UCA of SME 2010 awards of recognition
Jul 2010
UCA of SME News Release
- On the occasion of the 2010 NAT conference in Portland in June, the UCA of SME presented its awards of distinction at the Awards Banquet on Tuesday evening, June 22. The awards are presented in recognition of outstanding individual and group achievements that represent the highest levels of commitment and expertise that have come to symbolize the vitality of UCA of SME as a professional society.
- Outstanding Individual - Refik Elibay
Refik Elibay, RE., is Tunneling Practice Leader with Jordan, Jones and Goulding lnc., a Jacobs Engineering Group Inc company. Prior to Jacobs' acquisition of Jordan, Jones and Goulding (JJG) in February this year, Elibay served as Vice President and Tunnel Practice Leader for the past 20 years of JJG's Tunnels and Geotechnics Group. A civil engineering graduate of City College of New York, his career and experience spans nearly 40 years in tunneling and underground construction in a broad range of disciplines including design, cost estimating and construction management and through all geologic formations. Elibay is enthusiastic with the breath of new opportunities now that JJG has joined the Jacobs Engineering organization. -
Refik Elibay (left) and Leo Gentile
- Since 1977, Refik has been helping various Atlanta area governments and authorities overcome numerous challenges while managing more than 50 miles of large CSO tunnel projects. In recent years, he has managed design and construction phases of multi-award winning projects including the 16ft i.d, 9.5-mile long Chattahoochee Tunnel; the 8.3-mile long $132-million consent decree driven Nancy Creek Tunnel project; the 8.5-mile, $210 million West Side CSO Storage Tunnel with a 100 mgd pumping station, yet another accelerated consent decree driven project; and most recently the $305 million South Cobb Tunnel. He also served as the project manager for the design of twin soft ground tunnels, utilizing NATM principals, for extension of the Automatic People Mover trains at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.
- Elibay started his career in 1971 with Al Mathews' organization in New York City as a member of a construction management team working on major wastewater tunnels on the West Side of Manhattan. He gained significant experience in various New York projects utilizing hand-mining techniques, in soft ground and rock tunnels, the first successful TBM tunnels in New York, as well as tunnels using compressed air, and working with Local 147, the Sandhogs. Along the journey, he worked with some of the best minds in the industry, actively mentored young engineers for the next generation of professionals, and participated in and promoted the underground construction industry.
- Refik was presented his award by his colleague Leo Gentile, Leader of the Tunnels & Geotechnics Service Area at JJG. Refik is Tunnels Practice Leader.
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- Outstanding Educator - Levent Ozdemir
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Levent Ozdemir
- Levent Ozdemir, Ph.D., P.E., retired from the Colorado School of Mines (CSM) in June 2009 after 32 years of teaching and research in tunneling and underground construction.
- During his tenure at CSM, he developed and taught undergraduate and graduate courses in design and construction of underground structures, tunneling, site investigations, excavation project management and underground mining. He served as the advisor of numerous Masters and PhD students who worked on various aspects of underground construction research, in particular mechanized tunneling in hard rock and soft ground. He spent considerable effort in promoting tunneling and underground construction as a career for students in mining, and civil and geological engineering. To provide real-world experience, he encouraged and placed many students in internship and co-op programs with major tunneling contractors and designers. He also developed educational collaborations with prominent engineering universities and research establishments worldwide in tunneling and underground construction.
- Ozdemir also served as the Director of CSM Excavation Engineering and Earth Mechanics Institute (EMI), which is recognized as one of the world's leading research organizations involved in tunneling related research. As Director of EMI, he secured and managed more than $35 million in federally and privately funded research projects, including the Department of Energy's Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository program and the U.S. Air Force's Deep Missile Base program. These and other research projects formed the basis for graduate student thesis work while advancing the state-of-the-art in mechanized tunneling and underground construction.
- Ozdemir has also been very active in outreach activities by organizing and offering short courses to industry in tunneling and underground construction. He has been organizing one-day tunneling courses in conjunction with the NAT and RETC conferences since 1994. He also serves as the co-director of the three-day Microtunneling and the Breakthroughs in Tunneling short courses held annually at CSM. Hundreds of professionals from tunnel designers, contractors, owners and consultants worldwide have attended these courses over the years.
- Levent was unable to attend the NAT conference in Portland and he will be presented his award at a later date.
- Lifetime Achievement - Ed Plotkin
Edward S E Plotkin, P. E., is a Consulting Engineer and a graduate of CCNY with a BCE and MCE, and an MBA from CUNY Baruch School. He is a Professional Engineer in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Washington DC and Massachusetts. Plotkin is a member in many professional organizations including the Municipa1 Engineers of NYC, where he had been President and was awarded Engineer of the Year; the NYS Society of Professional Engineers, Westchester Chapter, where he was President and later awarded Engineer of the Year; Fellow of ASCE and in the ASCE Metropolitan Section was Director and also Chair of the Geotech Group, Director in the Westchester Planning Federation, and a member of The Moles.
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Ed Plotkin (right) with Tom Peyton
- Plotkin has worked in all facets of the engineering industry. As a contractor, he was Vice President of tunnel constructor Maclean Grove, where he was Project Manager for the 63rd Street Cross-town Subway section in New York City, two stations on the Washington DC Metro, a station cavern on the Boston subway, and a section of the New York City DEP Water Tunnel. As a designer, he was Assistant Director with Deleuw Cather for the 1970s plans 2nd Avenue Subway, and was a Consultant with the DMJM + Harris-Arup team for the present for the 2nd Avenue Subway project. In government, he was Westchester County's Commissioner of Public Works where His responsibility included county facilities maintenance and a $200 million annual budget for new and on-going capital programs. He has been Chair of the Village of Dobbs Ferry Planning Board for 45 years reviewing, planning and approving land development and conservation projects.
- As a consultant, he is involved nationally with constructibility issues, peer review, mediation, and dispute review boards. As an Adjunct Professor, he had taught physics at Manhattan College and now teaches environmental science at Mercy College.
- Ed was presented his award by Tom Payton of Parsons Brinckerhoff and a past Chair of the UCA of SME.
- Project of the Year - Metro Gold Line Eastside Extension Tunnels
Hailed as a 'Mode for America' by US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, the successfully delivered Metro Gold Line Eastside Extension celebrated its grand opening on November 14, 2009. The line extends the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Autrority's (Metro) light rail system to the densely populated and continuously growing East Los Angeles communities. Much of the alignment consists of at-grade track and features a 1.7-mile long underground segment in cut-and-cover and twin-bored tunnel structures. Metro specified, for the first ever, use of closed face, pressurized TBMs to advance the tunnels through soft ground. The tunnel design, construction management and construction methods adopted resulted in the successful completion of the tunnel segment with virtually no surface impacts.
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Fred Smith (left) with Dave Klug
- The design of tunnels and underground stations in the Los Angeles area has always included special considerations for seismic design and subsurface gas exclusion. All Metro subway tunnel designs have included 'two-pass' lining systems - typically using an initial lining comprising expanded pre-cast excrete segments with final cast-in-place concrete lining, high density polyethylene (HDPE) material placed between the linings was added to further protect against gas inflow. Operating systems also include gas detection and automatic ventilation systems. All soft ground Red Line tunnels used open face shields - the traditional soft ground tunneling method in Los Angeles.
- Project Director Fred Smith accepted the award on behalf of the project team from current Chair of the UCA of SME David Klug.
- Nominations for recipients of the 2011 awards are received from members of the UCA of SME. Nomination forms are available on the UCA website. The 2011 awards will be presented at the Awards Banquet at the 2011 RETC in San Francisco next year in June. The next NAT event will be held in Indianapolis, Indiana in June 2012 at the JW Marriott hotel.
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- JJG acquired by Jacobs Engineering - TunnelTalk, Feb 2010
New start for LA Metro contracting - TunnelTalk, Sept 2005
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