President's Message

Dr. Gary Brierley delivered a technical lecture to the Geotechnical Group titled "Design/Build Subsurface Projects" at the CUNY Graduate Center on October 14, 2010. Dr. Brierley is the currently the President of Brierley Associates, LLC located in Denver, Colorado and has taught at several universities.

In his presentation, Dr. Brierley spoke about the many challenges of design/build procurement of projects involving underground construction, focusing primarily on tunneling jobs. He covered four major topics in his presentation:

• general idea about subsurface projects;
• contracting practice;
• the various advantages and disadvantages of design/build jobs over design/bid/build jobs; and
• geotechnical participation in these jobs.

For the benefit of his audience, Dr. Brierley emphasized the importance of the different geotechnical reports which are integral part of such jobs, namely the Geotechnical Data Report (GDR) and Geotechnical Baseline Report (GBR). Underground jobs located in urban areas, often adjacent to existing structures pose significant risk that require utmost diligence in handling.

Summary and photo by Anirban De.