The Soil Mechanics and Foundations Division was organized by Robert Crimmins, Charles R. Heidengren, James D. Parsons, James L. Sherard, and Robert E. White and evolved from the Soil Mechanics Seminars started by several members of the Junior Branch including J.P. Gould, Martin Kapp, M.D. Morris, Stephen Olko, E.A. Richards, and Vernon Smoots.

Early meetings of the Division included a tour of construction operations at the New York World's Fair in Flushing Meadows, a technical lecture on the caisson foundations for the towers of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, and a talk on excavation with nuclear explosives. The Division was renamed to the Foundations and Soil Mechanics Group in 1964-1965 and its Continuing Education Committee began organizing a series of annual and biannual seminars that was intended for practicing engineers who wanted updates in recent developments that had direct application to their everyday problems of analysis and design. Speakers were drawn from well-known practicing engineers, academia, and contractors located throughout the United States.

The Met Section began sponsoring the Martin S. Kapp Memorial Lecture in 1975, three years after the untimely death of the highly respected and well liked Chief Engineer of the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey. His most notable engineering accomplishment was the use of the slurry wall technique to construct the foundation for the World Trade Center. This was the first major project in the United States constructed using this method, for which Martin Kapp received the A.P. Greensfelder Construction Prize in 1970.

In May 1991, the Foundations and Soil Mechanics Group changed its name to the Geotechnical Group. The Mueser Rutledge Lecture series began in November of that fall, focusing on the design and construction of foundations. The lecture honors William H. Mueser and Philip C. Rutledge, former partners of Mueser Rutledge Consulting Engineers. The William Barclay Parsons Lecture series was installed in 2003 to honor General William Barclay Parsons, the founder of Parsons Brinckerhoff Inc., for his design and construction of the first section of the New York City Subway in 1904. The lecture series focuses on the technical topics of tunneling and underground construction.

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