Welcome to Delaware Valley Geo-Institute!
November Dinner Meeting
Tuesday, November 18, 2025
5:30 PM to 8:30 PM
Join the DVGI on Tuesday, November 18, 2025 at Valley Forge Casino’s Parkview Ballroom for our November 2025 Dinner Meeting featuring a presentation by speakers Catherine Chia-Calabria, PE of McCormick Taylor and Jason Taylor, PE, PG of Susquehanna Civil. Catherine and Jason will present the The Story of Hanging Rock – SR 320 Section M07, Montgomery County, PA.
Click the button below to register by Thursday, November 13, 2025. Meal selection is not guaranteed after 11/10/25.
Abstract
PennDOT District 6 had long considered Hanging Rock a “legacy” project. Due to its complex nature of design, location, and environmental permitting issues this project was with the Department for more than 20 years. After many attempts to advance the project, PennDOT subsequently selected McCormick Taylor and was successful in bringing the project to construction, completing the design in just 3 years. The project team worked through the rigorous environmental clearance process and complexities of the site to achieve a new design that reconstructed the flood prone roadway, raising it above the 100-year flood elevation.
The project installed nearly 1,000 linear feet of retaining wall for support against the fast-moving waters of Gulph Creek during storm events. A 600-foot-long section of the retaining wall features a cantilevered roadway over the creek to move the travel lanes away from the historic Hanging Rock. This simple yet innovative solution allowed for conventional means and methods of construction to achieve the project goals and restore mobility and safety on PA 320. The project was recognized as the ASHE Delaware Valley Section Project of the Year 2022 for projects under $20 million.
About the Speakers
Catherine Chia-Calabria, PE is Senior Manager for Structural Engineering at McCormick Taylor. She is a registered Professional Engineer in six states and has 40 years of experience in the design and construction of transportation structural facilities. Her extensive project experience includes steel and concrete bridges, culverts, retaining walls, noise walls and sign structures. On numerous projects she has been the Project Structural Engineer responsible for developing preliminary through final design drawings, shop drawing reviews, and other construction support services.
Catherine obtained her BS and MS degrees in Civil Engineering from Drexel University. She is a member of ASCE, ASHE and ACEC-PA. Catherine has been an active participant in Pennsbury School District’s annual K-12 career fair since 2001, where she interacts with students of all ages and especially encourages young girls to believe that they too can aspire to be Civil Engineers.
Jason Taylor, PE, PG is a licensed Professional Engineer and Professional Geologist with over 24 years of experience in geotechnical engineering and environmental consulting. As Geotechnical Group Manager at Susquehanna Civil, he leads complex infrastructure projects across Pennsylvania, specializing in foundation design, slope stability, retaining walls, and subsurface investigations.
Mr. Taylor holds a Master of Science in Engineering Geology from Portland State University and a Bachelor of Science in Geology from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. His expertise spans a wide range of geotechnical solutions, including PM/MSE-Walls, slope stability, soil nails, micropiles, and soldier pile walls.
December Ethics Webinar
Date TBD
12:00 PM to 1:00 PM
Presentation abstract, speaker bio, and registration details to be announced at a later date.
January Dinner Meeting
Tuesday, January 20, 2026
5:30 PM to 8:30 PM
Presentation abstract, speaker bio, and registration details to be announced at a later date.
Past Events
October Dinner Meeting – Tuesday, October 14, 2025
On Tuesday, October 14th, DVGI gathered for its monthly dinner meeting at the Valley Forge Casino. The meeting featured a presentation by speaker Melinda Eason, a Geotechnical Engineer with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Philadelphia District. Melinda will present a Geotechnical Review of Beach Nourishment at Indian River Inlet.
The Indian River Inlet in Delaware is a vital access point to the Delaware Inland Bays, supporting commercial, recreational, and U.S. Coast Guard navigation. Initially authorized by Congress in 1937 and modified in 1945, the project includes parallel jetties spaced 500 feet apart, a 200-foot-wide channel dredged to a depth of 15 feet extending 7,000 feet into the bay, and additional dredging of a 9-foot-deep channel through the bay and river.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Philadelphia District received funding from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act for maintenance repairs, including design and construction of jetty restoration, repair of a failed bulkhead on the interior north shore, and beachfill nourishment to reduce erosion. Melinda’s presentation highlighted the importance of coastal resilience and the impact USACE’s projects have in protecting our coastlines and communities. Thank you for sharing your project with us!
September Dinner Meeting – Tuesday, September 16, 2025
Please join us in congratulating the 2024-2025 DVGI Geotechnical Project of the Year Award recipient, Peirce Engineering, Inc. for Roberts Children’s Health at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
The campus expansion project in University City will include an inpatient tower building connected to the flagship hospital. Peirce Engineering collaborated to provide geo-structural services required to jumpstart the project.
On Tuesday, September 16th, DVGI was joined by speaker Jennifer Brandt, P.E. of Peirce Engineering, Inc. for a presentation discussing the project. Jen detailed the project’s challenges (the congested city location surrounded by medical buildings, the unknown geotechnical conditions, and adjacent research buildings and potential noise and vibration impacts) and a variety of geotechnical solutions including soil nailing, underpinning, rock bolting, soldier beams and lagging, tieback anchors, and drilled shafts.
The DVGI presented the team with their award at the conclusion of the presentation. Thank you for sharing your project with us!
DVGI Annual Golf Outing – Thursday, June 19, 2025
On Thursday, June 19th, 2025, 81 DVGI members and friends participated in the annual DVGI Golf Outing at Kimberton Golf Club in Phoenixville. Engineers, contractors, and suppliers took time out of their busy schedules to support the DVGI scholarship fund. The weather was perfect, and the refreshments were cold for the 9 a.m. start at the beautiful venue. The outing was a scramble format inviting all levels of golf skill.
The Keystone-Foundation team posted the best team score overall, while the ECS/Peak Utility Locators team had the dubious honor of the worst or “most honest” team score. After the round of golf, participants gathered for lunch and drinks on the patio. Michael Derr, P.E. (Geo-Technology Associates, Inc. (GTA)) won the longest drive hole while Michael Shedlosky (MENARD USA) won the closest to the pin prize, and Andrew Crivelli (GeoConstructors Inc.) mastered the Shortest Driver.
The event was a great chance for DVGI members and friends to socialize in a more casual setting. Shout-out to DVGI Director, Conrad Cho, P.E., LEED AP (Langan Engineering & Environmental Services) for staffing the registration table and roaming the course with refreshments. And a big THANK YOU to DVGI Director, Lei Gu, PE, PMP, ENV SP (Michael Baker International) for his continued efforts as our Golf Outing Chair!
Special thanks to our 21 sponsors which made the event a huge success and provided over $7,000 for the DVGI Scholarship Fund. The money will be distributed to students during DVGI’s annual Student Night dinner meeting next March. Thank you for helping us make this a record-setting year! We hope to see you all again, at next year’s outing.
DVGI May Dinner Meeting – Tuesday, May 20, 2025
DVGI concluded its successful run of 2024-25 dinner meetings on Tuesday, May 20th at the Valley Forge Casino. Attendees were in for a real treat as the ASCE Geo-Institute’s 2024-2025 Cross-USA Lecturer, Prof. Richard Bathurst, Ph.D., P.Eng., of the Royal Military College of Canada, presented “From measurement to LRFD calibration of MSE walls.” Prof. Bathurst reviewed how measurements from instrumented full-scale field and laboratory tests of mechanically stabilized earth (MSE) walls have been used to calibrate load and resistance factors in the AASHTO load and resistance factor design (LRFD) procedure for tensile strength and pullout failure modes of these walls. Such calibrations have improved the accuracy of the MSE wall design process, allowing for more reliable predictions of wall safety and performance as well as value engineering of these structures. Moreover, Prof. Bathurst explained how a simple closed-form solution – easily calculated in a spreadsheet – may be used to incorporate these advances in the LFRD model for MSE walls, negating the need for complex probabilistic simulations for these designs.
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