GRL Engineers, Inc. Open Hawaii Office

GRL Engineers, the Cleveland, OH based deep foundation consulting and testing firm, opens its 12th office location on Oahu, Hawaii. GRL Engineers offer a variety of testing and analysis methods for the diverse Hawaiian geotechnical conditions and challenging driven and drilled deep foundation installations. The new Oahu based office will provide testing for projects in Hawaii and on other Pacific Islands.

The new office is managed by Camilo Alvarez, P.E., a GRL Vice President and Branch Manager. He has performed deep foundation testing for over 21 years on projects throughout the United States as well as in 27 other countries. He is the manager of GRL-California, GRL-Colorado, as well as the new GRL-Hawaii office. Camilo is a registered professional engineer in California, Colorado, Texas, Florida, Hawaii, Nevada, New Mexico and Washington and holds an Expert-Level rating on the PDCA/PDI Dynamic Measurement and Analysis Proficiency Test. Mr. Alvarez brings a wealth of deep foundation testing and analysis expertise to the new office.

Bill Chambers, P.E., is the Senior Engineer on staff at the GRL-HI office. He has 31 years of experience in the deep foundation industry holding positions as a chief estimator, project manager, piling engineer and managing director for piling contractors and deep foundation testing firms. Bill is a registered professional engineer in Queensland, Australia and holds a Advanced-Level rating on the PDCA/PDI Dynamic Measurement and Analysis Proficiency Test.

For driven pile foundations, the GRL-HI office offers dynamic pile testing services with the PDA and CAPWAP, as well as static load testing services. For drilled deep foundations, GRL offers a full suite of load testing capabilities; bi-directional, dynamic and static. These load tests frequently include embedded strain gages for load transfer assessment and foundation design optimization. GRL’s APPLE I system, also based on Oahu, can be used for dynamic load tests on deep foundations of appropriate size and capacity. The office also provides quality assurance integrity testing services; thermal integrity profiling (TIP), crosshole sonic logging (CSL), gamma-gamma logging (GGL) and low strain integrity testing (PIT). Additionally, for drilled shafts, GRL-HI offers assessments of shaft verticality and profile using the SHAPE system as well as base cleanliness testing using the SQUID system.