State. He currently chairs the Pacific Northwest Chapter of the North American Society for Trenchless Technology, and contributes to other organizations such as ASCE, NUCA, and NASTT.

John Grennan has been employed by Ward & Burke for 13 years since graduating as a civil engineer. He earned a bachelor’s degree from NUIG, Ireland and a master’s degree from MIT. During this time, he has managed and overseen the installation of 250,000 ft of Microtunnel in Ireland, United Kingdom, Canada, and USA. He now acts as a Director of Ward & Burke.

Tucker Toelke started his career in trenchless construction as a college intern looking for experiences outside of what he assumed would be a career in aerospace engineering. The summer of 2015 opened Tucker’s mind to the world under his feet and took his focus away from his previously anticipated career in the clouds. In his current role as Assistant Alternative Delivery Manager, Tucker helps customers understand the feasibility of using various trenchless construction methods, including horizontal directional drilling, Direct Pipe and microtunneling, to achieve their project goals. In an industry where early contractor involvement can greatly improve a project’s probability for operational and financial success, Tucker is known for his quick, thorough and thoughtful review of project plans.

Palmer is the Trenchless Division Manager for Northeast Remsco Construction. He has 36 years of construction experience and is a licensed Professional Engineer. He earned a Civil Engineering degree from Lehigh University and an MBA from Rider College.  Palmer is an executive board member of NAMA, was a principal author of the ASCE Guided Boring Manual of Practice and helped author the microtunneling and pilot tube guidelines for AREMA.

Glenn Boyce is Principal and Supervising Tunnel/Geotechnical Engineer with more than 35 years of experience. This extensive experience covers virtually every aspect of trenchless, tunnel, shaft, and geotechnical engineering design and construction. He has served as an engineer, lead engineer, project manager, technical reviewer and expert witness on a variety of trenchless projects. Boyce is licensed as a professional engineer in six states.

Prior to founding United Underground Precast with Jon Gavin, Owner & President of United Concrete Products, Inc., Walter served 18 years as Executive V.P./COO of Concrete Systems, Inc. dba CSI Tunnel Systems, including execution of 29 precast segmental tunnel liner projects. Walter, alongside the Principal Owner, conceived and built the operating model and infrastructure that enabled the company to scale operations and pursue multiple segmental tunnel liner opportunities across North America. Walter was involved in all commercial and strategic aspects; specification review, tendering, contracts, ventures, and mobilization for all segmental tunnel projects.

Darren is the Executive VP for the North American Division of the Bothar Group of companies. He has more than 15 years’ experience in the engineering and project management of tunnelling, infrastructure, and mining works. He has tunneled in Ireland, United Kingdom, Qatar, UAE, Kuwait, Oman, Australia and Canada. Darren received a B.S. degree in Civil Engineering from the Dublin Institute of Technology and was awarded with outstanding achievement for overall performance.

Henry Obermeyer is a registered professional engineer and a graduate of the Colorado School of Mines. He has been issued over 50 patents in fields including hydroturbines, pumps, water control gates, composite structures, and inflatable structures. His company, Obermeyer Hydro, Inc. is the originator of pneumatically controlled spillway gates with over 600 completed installations in 30 countries.

Project Leader for many bigger construction projects in the field of Hydropower, Infrastructure, Cableways. Previous experience includes being responsible for various design projects in the field of microtunneling including construction supervision (structural calculation, shafts, jacking force calculations including design of interjacking stations, main jack reaction block, face support pressure calculation, pipe arches etc.) in most challenging environments (railways, roads and highways, groundwater, buildings, geology, underground utilities etc.), as trenchless specialist or lead designer.

Markos E. Mengesha is a Managing Engineer in Houston Public Works, Capital Projects. He has over 15 years of combined design, construction and project managment experiences in private and public secors. He has managed large diameter water and wastewater projects installed by open cut and trenchless methods primarily by Microtunneling. He oversees the design and construction of Sanitery Sewer Projects with a total construction cost of over $500 million as par of the Capital Improvement Plan(CIP) for the last 6years.

Markos graduated from Wayne State University in 2007 with a Master of Science in Civil Engineering. Markos is a Registered Professional Engineer in the State of Texas, and Certified Construction Manager by Construction Management Association of America (CMAA).

Don Del Nero, PE, CDT is Vice President and a Tunnel Engineering Director for WSP. He holds a minor in geology, BS in Civil Engineering, MS in Geotechnical Engineering, and has 33 years of experience in tunnel and trenchless design and construction. Along with being an instructor for the Microtunneling Short Course,  he is an instructor for the NASTT New Installation Course, Breakthroughs in Tunneling Short-course, and Risk Management in Underground Construction short-course. He had the honor of Chairing the 2018 No-Dig Show, has authored over 40 industry papers and a subchapter on means and methods in the book, “Trenchless Technology: Planning, Equipment, and Methods” by Mohammad Najafi.

Maureen is the VP of Engineering and Preconstruction Services for the North American Group of Bothar. She has more than 18 years’ practical experience in construction engineering and project management. Before working in the trenchless pipeline industry, she began her career project managing large scale and fast paced construction projects in Las Vegas, Nevada. Her current area of expertise is trenchless construction methodologies including HDD and Microtunneling specific to the Direct Pipe Method®. Maureen received B.S. degrees in Civil and Architectural Engineering from the Missouri University of Science and Technology, a M.B.A UNLV and a Ph.D. Civil & Construction Engineering from Arizona State.

A skilled operator by trade, Jonathan has more than 25 years’ experience in trenchless pipeline construction and has completed hundreds of trenchless crossings in the United States, Canada and Australia. He has worked for some of the most experienced trenchless contractors and held various roles including horizontal directional driller, steering hand, field superintendent, operations manager, construction manager and is currently the Manager of Projects at Bothar. In recent years, Jonathan’s focus has been managing onsite operations for 7 Direct Pipe installations as well as planning and design for 10 awarded crossings.

A results-oriented and adaptable Engineer in Training, Elise joined the Bothar team as Field Engineer in 2019 and was recently promoted to Project Manager. She has worked onsite on 11 total Direct Pipe installations managing technical submittals, quality control reporting, safety programs, costs controls and scheduling. Her role has been crucial to Bothar’s project success as she has developed new innovative tools for project evaluation leading to timely and accurate project reporting to clients and management. Elise received a B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering from Queen’s University and a MBA in Finance from the University of Calgary.

Our law firm successfully works “behind the scenes” throughout the country with trenchless contractors to cooperatively and equitably resolve extra cost, time and constructability issues on the jobsite.  Contractors get paid/time extensions without sacrificing their working relationships.  By engaging us when the issue first arises, our involvement is typically limited in time and consequently cost.  It is all about the return on investment.  We are uniquely qualified to deliver on this commitment because of our knowledge and experience with trenchless construction.  To that point, we have recently edited and help write a national trenchless manual for both contractors and engineers.  If you want a partner to help you work through under-designed projects and differing site conditions, we can help!

Tetsuaki Muroi is an international salesperson at Iseki Poly-Tech, Inc. since December 2020. He has an experience at an HDD worksite in Kita-Daito, Okinawa. He has also given a presentation about Iseki’s pipejacking projects in Indonesia. He has a Bachelor of Policy and Planning Sciences from University of Tsukuba and has previously worked as a salesperson in IT industry. He has traveled to 50+ countries and lived in 4 countries.

Toru Sato is working as general manager for Iseki Poly-Tech, Inc. Iseki Poly-Tech, Inc. is one of the biggest manufacturers of Micro tunneling machines in Japan. He has graduated from Department of Earth Resources Engineering in Kyushu University, Japan. He is exploring the development of pipe-roofing method technology.

Gerhard Lang’s background is in civil and mechanical engineering. After working for Herrenknecht as project manager on traffic tunneling jobs in Europe, he finished his Ph.D. in civil engineering and an MBA in international marketing before he went to work for Amiantit. Since 2008 he is back with Herrenknecht as Business Development Manager for the Utility Tunneling division.

Mr. Hunt has served as a geotechnical consultant, project engineer and project manager during planning, design and construction phases of a large variety of projects with major experience on water and wastewater pipeline and conveyance systems, water intakes and wastewater outfalls, water and wastewater treatment plants and power plants. Experience on these projects includes: planning studies, risk assessments, pre-design alternatives assessments, detailed design, and construction management. His areas of geotechnical specialization include: site investigation programs; dewatering and grouting systems to control water for underground construction, design of shallow and deep shafts; design of microtunnels and tunnels in soil and rock for water conveyance; and design of adjacent property protection and monitoring systems.

Lester Bradshaw is President of Bradshaw Construction, a leading microtunneling contractor in the United States. He is a third-generation tunneler starting as a tunnel laborer 49 years ago. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Georgia Tech and an MBA from Harvard. He is on the board of the North American Microtunneling Association (NAMA) and is current Chairman of the Executive Board.

Charlesis Brierley’s Construction Design/Contractor Support Sector Leader. Charles’ experience with one of North America’s largest and heavy civil contractors enables him to deliver constructable designs for: earth retention systems, cofferdams, falsework & formwork, erection & demolition sequencing, multiple crane lifts, customized rigging, rebar cage handling, access platforms and marine operations. Our contractor clients rely on Charles to solve a wide array of challenges on high profile projects in urban or constrained work sites.

Ingo Justen is co-founder and CEO of Tunnel Services Group, headquartered in Germany. Justen has a long history in the market, including working in the United States. Under his guidance, Tunnel Services Group provides a range of services including consulting, training, MTBM repairs and parts. Justen is a 2018 recipient of the Microtunneling Achievement Award.

Trevor Gonterman is a 15-year veteran of the steel industry, having worked with various entities including major national and international original equipment manufacturers and contractors on product design and material applications for environmental, agricultural, energy, oil and gas and construction products. As a Permalok team member, Gonterman has been fortunate to learn from the recognized leaders in underground construction and has focused his efforts on expanding the company’s reach and expertise in trenchless construction and new product design and development working with customers to bring new steel pipe technology to the forefront in tunnel construction.

Mr. Rosenberg is a full time construction lawyer. He is a Fellow in the American College of Construction Lawyers, the chairperson of the American Bar Association, Forum on Construction Law, which is the largest organization of construction lawyers in the world, listed in Best Lawyers in America and listed as one of the top 50 lawyers in his home city of Columbus, Ohio by Super Lawyers magazine.

Mathias Knoll is the Vice President of VMT (USA) and is responsible for VMT’s business development in Canada and the US. He has been involved in a variety of tunneling projects for more than a decade which included small-scale microtunnels as well as large diameter segmental lining tunnels. One of Mathias’ main goals is to introduce the application of new technologies to the tunneling industry.

John Grennan has been employed by Ward & Burke for 13 years since graduating as a civil engineer. He earned a bachelor’s degree from NUIG, Ireland and a master’s degree from MIT. During this time, he has managed and overseen the installation of 250,000 ft of Microtunnel in Ireland, United Kingdom, Canada, and USA. He now acts as a Director of Ward & Burke.

Chris Bottoms is the Tunnel and Trenchless Division Manager for J.W. Fowler. As a Colorado School of Mines Graduate, Bottoms has diverse career experience in building various tunnel, shaft sinking, and trenchless projects including slurry MTBMs, large-diameter TBMs, open face shields, SEM, pipe ramming, auger boring, and larger diameter/length horizontal directional drills. His technical knowledge dovetails well in leading our team to low-cost and constructible alternative delivery projects in excess of $200M including CM/GC, Design-Build, and Progressive Design Build.  Bottoms enjoys spending his free time with his wife Emily, his twin daughters, his Aussie, and out with friends in his first-generation Toyota 4Runner rock crawler.

James Parkes provides technical expertise, supervision, project management, and quality control for Schnabel’s Tunnel business unit. He is responsible for leading feasibility studies and developing detailed designs for tunnels, shafts, underground structures, and trenchless installations. His experience includes soft ground and hard rock tunnel projects for water, wastewater, transportation, and transit facilities through traditional as well as alternative delivery procurement methods. He leads the development of geotechnical engineering reports, geotechnical baseline reports, contract drawings, specifications, and other deliverables. His attention to detail, emphasis on quality, and focus on delivering on time and within budget helps ensure each client’s success.

Todd Kilduff has been involved in the design and construction of underground projects for more than 20 years. He earned a bachelor of science in civil engineering from The Ohio State University in 1996 and later earned a master’s degree in geotechnical engineering from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute. Following graduation, he worked for reputable geotechnical firms where he supported the geotechnical aspects of pipelines, tunnels, and pump station and wastewater treatment plant projects. In 2014, he founded Kilduff Underground Engineering, Inc., in Denver and is recognized nationwide as an expert in underground projects.

Dave knows how to interpret geophysical data and geotechnical reports in both English and Spanish. His expertise is within the application of geoscientific data to engineering projects constructed within soft soils to hard, crystalline rock. Dave previously managed the Norfolk, VA office of an international consultancy and served as North/South America ports business sector leader, with a focus on design/build of large infrastructure projects and managed geotechnical and engineering offices in Venezuela, Trinidad, Panama and Chile.

Nick Strater has over 20 years of engineering geology and geotechnical consulting experience. His specialties include: rock and soil tunnels; trenchless designs ranging from horizontal directional drilling to pilot tube auger bore; rock slope evaluation and stability; rock blasting and, forensic geology.

Jeff Masek is a professional engineer with over 20 years’ experience in the public sector. Jeff graduated from Texas A&M University with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Civil Engineering. He spent the first half of his career with TxDOT’s Houston District managing consultant’s design projects, performing project inspection, and designing projects. After TxDOT, Jeff transitioned to construction management with Houston Public Works becoming a Certified Construction Manager. Mr. Masek is currently the Assistant Director for the Facilities Delivery Line in Capital Projects of Houston Public Works utilizing a “cradle to grave” approach to delivering projects to its customers.

His team annually awards $30M of design contracts and $320M of construction contracts in the water and wastewater industry.

Additionally, on this presentaiton add these other two speakers just in the agenda line, not in the speaker section as they are just authors, not speakers,

Pooyan Asadollahi, City of Houston and Eric Dawson, City of Houston

Mr. Sullivan is an Vice President with extensive experience in planning, program management, design, and construction management of water/wastewater municipal infrastructure. He has particular experience with wet weather control facilities (CSO, SSO and storm water). He is skilled in alternative delivery (DBO) as well as the traditional design-bid-build project delivery. Mr. Sullivan strategically develops new business opportunities along with client service, project execution and staff development. He currently serves as the Project Manager for the South Hartford CSO Tunnel Project ($450M) in Hartford, CT.

Jim Barbera has been with Barbco on a part-time basis since 2014.  In 2021, he retired from public education where he worked as a teacher with children who have special needs as well as in the area of school administration.  Jim is now the General Manager and co-owner of Barbco.  As General Manager, he works with his brothers, Tony and Dave, and other senior managers to collectively guild the business.  Jim also maintains communications with those individuals outside the company who have an impact on Barbco such as corporate lawyers, employee benefits and corporate insurance needs experts.  Recently, Jim has worked in the field with contractors to better understand the equipment and the obstacles that exist for the contractor all in the name of manufacturing quality trenchless equipment. Jim and his wife Janet have been married for nearly 29 years.  They have six children and one grandchild.