Letter from Geotechnology, Inc. CEO, Ed Alizadeh, P.E.
Thanks to the loyalty and trust of our clients, Geotechnology has experienced much success in the last 36 years. However, we understand that past success does not guarantee anything in the future and we have to keep evolving and reinventing ourselves to respond to the market and provide value to our clients. In order to fulfill our Mission to be a trusted advisor to our clients and a leader in the community, we empowered new leadership on January 1, 2020. Pat Donovan is now the Professional Services President and Jim Howe is the Exploration President.
Pat Donovan joined Geotechnology in 2010 and he brings a different leadership style that has resulted in good success in our South Region. Pat is a strong engineer with a thorough understanding of the marketplace and a keen sense for practical project solutions. Jim Howe has been with Geotechnology since 1989 and has primarily worked in drilling and exploration. Jim is a national leader in the shallow exploration business and has outstanding project and operations skills. Ed Alizadeh will remain our CEO and is responsible to set the overall direction for the firm, to foster key client relationships, to help mentor rising leaders, and to be an ambassador for Geotechnology in the community. We remain one team with many resources to serve our clients and our community and you can call on Pat, Jim, or Ed at any time and get access to all that Geotechnology has to offer.
Safety remains the number one priority in our business. Our safety metrics improved in 2019 and we start 2020 with a focus on safety engagement in every task on every day. We seek to engage more with our clients in our safety efforts as well. Safety truly is a team sport where all players must share the same focus to achieve positive results; everyone goes home safe every day! Our work involves many different hazards and we want our staff and our clients to work closely to identify hazards and mitigate risk. Utilities are a common hazard for our exploration business and a great example of where we need to work closely with our clients and the design/construction team to identify potential utility hazards so they can be avoided during the drilling efforts. We have a robust Utility Avoidance Plan and continuously train our staff on proper implementation. In fact, January 20-24 was our safety training week where our staff went through many different programs and shared experiences to help us perform safely in the field and lead by example to keep our family and friends safe also. Please engage our staff in safety discussions and let’s work together to make each project accident and injury free!
Geotechnology is dedicated to providing value to our clients and we would appreciate your ideas about how we could improve. One recent change is a revamped field reporting system that allows our materials testing staff to enter data and observations real-time and provides reports directly to clients via email as opposed to the previous login process that was a reported source of frustration. Another example is the revamping of our drilling fleet over the last couple years. We added a CPT rig which provides great value for rapid collection of geotechnical data in certain environments. In 2019, we added a combo GeoProbe rig which can do traditional auger drilling and direct push sampling which greatly enhances the efficiency of our environmental drilling projects. We continue to diversify and upgrade our rig fleet to meet the current and future exploration needs of our clients. Geotechnology is committed to investing in our people and the right tools to provide efficient, quality solutions to your project challenges.
Thanks for your business and partnership and let’s have a great 2020!