http://www.timmons.com/blog http://www.timmons.com/news/blog/picture-this-raleigh-law-enforcement-training-center http://www.timmons.com/news/blog/picture-this-raleigh-law-enforcement-training-center The Raleigh Law Enforcement Training Center recently ranked silver in 2021 Law Enforcement Design Awards. See the article here.   Timmons Group provided civil engineering and site selection services for the development of the City of Raleigh’s new Law Enforcement Training Center near Battle Bridge Road.   The 60,000 SF training facility’s design encompasses the amenities required to meet current police training needs and allows for cadets entering the academy to complete their training on-site within the same facility.   The training facility houses multiple classrooms and computer labs for officer training courses.   Both this facility and Wake County’s law enforcement training center are connected through a courtyard that will help encourage collaboration between the two facilities. http://www.timmons.com/news/blog/nate-groover-joins-timmons-group-as-economic-development-manager http://www.timmons.com/news/blog/nate-groover-joins-timmons-group-as-economic-development-manager Raleigh, NC – November 8, 2021 – Timmons Group is proud to welcome Nate Groover to serve the firm’s economic development pursuits in North Carolina and adjacent regions in the role of Economic Development Manager. Nate’s expertise is in recruiting new companies to consider expanding their business pursuits to a region, which he’ll apply in his new role at Timmons Group for North Carolina. He joined the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina (EDPNC) in April 2016 as a business recruitment manager and has helped 60 companies successfully locate business efforts in North Carolina resulting in 13,087 new jobs and 3.1B in new investment. Originally from Orlando, Florida, Nate previously served in a similar role with the Orlando Economic Development Commission since 2011 and prior to his relocation to North Carolina. He earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Public Administration from The University of Central Florida in 2006. “I love working in economic development because it is truly a life changing business, one where we can offer opportunities that help change individuals’ lives and communities forever,” Nate says. “That sort of work really helps you sleep at night.” “Nate is a highly respected and well-liked economic development professional who is an excellent addition to Timmons Group expanding North Carolina team,” stated Joe Hines, Sr. Principal and Director of Economic Development. “We have no doubt that Nate will accomplish great things for our North Carolina clients!” Nate is a proud veteran who served in the United States Air Force from 1998-2002 where he deployed overseas in support of Operation Northern Watch in 1999. He currently resides in Cary, North Carolina with his wife Christy and their children. About Timmons Group Timmons Group is a multi-disciplined engineering and technology firm recognized for more than 25 years as one of Engineering News Record’s (ENR) Top 500 Design Firms in the country. The firm provides economic development, civil engineering, environmental, geotechnical engineering, GIS/geospatial technology, landscape architecture, and surveying services to a diverse client base. For more information, visit www.timmons.com. Media contact: Tim Klabunde Director of Marketing tim.klabunde@timmons.com http://www.timmons.com/news/blog/tony-kakoullis-pe-joins-timmons-group-as-senior-project-manager http://www.timmons.com/news/blog/tony-kakoullis-pe-joins-timmons-group-as-senior-project-manager Tony Kakoullis joined Timmons Group in fall 2021 as a senior project manager in the firm's stormwater services group. He has almost three decades of experience in hydrologic & hydraulic modeling, BMP design, green infrastructure design, hydraulic analysis of bridge crossings, bridge scour, storm drain design, erosion & sediment control design, floodplain analysis, regulatory permitting, and MS4 Permit compliance. Tony has led design teams on multiple infrastructure projects in the Virginia, DC, and Maryland regions. Learn more about Timmons Group's stormwater management services here.   http://www.timmons.com/news/blog/best-practices-for-leveraging-your-investment-in-cityworks-and-munis1 http://www.timmons.com/news/blog/best-practices-for-leveraging-your-investment-in-cityworks-and-munis1 As Cityworks has grown to be a true platform solution capable of integrating with other enterprise systems, experienced Cityworks users and business partners have identified best practices for ensuring the long-term success of a system integration. Tyler Munis is a financial software solution used by many local government agencies to manage financials, procurement, human resources, payroll, and revenue. Integrations with Munis allow Cityworks to access data such as employee labor rates and equipment and material costs, as well as send back to Munis the costs incurred on work orders or the permit revenue that has been collected. For any integration to be successful, the third-party software provider—in this case, Munis—needs to be involved to confirm the technical approach and functional requirements of the integration. For example, does the third-party system support your workflow requirements? Does the project team need to modify workflows or the setup of the third-party system to support the integration? Third-party documentation is often inaccurate or outdated or there may be bugs in the third-party code that prohibit technical adaptations. Involving the third-party provider can help an organization understand how to balance the costs, complexity, ease of use, support, and sustainability of an integration. Timmons Group used this approach when they worked with the City of Auburn, Alabama, to update their existing Cityworks and Tyler integration using APIs. A previous integration with Tyler’s legacy system, Eden, relied primarily on flat-file transfers, or manual exports of datafiles from one system to another. We reviewed existing workflows, with an emphasis on functional requirements and business processes. The team then worked to identify where each system should be leveraged in the workflows to maximize the integration. Integrations are most successful when they are treated either as subprojects within a Cityworks implementation or as a separate project after Cityworks go-live. Integration projects should contain five distinct phases. Plan: Define the functional requirements and design the integration Build: Write code, develop workflows, etc. Test: Integration and user acceptance testing Train: Empower the system administrator as well as end users Deploy: Place the integration into production environment Auburn’s updated Munis and Cityworks integration is split into several sections of support: employees, materials, utility billing, and cashiering. Here is how the updated integration benefitted each support section.     EMPLOYEE RECORDS In a previous integration to Eden, service requests were dispatched to Cityworks admins every time a human resources (HR) staff member updated an employee record. HR staff could amass hundreds of generated requests a year, particularly during busy seasons. City staff can now add, remove, or update an employee record without creating additional requests that bog down their HR team. The new one-way integration from Munis to Cityworks automatically updates the Cityworks employee table, eliminating most service requests. When human interaction is needed, a subset of the output fields automatically determines whether a service request should be generated for additional follow-up. APIs can be leveraged on both sides by the Munis administrator or the Cityworks administrator, allowing changes made at any point in the process to automatically update both systems. “Without this critical piece of the integration, there is simply no way we can support accurate and timely employee data in Cityworks without also growing support staff. This integration alone has saved the city thousands of Cityworks administration hours,” says Christopher Graff, deputy chief information officer for the City of Auburn.   MATERIALS Tracking the costs, inventory, and use of raw materials for municipal projects is a critical component of Auburn’s operations management. Items like concrete mix, stone, and cold patch asphalt are all tracked through the city’s Munis system. Cityworks allows crews to record how much material is used in a project and how much inventory remains. Previously, city staff dedicated valuable work hours to manually update material data between the two systems. We designed an API integration between Cityworks Storeroom and Tyler Munis that streamlines raw material tracking. Utility employees now use Cityworks AMS and Storeroom to maintain the cost of a material, the amount used in a project, and the remaining quantity after the inventory has been adjusted. The system updates nightly to keep both finance staff and utility crews appraised. “Work stoppages and overtime used during inventory audits has greatly decreased. We’ve been able to lower inventory costs because we better manage what’s on hand and can efficiently order materials,” says Christopher.     UTILITY BILLING Up-to-date finances are an important facet to any successfully operating municipality. The Auburn utility billing team needed a way to immediately update financial records with each filing. The previous configuration produced a 15-minute delay with each utility billing update. Although this delay may not seem significant, it created unnecessary information in a second staging table upon closing a work order and often resulted in orphan canceled billing records. The fields available to Cityworks were also too limited to be functional. The new Cityworks and Munis integration allows for instantaneous data transfer, a function that is vital to reliable customer billing. The integration sends billing and meter information to Cityworks. When the Cityworks work order is closed, only applicable information is sent back to Munis, eliminating dual records and unnecessary data transfer. “The instant communication between office and field—Munis and Cityworks—facilitates greater teamwork among staff. We see increased productivity from this, and this ultimately builds happy customers,” Christopher says.   CASHIERING The final section of Auburn’s Cityworks and Munis integration did not have a legacy implementation. Instead, city staff manually transposed fees to Tyler Cashiering. We proposed a solution to create a web service that combines Tyler Cashiering and Cityworks permit management to support fee lookups, permit fee payments, and permit voiding. As a result, finance staff no longer need to manually monitor Cityworks fee-based transactions. With the fee lookup, staff can search for a customer name, address, or phone number, and Cityworks will return a specific output such as fee amount or due date. The Tyler Cashiering side of the integration is responsible for both making the call to the web service and parsing the results. Fees are returned by the web service for permits that do not have a status of closed, denied, expired, void, or withdrawn. Another critical value added to this new API integration is reporting. Prior to this process, most fees were categorized at a high level and with few details. The new integration allows for highly detailed permitting fee data to flow back to Munis, thus creating a richer data set to help the city make data-driven decisions around planning and operations. To mark Cityworks permit fees as paid, we developed a web service that will acknowledge payment information and return the output as successful or failed. Tyler Cashiering makes a call to the web service that can parse results for each fee that requires payment. To mark Cityworks permits as voided, we developed a service that can delete a payment and all its associated records throughout Tyler Cashiering, keeping dual or unnecessary records out of the integration. As the City of Auburn continues to grow in its business processes, Timmons Group will continue to help its employees, supervisors, and utility workers establish best practices that benefit the entirety of the municipality. Bringing third-party software providers to the table brought Auburn tremendous success. The world of geospatial technology and asset management continues to evolve quickly, and we welcome the challenge of building and implementing forthcoming best practices for our industry partners.   This article was published in the Cityworks Fall 2021 Magazine. View the electronic version here.   http://www.timmons.com/news/blog/meet-the-team-raleigh-traffic-edition http://www.timmons.com/news/blog/meet-the-team-raleigh-traffic-edition   At one point, everyone has wondered how a green, yellow, and red-colored box controls the flow of traffic. At one point, I even thought someone was always watching each traffic light with a camera! However, this is where traffic engineers become involved in designing and planning the traffic flow. A traffic engineer conducts capacity analyses to help ensure that traffic flows on a roadway in an efficient and safe pathway. Speaking of traffic engineers... Haven’t you heard? Yep, you heard right! With the City of Raleigh being ranked as the No. 2 best place to live by US News & World Report, a lot more volume and traffic will increase in this area. Luckily, our Raleigh traffic team has recently added three additional team members to their continuously growing group. Meet the Timmons Group Raleigh Traffic Team!   Jeff Hochanadel, PE, PTOE Group Leader Hey! Meet Jeff Hochanadel, he leads the North Carolina Traffic team and has over two decades of experience in traffic engineering experience. When it comes to Jeff, he’s a driven individual that looks to bring the best out of his team. In his free time, Jeff enjoys spending time with his family and when possible, watching his Wolf Pack beat Carolina!  Fun Fact: When you see Jeff, ask him about the bird that comes by his office every day!           Cliff Lawson, PE, PTOE Senior Project Manager If you haven’t met Cliff Lawson, you should! Cliff is a senior project manager with an impeccable background of over a decade of traffic engineering experience. Cliff has always been known as the person who knows how to work hard when necessary and also have a good time with the team. When Cliff has time off, he enjoys spending time with his family and watching sports! Fun Fact: Did you know Cliff is a die-hard Lakers fan? Pay close attention and you’ll see Cliff repping his Lakers memorabilia just about every Friday!           Chuck Jones, PE Traffic Engineer Meet Chuck! Chuck is from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania but recently he decided to come down south to join our incredible Raleigh office Traffic team. Chuck is an experienced traffic engineer and is a great addition to the team. When it comes to work ethic, you can always count on Chuck to help when needed. Fun Fact: If you ever have a chance to come by Chuck's office, he often has his boom box playing music while he is working! It’s always a small party in his office!          Trevor Darnell Traffic Analyst Who’s that? It’s Trevor! Trevor is a traffic analyst with a transportation and traffic background. On the team, he is well known to be a proactive member who is always looking for opportunities to improve. Before joining Timmons Group, Trevor decided to pursue traffic engineering after his experience working with the transportation department and driven him to study ways they could be improved. Fun Fact: Outside of work, Trevor is very passionate about artwork. He has always found the desire to create something out of imagination and finds beauty in drawing, painting, and woodworking.           Joanna McCormack Traffic Analyst Who is Joanna McCormack you may ask? Joanna is a driven engineer that discovered her interest in roadway and traffic design after working on a project that involved those studies during a summer internship. Her determination and tenacity propel her to have a prosperous career in the traffic engineering industry. Fun Fact: Outside of Joanna’s professional career, you’ll find her on the tracks running or working out! Whether it’s reading a book or listening to a podcast you’ll find Joanna enjoying her time with friends and family.           Joe Magnuson Traffic Analyst Have you met Joe Magnuson? If not, you should! Joe is a recent graduate from NCSU and is now part of the Raleigh traffic engineering team. Joe found his passion in traffic engineering after doing an internship working with the NCDOT working on traffic and transportation design. Fun Fact: When he’s not at work, Joe will always find some reason to be outside! He loves the outdoors. Whether hes' fishing, mountain biking, or kayaking, you’ll find him somewhere outdoors.           Interested in joining one of our outstanding teams? Check out our open positions on the web at www.timmons.com/careers.       http://www.timmons.com/news/blog/summer-of-training-a-thunderous-concert-of-awesomeness http://www.timmons.com/news/blog/summer-of-training-a-thunderous-concert-of-awesomeness Consistently and reliably achieving our clients’ vision requires a concert of talents throughout the company. Walking the hallways of Timmons Group, I’m constantly reminded how thunderous that concert truly is among our outstandingly talented teams. From the quintessential watercooler conversations to the melodic sounds of Zoom and Microsoft Teams echoing abound, visit one of our offices and you’ll undoubtedly hear a concert of awesomeness. This summer, perhaps the most thunderous of those concerts was something we call Summer of Training. What is Summer of Training?     Summer of Training is an annual training series focused on cultivating and improving the skills of our team. For eleven consecutive weeks this summer, seven of our top experts hosted a variety of targeted training sessions. Each 60–90-minute session focused on topics ranging from simple to advanced, but all essential to the work we do to achieve the vision of our clients. The sessions hosted as part of our 2021 Summer of Training series included: Leveraging the Timmons Group Standards Like a Pro Exploring Bluebeam 101 The Fundamentals of Plan Presentation ArcGIS: 101 Introduction to Map and Exhibit Creation Erosion and Sediment Control Fundamentals "So You Need A Survey" - Surveying Basics VDOT Storm Sewer Design (Capacity): Step by step instruction through VDOT Capacity design calculations VDOT Storm Sewer Design (Hydraulic Grade Line): Step by step instruction through VDOT HGL design calculations Culvert Design Fundamentals Intermediate Civil 3D Alignments and Corridors Advanced Civil 3D Corridors and Assemblies   In all, this year’s Summer of Training welcomed more than 1,000 total attendees (and many more who can access the recordings through our online training portal). Helping to cultivate the talents of our teams all year long, TG Tech Online is the on-demand learning portal exclusively available to members of the Timmons Group team. Melvin Fleming taught a session on Civil 3D Corridors.   Laurie Coffman taught a session on VDOT Storm Sewer Design.   With new content being added by our experts each month, TG Tech Online provides our teams with access to more than one hundred courses and growing. From design technology and engineering skills to project management, business technology, and beyond, each course represents the symphony of proficiencies necessary to complete practically any project under the rainbow. Collectively, the thunderous concert of learning and development resonates throughout the halls of Timmons Group and beyond. Not only does it allow us to better serve our clients, but it also offers bountiful opportunities for our team members to grow in their careers too. To upgrade your career with the growth opportunities it deserves, check out our careers page to join the vibrant and diverse Timmons Group team.   http://www.timmons.com/news/blog/dejando-huella-en-el-futuro-meet-robert-gonzalez http://www.timmons.com/news/blog/dejando-huella-en-el-futuro-meet-robert-gonzalez I remember my first conversation with Robert well. In November 2020, news broke that he would become a Principal at the firm, and I called to congratulate him and learn more about his expertise for a writeup regarding his new role. We spoke for ten minutes and he told me about his experience in his (at the time) three years at Timmons Group. While I’m never shocked that each of our employees has a particularly interesting background, Robert’s story came full circle for me when we sat down in September for a much longer discussion that was sparked by my reaching out to him for a Hispanic Heritage Month feature. We talked about everything from his A/E/C background and family influence to his leadership style. Robert is the head of our Dallas office and leader of our renewable energy practices in Dallas and Richmond. He originally focused his engineering background on land development and construction before he shifted to renewable energy. He has a bachelor’s in civil engineering from Brigham Young University and is a Licensed Professional Engineer in Arizona, DC, Idaho, Illinois, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and Washington. He’s spent years growing the Dallas engineering and survey practice and also oversees the quickly expanding Richmond renewable energy group, totaling over 40 individuals at the time of writing. As you can imagine, with all those employees (on several teams in different localities), Robert is very involved in his team members’ needs and places an emphasis on giving everyone tools that can help them succeed.   Robert and his Dallas team collected food in March 2021 for North Texas Food Bank.   Robert’s engineering team members exercise their proficiency in designing solar farms, an ever evolving and vital part of the renewable energy industry. “From an engineering standpoint, both the teams I work with have different overall focuses and needs,” Robert said about the Dallas and Richmond practices. “In our Dallas practice’s work, there aren’t a lot of sensitive watersheds or forests to protect, so our goal in the Texas office is very private-focused. We produce a lot of renewable energy designs for large undeveloped areas or farmland. The biggest challenges are volume, managing large data sets and doing it all with tight schedules. In our Richmond office, the renewables team has similar challenges but with the added responsibility of working with municipalities and agencies to meet stormwater management and natural preserve goals.” Each team also handles certain technical design aspects differently, like how to engage with underground utilities or trees and power poles that may prevent solar panels from receiving sunlight. Robert says it can be interesting to manage each team’s design needs, but it’s a challenge he welcomes. “It’s an interesting dynamic, that our teams are niche to the regions they serve, and it’s exciting to see them flourish in those areas.” Alongside the renewables engineers in both states, Robert manages a survey practice in the Dallas office. This team’s focus is surveying the land that solar and wind farms will be constructed on. “Our surveyors go all over the country, mostly focusing on Texas and the west,” Robert said. These team members’ day to day jobs include surveying thousands of square miles to ensure that a utility development client has everything in their back pocket to bring their renewable energy dream to life. His surveyors’ careers are demanding, and Robert knows that the key to any successful team is to nurture a culture of commitment, trust, and boundaries (pun intended). “These individuals are so invested in their work, they travel a lot and they’re very focused. They spend weeks in the field going from site to site and manually surveying large plots of land. One of their biggest challenges is a quick turnaround for large projects.” Whether he’s overseeing his engineers or his surveyors, Robert says that one of the keys to leadership is placing an emphasis on his employees. “As a leader my goal is to give them all the tools, structure, and company culture that they need to prosper. Having a company behind you who’s listening and putting an emphasis on their employees is amazing, and we’re grateful that Timmons Group provides those things for us. Because, when you find someone good, you really want to hold on to them.”   Robert’s Dallas team recently moved into a new space and celebrated with matching Timmons Group tees.   Robert is an advocate for all his employees, but being a good leader is something he had to work for. He attributes some parts of his leadership style to anecdotal experiences and borrowed mantras from books like The Speed of Trust by Stephen M. R. Covey, but he also attributes a lot to watching his Hispanic family pave their own way in America when he was young. “When I was growing up, I remember thinking that to make a difference in my life, I had to apply myself—my character and the things I knew I was capable of. My dad is from Mexico and I grew up fairly poor, so I knew I had to get an education. I had examples in my life that I could follow. Watching them while growing up I realized, ‘Oh, it is possible, I just have to work hard and recognize my potential.’” It came as no shock to me to learn that Robert harnessed examples from his family to build his own success, but he did tell me about three particular individuals that heavily influenced his motivation to thrive in life. The first was his great grandfather, Manrique Gonzalez. “I could go on for hours about him but simply put—he was a very hard worker,” Robert said. Manrique began work at a very young age for very little. He learned English, got a degree in the United States, and became a professor of Agriculture at Utah State University and then New Mexico State University, where he went on to develop the New Mexico Pinto Bean.   Manrique Gonzalez, Robert’s great grandfather and inventor of the pinto bean.   Robert’s great grandfather’s oldest son, Ernesto Gonzalez, is another family influence for Robert. Ernesto taught medicine while serving in the military and earned several masters and PhD degrees before becoming a brain surgeon and practicing as the chief of staff at The French Hospital in San Francisco. “I didn’t meet him until I was 19 but I’d always heard stories about him and figured if somebody born in Mexico, could come to the United States and become a brain surgeon there was no reason I couldn’t be whatever I wanted to be.” The third influence, and the greatest, that Robert recalls is his uncle Manrique “Manny” Gonzalez, who was born in Mexico. He earned an associate’s degree in humanities from a community college, then moved to Oregon with family directly after graduation to work in construction. “While still in his twenties, he and a coworker decided to buy a backhoe and a dump truck and start their own construction company, T&M Pipeline Construction, after Tom and Manny. The company struggled and Tom left, but my uncle persevered,” Robert told me. Robert said that every summer between the ages of 15 and 23 he worked for his uncle’s company in Oregon, starting as a construction top man, someone who stands at the top of the trench and hands things down to workers below. “When my uncle and aunt passed away in 2003 in an airplane accident, I took over the construction company and their estate. I was only 27. I knew enough about the company after spending 7 summers, literally in the trenches.” Robert eventually turned the business over to a cousin when he was ready, but the experience provided a sound platform for which he built his leadership skills on.   Manrique and Ernesto, Robert’s great grandfather and great uncle. When I look back on my original conversation with Robert in November 2020, I recall the excitement in his voice to be discussing his new role as Principal at the firm. Now, when I think of my recent conversation with him, I also think about the way he built his career with so many influences from his Hispanic family and culture.  Robert spent years watching and absorbing everything he could from these successful men in his life, their legacies helping him realize his potential to be a leader in his own right. Surely, they’d all be very proud to know that Robert is passing along pieces of their invaluable leadership skills and knowledge to his renewable energy engineers and surveyors as they build their own careers.   http://www.timmons.com/news/blog/cities-of-chesapeake-and-suffolk-resilience-plan-development http://www.timmons.com/news/blog/cities-of-chesapeake-and-suffolk-resilience-plan-development The Timmons Group Hampton Roads Stormwater group, led by Liz Scheessele, will be assisting the Cities of Chesapeake and Suffolk with developing their Resilience Plans. Both localities were awarded grant funding through the Virginia Community Flood Preparedness Fund (CFPF) during its inaugural round. In addition, our team led the grant application effort for the City of Chesapeake.     Governor Ralph Northam announced “$7.8 million in grants to support 19 local projects that address impacts of flooding, sea-level rise, and extreme weather statewide. The grants are the first to be awarded through the Virginia Community Flood Preparedness Fund. The Governor and General Assembly established the fund in 2020 to assist communities in building resilience to the impacts of climate change, including floods, with targeted funding going to vulnerable and underserved communities. The fund is financed by the sale of carbon emission allowances under the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. Virginia joined the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative in January 2021. Eligible projects areas include planning and capacity building activities, flood prevention and protection studies, and on-the-ground improvements that strengthen flood resilience. The program prioritizes projects that utilize nature-based solutions.” (source from Governor Northam’s website) Before a locality can apply for project funding through the program, they must first develop a project-based Resilience Plan that addresses the entire locality and includes a plan for implementation. We are proud to work with Chesapeake and Suffolk on these Plans and to assist in positioning them for future project implementation grant funding.   http://www.timmons.com/news/blog/getting-geo-technical-with-matt-thornton http://www.timmons.com/news/blog/getting-geo-technical-with-matt-thornton Have you ever wondered just how the Earth supports the things we build on it? You know, like how certain kinds of soil can (or can’t) support a bridge, high rise, or civic center? Before a build can actually take place, engineers have to ensure that the ground below a project is prepared to take on the task of supporting it. Enter: Our geotechnical and construction materials testing (CMT) teams. To learn more about our geotechnical and CMT offerings, I caught up with Matt Thornton, a laboratory manager in our Richmond Southlake office. He is passionate about his career, and it’s pretty obvious that he’s really great at it too. In his role, Matt conducts tests and manages the lab’s equipment to promote accurate, quick, and concise results. To make sure that construction specifications and guidelines are being followed, many projects require that a third party conduct precise analyses and testing. And that’s where Matt and his team come in. While geotechnical and CMT services are both similar and dissimilar in several ways, the biggest differentiation is that geotechnical engineering is offered before or during a project’s design and CMT services are offered while a project is in the construction phase. Because of their nature, it often times makes sense to start with a project’s geotechnical needs.   Particle Size Analysis — Uses a series of nested sieves placed in a mechanical shaker to separate the material into various size fractions.   Masonry Strength Specimens — Grout and mortar used for CMU Masonry Walls  are formed into specimens which will be tested in the laboratory to determine the compressive strength.   “There is a wide range of geotechnical issues to consider depending on what the exact project needs are,” Matt says. “Our geotechnical services start with a subsurface investigation that involves sending a driller to a project site. The driller sends those samples back to our Southlake office, we generate an analysis, then we send that information to our engineers so they can properly design for a site’s needs. The engineers will tell us in advance what kind of tests they want based on the project they’re designing. It could be as simple as a footing or as complex as a bridge abutment or retaining wall, but each project is dynamic and requires different care.” Once the team has checked all the geotechnical boxes, an engineer will continue their project’s design where it will one day move into the construction phase. At that point, Matt’s team steps back into the picture to ensure that everything the engineer planned for during the design phase comes to fruition during construction.   Unconfined Compressive Strength — Samples of soil, concrete, and bedrock can be placed in load frames to determine their strength. These test results are reported in pounds per square inch (psi). Geotechnical Engineers use the test results to determine if soil and/or rock is strong enough to support a structure.   Hydrometer Analysis — A project specific test that determines the percent distribution of various size particles smaller than 75 microns (0.0029 inches) as they settle through a column of water.   “We provide third-party testing during the construction phase of a project to help both the client and contractor ensure that protocols are being met,” Matt says. “CMT focuses on whether the contractor has properly placed materials on site and whether they’re of the right quality. We have field technicians that are capable of running a large variety of tests and observations on site like field density tests, footing observations, bearing pressure and reinforcing steel observations, concrete and masonry testing, and more.” “Our techs can also bring materials back to the lab so we can run tests like moisture content, wet washing and particle size analysis, liquid and plastic limits, California bearing ratio tests, one-dimensional consolidation and swell tests, corrosion potential, and thermal resistivity,” Matt says. Whether the samples come from a geotechnical need or construction materials testing need, they end up in Matt’s lab where he’ll test that the quality matches what the client expected and what the contractor offered.   Liquid Limit — The moisture content at which a material changes from a plastic state of consistency to a liquid state of consistency. A groove is cut into a mass of soil resting in a brass cup that is mechanically dropped from a height of 10 mm. The moisture content is determined when 25 drops of the cup will close the groove ½ inch.   Density of Compacted Asphalt — A common method to determine the density of asphalt is by removing a section of compacted asphalt for comparing its mass in air to its mass in water. This is referred to as the Bulk Specific Gravity or Bulk Density of Compacted Asphalt.   “Our field services are very important to the construction industry because owners deserve to know what is going on behind the scenes with their projects,” Matt says. Construction projects can cost upwards of hundreds of thousands of dollars, so implementing a handful of tests up front and during the construction process is a precautionary measure that Timmons Group is proud to offer for our clients. Between the geotechnical and construction materials testing services that our Southlake Richmond office provides, Matt says that folks on both ends of the spectrum have one goal in mind: To make critical observations that help ensure a smooth transition to a safe and enjoyable completed project. Interested in learning more about our geotechnical and CMT offerings? Explore more here.   http://www.timmons.com/news/blog/picture-this-wayne-county-community-college-automotive-collision-repair-bui http://www.timmons.com/news/blog/picture-this-wayne-county-community-college-automotive-collision-repair-bui This inaugural design-build project for the North Carolina Community College system was completed by Daniels and Daniels Construction Company, Moseley Architects, and Timmons Group. Timmons Group provided civil engineering, landscape architecture, survey, geotechnical investigation, and subsurface utility engineering for  the building.     The automotive building is approximately 34,000 SF and houses all of the College’s automotive and collision repair facilities like classrooms, bays, work rooms, and offices that were originally located throughout four separate buildings on campus.     The new building was strategically designed for future expansions with the back of the building offering lab areas and open spaces that can be used for collaborative meetings and training in the future.     The building was originally located on the emergency and truck driving training pads, so Timmons Group worked closely with the College to relocate the driver training courses.     The team reworked the existing parking areas and service roads in order to provide the proper turning radii and run out distances in order to successful complete all maneuvers that the College is currently training. The first phase of the project was to relocate the training pads so that there was no down time in training operations. After the new training pad had been installed, construction began on the new automotive building.