DFI Announces Board of Trustees Election Results New President, Officers and Trustees

The DFI Board of Trustees has selected a new roster of officers including a new president, and DFI’s membership elected four new members to the DFI Board of Trustees, and re-elected two trustees. 

New President and Executive Committee

New DFI President Michael H. Wysockey, Ph.D., P.E, is the president of Thatcher Foundations, Inc., a specialty contractor working in design-build earth retention, pile driving, drilled foundations, and marine construction. Wysockey received his bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from The Citadel, his master’s from MIT, and his doctorate in geotechnical engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign – where he received Wilson and Peck fellowships. His publications range in focus from shore erosion, to the effect of local soil conditions on earthquake motions, to the capacity of deep foundations. A former chair of DFI’s Driven Pile Committee, he recently chaired the Chicago Committee on High Rise Buildings and the ASCE Geotechnical Group, Illinois Section. He is also a member of the ASCE, PDCA and ADSC. 

Serving with Wysockey as officers of the DFI Board of Trustees are Gianfranco Di Cicco, Bauer Foundation Corp., vice president; James O. Johnson, Condon-Johnson & Associates, treasurer; and Erik Loehr, Ph.D., P.E., University of Missouri, as secretary. Matthew Janes, MBA, P.Eng., Isherwood Associates, is now the immediate past president. 

New Trustees

DFI Trustee John A. Anderson is the owner/president of Specrete-IP, a manufacturer of grouting and concrete additives that are used in various foundation elements. A graduate of Kent State University in Ohio, Anderson has over 40 years of experience in the concrete and grouting industry. At Master Builders, he worked with both prepackaged grouts and concrete admixtures.  He also was president of the Spray-Cure/Chemmasters Company before joining Specrete in 1995. Anderson is a member of the DFI Augered Cast-In-Place and Drilled Displacement Pile Committee and is chair of the DFI’s Manufacturers, Suppliers and Service Providers Committee. 

DFI Trustee Allen W. Cadden, P.E., D.GE, is a principal and former chairman of the board for Schnabel Engineering.  He started his Schnabel career as an intern more than 35 years ago and has designed numerous geotechnical structures including shallow and deep foundations as well as ground improvement and earth retention structures. Cadden assisted in the development of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Micropile Design and Construction as well as the Soil Nail manuals, and was the lead instructor for the National Highway Institute (NHI) micropile class. He is a past president of the Geo-Institute of ASCE, past board member of ADSC, past chairman of the International Society for Micropiles and a member of the board of directors for the International Conference Organization for Grouting (ICOG). 

DFI Trustee Lucky Nagarajan, is general manager – engineering and business development at Giken America, a construction solution engineering company and leading manufacturer of specialty equipment known as Silent Piler. Nagarajan is a geotechnical engineer with 15 years of engineering, project management as well as field experience and business development. She has worked on a variety of foundation solutions in residential, commercial to energy/fuel, dams and mining industries. A recipient of DFI’s Presidents Award, she is the co-chair of the DFI of India Regional Chapter Support Committee, chair of the Women in Deep Foundations Committee, and founder of the Women in Deep Foundations subgroups in India and the New York Metro area. 

DFI Trustee Kwabena Ofori-Awuah, P.E., D.GE, ENV SP, is president and CEO of Koforia, Inc.  He has a strong technical and multidisciplinary background in geomaterials and geostructure, geotechnical earthquake engineering, pavement engineering, and is responsible for numerous projects involving subsurface evaluations, design, inspection and construction monitoring of dams, specialty deep foundations design cofferdams and shoring systems, rock slope stability, seismic and soil liquefaction evaluations, site-specific seismic hazard and liquefaction analyses, and soil-structure modeling. Ofori-Awuah has been an active participant in DFI since 2005 and serves DFI as a member for various specialty conferences.  He is currently the chair of the Seismic and Lateral Load Committee.  

Two trustees were re-elected to serve another term:  Matthew E. Meyer, P.E., Langan Engineering & Environmental Services, and Stefano Valagussa, TREVIICOS Corporation.