ASCE Geo-Institute Case History Meeting was held in Engineering Club, St. Louis on April 28, 2016. Dr. Jean-Louis Briaud, the Geo-Institute's Cross USA Lecturer for 2015-2016, provided the lecture, "Behavior of Two Mats undert Heavy Load- Washington Monument and San Jacinto Monument." The lecture presented geotechnical investigations of two large mat foundations over several decades. Dr. Briaud is Professor and Holder of the Buchanan Chair in the Zachry Department of Civil Engineering, Texas A&M University.
In this meeting four university research investigations were also presented by research fellows in Southern Illinois University and University of Missouri Science and Technology. The presentation titled "Seismic Earth Pressure Variations in Retaining Walls with Cohesive Backfill Material" was presented by Siavash Zamiran, PhD candidate and instructor in Southern Illinois University. The presentation file for this research is provided as following. 

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Geo-Institute SIUE Chapter will host Mr. Allen Minks to School of Engineering SIUE for a seminar regarding geotechnical engineering career. This presentation will cover the experiences of a 32-year geotechnical career including lessons learned and mistakes that were made.  Projects will be highlighted that include value engineering to save on construction costs and measures that were taken to increase the design life of projects.  In some cases, emergency repairs were made with very little geotechnical data, and field decisions were made on the spot to maintain ongoing operation of the facility.  The presentation will also include the benefit of active participation in professional societies and the local engineering community.
Mr. Minks manages the Geotechnical Department in Terracon’s St. Louis, Missouri office.  He has over 32 years of experience in a wide variety of geotechnical studies ranging from home foundation distress investigations to foundation analysis, design, and construction monitoring of multi-million dollar projects. His responsibilities have included project initiation, proposals, supervision, and performance of field and laboratory investigations; geotechnical analysis and design; reports; and construction monitoring and supervision.
Mr. Minks has written reports for over 1,500 geotechnical projects with various geologic and subsurface conditions. He has worked on projects in 16 states, China, and Trinidad. Mr. Minks also spent two years working in product development for a ground improvement contractor. He has worked on several value engineering projects that resulted in construction savings between one hundred thousand and one million dollars. Mr. Minks is a past president of the St. Louis Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), and received the Professional Recognition Award in 2012.  He also received the ASCE Edmund Friedman Professional Recognition Award in 2013.  He has taught the geotechnical section of the PE refresher course offered by MSPE (Missouri Society of Professional Engineers) for over 10 years.

Geo-Institute SIUE seminar with the title of Monitoring Micropile Foundations of Bridge During Construction was held on March 1st 2016 in School of Engineering, SIUE. Dr. Ronaldo Luna professor and chair of Civil Engineering Department in Saint Louis University presented the seminar. He covered a summary of the installation of instrumentation and results of the monitoring program of micropile foundations during construction of the Foothills Parkway Bridge No. 2 in eastern Tennessee completed in December of 2012. ​