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McCleary Engineering
McCleary Engineering specializes in geotechnical investigations and recommendations for foundation design, retaining walls, slope stability, embankments, pavement design and rehabilitation, subgrade treatments and other engineering services such as drainage studies. McCleary Engineering is Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) prequalified in general geotechnical services, subsurface explorations, structure geotechnical reports and construction inspection categories.
Mr. McCleary has nearly 19 years of construction and geotechnical engineering experience with IDOT. Six years were spent on the front lines of contract administration in construction as a resident engineer on bridge and roadway projects which included construction layout, material inspection and construction practice inspection. For the last 13 years at IDOT, Mr. McCleary was the District #3 geotechnical engineer, working with hands-on subsurface investigations; analysis, design, and inspection of geotechnical engineering projects; and on-the-spot problem solving. He has served on numerous statewide committees involving abutment design, piling, aggregate subgrade, subgrade stability, pavement under drains and pavement rehabilitation. He served on a nationwide Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) pooled fund study on deep soil mixing technology. In 2009, Mr. McCleary left IDOT to work full time at his company, McCleary Engineering. Mr. McCleary is a licensed professional engineer in the states of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Georgia, Montana, Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma and Wisconsin. He is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the National Society of Professional Engineers, the Deep Foundations Institute, the Pile Driving Contractors Association and the Illinois Association of Highway Engineers. He is currently serving on the NCHRP Committee for the research of bridge scour on gravel bed rivers.

Mr. Meruva is a geotechnical engineer with 22 years of experience. He is a professional engineer (PE) in Texas, New Mexico, South Carolina, Louisiana, and Tennessee. Mr. Meruva has worked on a variety of projects, including nuclear facilities, wind turbines, bridges, hospitals, parking garages, highrise buildings, refineries, gas plants, schools, dams, landfills, and hydraulic fracking pits, and he has worked in the oil and gas industry. In his current role with Delek, he serves as a lead civil engineer providing civil/geotechnical/structural support on oil and gas midstream facilities. He also provides training to junior and entry-level staff. Mr. Meruva earned his M.S. degree in Geotechnical Engineering from the University of Houston in Houston, Texas.

Senior Geotechnical Engineer, Freese and Nichols, Inc.
Dr. Hedayati is a senior geotechnical engineer at Freese and Nichols, Inc and an adjunct faculty at the University of Texas at Arlington. Her experience with geotechnical engineering includes subsurface investigations, foundation analysis and design, slope stability and seepage analysis, numerical modeling, dam rehabilitation and redesign, levees, floodwalls and drainage structures design. As an adjunct faculty, she teaches courses on computational geotechnics and the geotechnical aspects of landfill design. Dr. Hedayati earned her B.Sc. degree in Civil Engineering from Amirkabir University of Technology (Tehran Polytechnic) and her M.Sc. degree from Tehran University, where she focused on polluted soils and decontamination methods. She earned her Ph.D. degree in Geotechnical Engineering from the University of Texas at Arlington.

Mr. Simpson founded Gradelta Engineering in 2020 with the intent to help clients better understand the combination of geotechnical and structural engineering that he has worked with for the past 20 years. He earned his B.S.C.E. and M.S.C.E. degrees from Georgia Institute of Technology. He currently provides engineering services to contractors and fellow engineers for earth structure pricing, along with the plans and calculations needed for construction. He frequently consults with clients regarding the optimal structure type and location on the construction site to minimize risk and maximize useable space. He also works in the education sector providing not just seminars such as this one, but also acting as a subject matter expert creating study guide and test prep content for the NCEES Professional Civil Engineer exam. Mr. Simpson has also worked with lawyers and insurance companies during forensic investigation and lawsuits surrounding retaining walls and slope failures. His hope is that through the instructional services that he currently provides, slopes will remain stable and retaining wall failure will be eliminated.

Mr. Simpson founded Gradelta Engineering in 2020 with the intent to help clients better understand the combination of geotechnical and structural engineering that he has worked with for the past 20 years. He earned his B.S.C.E. and M.S.C.E. degrees from Georgia Institute of Technology. He currently provides engineering services to contractors and fellow engineers for earth structure pricing, along with the plans and calculations needed for construction. He frequently consults with clients regarding the optimal structure type and location on the construction site to minimize risk and maximize useable space. He also works in the education sector providing not just seminars such as this one, but also acting as a subject matter expert creating study guide and test prep content for the NCEES Professional Civil Engineer exam. Mr. Simpson has also worked with lawyers and insurance companies during forensic investigation and lawsuits surrounding retaining walls and slope failures. His hope is that through the instructional services that he currently provides, slopes will remain stable and retaining wall failure will be eliminated.

Mr. Simpson founded Gradelta Engineering in 2020 with the intent to help clients better understand the combination of geotechnical and structural engineering that he has worked with for the past 20 years. He earned his B.S.C.E. and M.S.C.E. degrees from Georgia Institute of Technology. He currently provides engineering services to contractors and fellow engineers for earth structure pricing, along with the plans and calculations needed for construction. He frequently consults with clients regarding the optimal structure type and location on the construction site to minimize risk and maximize useable space. He also works in the education sector providing not just seminars such as this one, but also acting as a subject matter expert creating study guide and test prep content for the NCEES Professional Civil Engineer exam. Mr. Simpson has also worked with lawyers and insurance companies during forensic investigation and lawsuits surrounding retaining walls and slope failures. His hope is that through the instructional services that he currently provides, slopes will remain stable and retaining wall failure will be eliminated.

Mr. Simpson founded Gradelta Engineering in 2020 with the intent to help clients better understand the combination of geotechnical and structural engineering that he has worked with for the past 20 years. He earned his B.S.C.E. and M.S.C.E. degrees from Georgia Institute of Technology. He currently provides engineering services to contractors and fellow engineers for earth structure pricing, along with the plans and calculations needed for construction. He frequently consults with clients regarding the optimal structure type and location on the construction site to minimize risk and maximize useable space. He also works in the education sector providing not just seminars such as this one, but also acting as a subject matter expert creating study guide and test prep content for the NCEES Professional Civil Engineer exam. Mr. Simpson has also worked with lawyers and insurance companies during forensic investigation and lawsuits surrounding retaining walls and slope failures. His hope is that through the instructional services that he currently provides, slopes will remain stable and retaining wall failure will be eliminated.

Senior Vice President/Managing Officer/Principal Engineer for Converse Consultants
Dr. Sivathasan is a registered civil and geotechnical engineer in California, with 25 years of geotechnical and construction experience. He is skilled at analyzing complex geotechnical problems and has prepared comprehensive reports with detailed recommendations. He also has extensive knowledge of construction projects from managing geotechnical observation and testing, special inspection and material testing, and Caltrans source inspection services. He has been providing source inspection for major transportation projects in Southern California. He is a subject matter expert for the California Board of Professional Engineers, Land Surveyors, and Geologists for geotechnical engineering exam development. Dr. Sivathasan has been teaching several civil engineering undergraduate and graduate classes at Cal Poly Pomona and Cal State Fullerton on a part-time basis. He also taught civil engineering classes at the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka; the University of California at Davis and Irvine; and Cal State Northridge. He teaches geotechnical engineering and engineering surveying sections for the California Professional Engineer Exam. He is the past chair of the ASCE Los Angeles Section Geotechnical Group and has published several papers in journals and for international and national conferences.

Parikh ConsultantsMr. Saravanapavan is a project engineer with Parikh Consultants, well-known California based geotechnical engineering consultants. He is a licensed geotechnical engineer and a licensed civil engineer in California with more than 12 years of experience in various geotechnical consultancy services for both the public and private sectors. He has completed numerous geotechnical engineering studies related to residential and commercial developments, schools, hospitals, multi-story structures, light rail projects, public roadway infrastructure, levee evaluations, water and wastewater treatment facilities, small and large diameter buried pipelines, and overhead power line projects. Further, he has performed geotechnical studies for trenchless pipeline installation applications for horizontal directional drilling. He is also experienced with geotechnical design, construction monitoring and testing of driven piles. Mr. Saravanapavan has experience in axial and lateral pile capacity analysis for driven piles, cast-in-drilled hole piles, and drilled shafts using A-PILE, L-PILE, SHAFT, GROUP computer software. He has also performed soil and rock slope stability, retaining wall stability including MSE walls, retaining wall bearing capacity analysis, and settlement calculations. In addition, he has performed seismic hazard analysis including liquefaction analysis utilizing CPT and SPT and determining peak ground accelerations based on deterministic seismic hazard analysis (DSHA) and probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (PSHA). Mr. Saravanapavan graduated from New Mexico State University where he received his master’s degree. He graduated from University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka with his bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering.

T.Y. Lin InternationalMr. Selladurai is senior engineer with T.Y. Lin International, a multi-disciplinary engineering services firm recognized for solving some of the most significant infrastructure challenges of our age. Mr. Selladurai is a licensed structural engineer in California and Hawaii and a licensed civil engineer in the state of California with more than 12 years of extensive structural engineering experience in the United States, Singapore, India, Maldives, and Sri Lanka on various projects in both bridges and buildings. He has worked on several local agency and larger design-build projects around the country and has demonstrated expertise in designing with all major forms of building materials, including reinforced and pre-stressed concrete, steel, timber, and masonry. Mr. Selladurai was one of the key members of a team that worked with Caltrans for updating older LFD (load factor design) standard plans to current LRFD (load resistance factor design) based standard plans. Mr. Selladurai is currently a committee member of the NCEES 16-hour nationwide structural exam, and he was a subject matter expert for the California state-specific seismic exam development in the past. He is also actively volunteering with NorCal STEM foundation to encourage high school students in STEM education and NCEES to encourage civil engineering licensing in the industry. Mr. Selladurai graduated from New Mexico State University where he received his master’s degree with an honor graduate award for maintaining the highest GPA in the class. He graduated from University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka, with his bachelor degree in Civil Engineering.

Mr. Messmer has over 30 years of engineering experience in analysis, design, plan/specification development, and project management/personnel supervision for geotechnical, foundation and structural engineering projects in the transportation, industrial, municipal and commercial fields of civil engineering. Throughout his career he has placed an emphasis on quality control and staff training. Mr. Messmer is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Concrete Institute, the American Society of Highway Engineers and the Society of American Military Engineers. He earned his B.S. degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh. Mr. Messmer was accepted into the Academy of Geo-Professionals in 2013.

Mr. Simpson founded Gradelta Engineering in 2020 with the intent to help clients better understand the combination of geotechnical and structural engineering that he has worked with for the past 20 years. He earned his B.S.C.E. and M.S.C.E. degrees from Georgia Institute of Technology. He currently provides engineering services to contractors and fellow engineers for earth structure pricing, along with the plans and calculations needed for construction. He frequently consults with clients regarding the optimal structure type and location on the construction site to minimize risk and maximize useable space. He also works in the education sector providing not just seminars such as this one, but also acting as a subject matter expert creating study guide and test prep content for the NCEES Professional Civil Engineer exam. Mr. Simpson has also worked with lawyers and insurance companies during forensic investigation and lawsuits surrounding retaining walls and slope failures. His hope is that through the instructional services that he currently provides, slopes will remain stable and retaining wall failure will be eliminated.

Director of Engineering at The Mannik & Smith Group
Mr. Shunnar has more than 25 years of experience in geotechnical engineering with expertise in specialty foundations, ground improvement, slope stability, instrumentation and waste management. He has a master’s degree in Geotechnical Engineering from the University of Michigan, and he is a registered professional engineer. He is the author of many articles and papers on geotechnical engineering. He was the project manager for the Fairlane Green redevelopment project, winner of the 2008 National Phoenix Award. He is also the recipient of the distinguished achievement award from the University of Michigan.

Mr. Meruva is a geotechnical engineer with 22 years of experience. He is a professional engineer (PE) in Texas, New Mexico, South Carolina, Louisiana, and Tennessee. Mr. Meruva has worked on a variety of projects, including nuclear facilities, wind turbines, bridges, hospitals, parking garages, highrise buildings, refineries, gas plants, schools, dams, landfills, and hydraulic fracking pits, and he has worked in the oil and gas industry. In his current role with Delek, he serves as a lead civil engineer providing civil/geotechnical/structural support on oil and gas midstream facilities. He also provides training to junior and entry-level staff. Mr. Meruva earned his M.S. degree in Geotechnical Engineering from the University of Houston in Houston, Texas.

California State University, Fullerton
Dr. Tiwari is a professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department of California State University, Fullerton. He earned his Ph.D. degree in Geotechnical Engineering in 2003 and is expert in the fields of slope stability and stabilization, landslide mitigation, applied GIS, soil behavior and characterization, and geotechnical earthquake engineering. Dr. Tiwari is a member of various technical committees for ASCE and the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, and he is editor as well as reviewer for various international journals. He was post-doc at Niigata University, Japan, and at Virginia Tech for more than three years prior to joining CSUF in the fall of 2006. Dr. Tiwari is a licensed professional engineer in the state of California and has more than 20 years experience in design and implementation of projects pertinent to slope stability and stabilization.

Mr. Simpson founded Gradelta Engineering in 2020 with the intent to help clients better understand the combination of geotechnical and structural engineering that he has worked with for the past 20 years. He earned his B.S.C.E. and M.S.C.E. degrees from Georgia Institute of Technology. He currently provides engineering services to contractors and fellow engineers for earth structure pricing, along with the plans and calculations needed for construction. He frequently consults with clients regarding the optimal structure type and location on the construction site to minimize risk and maximize useable space. He also works in the education sector providing not just seminars such as this one, but also acting as a subject matter expert creating study guide and test prep content for the NCEES Professional Civil Engineer exam. Mr. Simpson has also worked with lawyers and insurance companies during forensic investigation and lawsuits surrounding retaining walls and slope failures. His hope is that through the instructional services that he currently provides, slopes will remain stable and retaining wall failure will be eliminated.