NEWS & EVENTS

Lynn Erickson brought on as Associate

Brelje & Race is pleased to announce the appointment of Ms. Lynn Erickson as Associate. Ms. Erickson has been with the company for over 10 years and over that course of time has standardized CAD practices that help define the superb quality of deliverables to our clients. Ms. Erickson is the latest addition to Brelje & Race Leadership Team which includes the firm’s five Senior Principals along with three other Associate members.

Brelje & Race announces two retirements

Senior Principal Tom Yokoi announced his retirement effective December 31, 2007, after more than 35 years of service with Brelje & Race. During his tenure, Mr. Yokoi has been instrumental in the development of strong, respected relationships with several long-standing public and private sector water and wastewater utility clients. Mr. Yokoi’s easy-going, professional attitude will be certainly be missed by colleagues and clients alike.

Senior Engineer Ken Lombardi also announced his retirement effective December 31, 2007, after more than 10 years with the firm. In addition to providing direct professional engineering services on residential and commercial site development projects, Mr. Lombardi has helped mentor several of our upcoming younger engineers as they learned the fine points of the land development design. Ken’s departure also takes with it our most devoted San Francisco sports fan – a suitable replacement will be tough to find!

Please join us in wishing both of these fine gentlemen the best of fortune in their retirement endeavors.

CELSOC Award for Richmond-San Rafael Bridge Seismic Retrofit project :

Brelje & Race recently received an Award of Excellence from the Consulting Engineers and Land Surveyors of California (CELSOC) for our development and execution of unique survey methods in support of the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge Seismic Retrofit project. This bridge spans over four miles across San Pablo Bay.

One key component of the retrofit was to install concrete support jackets on the bridge support piers. Creating detailed as-built data files for the bolt-hole patterns on each of more than 50 pier support jackets made it possible to accurately position the jacket halves below the water surface. This accurate jacket positioning significantly reduced the time required for the dive crews to install the long bolts holding the jacket halves together in a murky, underwater environment.

Our survey expertise also enabled monuments to be set on each of the bridge piers by Caltrans for ongoing monitoring of displacement that might occur due to earthquakes or shipping accidents. This required precise data transfer from the mainland and islands in the bay across large stretches of open water. Additional complications included high winds through the main shipping channel, expansion and contraction of the steel, heavy traffic, tidal pressure, and wave action, all of which caused almost constant movement to portions of the bridge during the survey.