Category: Firm News

There’s been a lot of talk – and it’s been a long time coming – but at long last infrastructure seems to be the name of the game for 2022, both here in Michigan and throughout the U.S.  With President Biden’s on again/off again “Build Back Better” program and Governor Whitmer’s continuing but unfilled pledge to “fix the damn roads,” infrastructure is now squarely in everybody’s sights.

“One way or another, the President is going to get a major infrastructure program passed and with the Gov. Whitmer’s creation of a Michigan Infrastructure Office, long overdue attention on roads, bridges, ports and water systems is really going to happen in Michigan and throughout the country,” said Mark Smolinski P.E., principal at G2 Consulting Group in Troy.  “All this suggests that 2022 should be a record year for the construction industry. Collectively, the industry’s biggest challenge may be finding the people needed to do the work.”

Smolinski joined other construction executives in predicting as much as a 30 percent increase in construction work in 2022. “The focus will be on improving our communities, both what’s seen and unseen – streets, parks, transportation as well as underground water and sewage systems. Ultimately, all this work creates a better quality of life and brings the country back to the standards it needs to achieve to be competitive and successful.”

Jon Kramer P.E., president of OHM Advisors, concurs with the optimistic outlook. “We expect to see improvements in virtually every area,” Kramer says, “from new construction to long overdue deferred maintenance. A lot of work will be started this year but will take years to complete. With the new technologies and construction materials available these projects should all be stronger, better and longer lasting than anything that’s come before. It won’t happen overnight but we expect to see a strong start in 2022 and continuing for the next several years as projects are prioritized and resources deployed.”

Scott LaSalle, senior project engineer at Q Cells, sees sunny days ahead for the solar industry. “Solar continues to win customers in the alternative energy space. Efficiency has plateaued over the past few years, but costs have been reduced – although COVID’s supply chain disruption presented a blimp. Solar’s easy integration, cost / efficiency and environmentally friendliness continues to help it lure customers from traditional and other renewable sources. In the coming years, we might also see more suppliers re-shore to North America to improve the supply chain cadence.”

Smolinski, Kramer and LaSalle mentioned the impact of COVID on the industry. New employees at all levels have been hard to find and many experienced and knowledgeable “baby-boomers” are retiring. Raw material costs have been particularly high and difficult to secure causing some projects to be delayed or canceled altogether. Still, the industry insiders expressed cautious optimism that the worst of COVID is behind us and that with the new federal and state money, and the renewed spotlight on rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure, an increased level of work will get underway aggressively.

“We see 2022 as the start of a long-term program to rebuild, repair and replace the nation’s older infrastructure and create new and vastly superior systems in their place. That’s what “Build Back Better” is all about. The construction industry is poised and ready to meet the challenge.  It’s time, and it’s needed. The country simply can’t afford to delay any longer.”

G2 Consulting Group, a Troy-based leader in geotechnical, environmental and construction engineering services, was ranked in Building Design + Construction’s “Giants 400” report as one of the Top 75 engineering firm nationally.

BD+C, the nation’s leading diversified media, marketing and data company serving the design and construction markets, issued its annual survey results identifying the nation’s largest and most prominent architecture, engineering, and construction firms using 130 rankings across 25 building sectors and specialty categories. G2 Consulting was ranked as “Top” on the following lists:

• #67 in Engineering Firms
• #54 in Industrial Facility Engineering and Engineering Architecture (EA) Firms
• #90 in Office Sector Engineering and EA Firms
• #74 in Office Building/Core+Shell Engineering and EA Firms
• #84 in Healthcare Sector Engineering and EA Firms
• #85 in Hospital Facility Engineering and EA Firms
• #48 in Medical Office Building Engineering and EA Firms
• #46 in Outpatient Facility Engineering and EA Firms
• #59 in Multifamily Sector Engineering and EA Firms
• #34 in Parking Structure Engineering and EA Firms
• #53 in Retail Sector Engineering and EA Firms
• #68 in K-12 School Sector Engineering and EA Firms

G2 Consulting has experienced business growth averaging over 10% respectively over the past three years. During that period, the company’s employment grew from 70 to 95 across its three office locations. G2 has completed a variety of major projects in its home state of Michigan as well as 30+ other states. Marquee projects include the Cadillac Stamping industrial site, several portions of the I-75 reconstruction in Michigan, and new construction projects builds for Amazon and a variety of manufacturing organizations and telecommunication companies throughout the country.

“We feel fortunate to have great partners, clients and employees who have all helped us be successful over the past several years despite the challenges brought by the pandemic and disruptions to the supply chain,” said Mark Smolinski, P.E., G2 principal. “It was hardly business as usual, and that makes us especially proud of what we accomplished. Our challenge now is to new staff to handle new business and complete it on time and on budget for our clients so we can accelerate our current trend.”

G2 Consulting provided geotechnical investigations, vibration monitoring, geotechnical instrumentation services, and pile dynamic analysis for the project which will reconstruct and widen a segment of I-75. In fact, the last segment between Flint and Saginaw to be expanded to four lanes in each direction. The project also replaces the aging M-46 interchange and renovates bridge structures in the area.

“Every project has its own unique characteristics,” said Christopher Nicol, P.E., G2’s Project Manager. “One interesting aspect of this project was the need to fill in a ‘dip’ in I-75 that previously allowed the highway to pass underneath a railroad bridge, a bridge that has long since been removed.”

“Highway dips and other low-points are natural gathering spots for storm water therefore require pump stations to keep the roads open to safe travel,” Nicol said. “Since the railroad overpass is no longer there, bringing I-75 back to grade was an important improvement to avoid impediments to travel and the costs associated with pumping.”

Under MDOT’s guidance, G2’s activities were managed by Grand Rapids-based Fishbeck and Commerce-based C.A. Hull in the design-build effort.

“The Michigan road industry has learned a lot of valuable lessons over the recent ‘lean’ years where underfunding was the norm. There has been constant innovation in road evaluation, construction processes and material technologies. Now that infrastructure needs are top of mind and meaningful funding is on the way, Michigan has both the public and private engineering and construction capabilities to get the jobs done efficiently and effectively,” Nicol said.

G2’s geotechnical work focused on analyzing and evaluating below-the-road factors — soil and pavement conditions, drainage, and the level of deterioration a road has experienced over a time period — to determine the best approach to reconstruction within the specific environment. This information is key to prudent decision making and often impacts final design. Considerations include the amount of traffic using the road and predictive models for future deterioration. With the huge amount of work that needs to be done across Michigan communities, construction partners need to work intelligently to get the most out of every dollar spent.

Although G2’s portion of the project is nearly complete, the overall project is expected to last into July 2022. The team has largely held to its schedule, despite the summer’s heavy rains which, at times, hampered progress. G2 lives by its mantra of “Smart. Results. Fast.”

Troy, Michigan-based G2 Consulting Group, a national company specializing in geotechnical, environmental and construction engineering services, has added 20 employees across its footprint.

G2’s new employees include recent full time hires, plus a dozen summer interns who will be divided primarily between the firm’s Troy headquarters and its Ann Arbor, Michigan, office… READ MORE.

In a heated competition for Civil + Structural Engineer Magazine’s annual drone video contest, G2’s video was voted in the top 10 out of 68 submissions taking the 9th place position. G2 provided drone services for longtime client Cunningham-Limp as they constructed the Cooper Standard World Headquarters in Northville, Michigan. Starting in December of 2018 and ending in February 2020, G2 team member Nathan Zaporski flew the drone a total of 22 times on the project site capturing the ground breaking all the way to the building’s completion.

Drone and UAV services play a vital role in today’s construction projects. G2 uses drones to survey large areas of land capturing every detail in high definition ensuring that our client’s project is surveyed quickly and accurately. G2’s fleet of drones also provide mapping services, aerial overviews of completed projects for client presentations and approval, inspection of towers and difficult structures, and more. G2 engineers have accurate, real-time data when decisions or modifications need to be made.

The state of Michigan is setting some of the nation’s toughest standards for measuring and controlling the widely used set of PFAS chemicals that do not break down readily in the environment and bio-accumulate within an ecosystem. G2 Consulting Group has become a leading national PFAS investigator conducting dozens of projects in Michigan and other states.

Michigan’s fight against these pervasive and persistent “forever chemicals” requires PFAS identification and remediation at levels in the parts per trillion. Consider that one part per trillion is equivalent to a single drop of water in 20 Olympic-sized swimming pools, or one drop of water in 660 rail tank cars (that would be a train six miles long!), which begins to define the complexity of accurate PFAS investigations.

When looking for trace materials, the key, according to G2 Consulting Project Manager Thomas McDonald, is absolute vigilance in testing protocols.

“As experts in environmental consulting and geotechnical engineering services, G2 understands the enormous sensitivity required for accurate PFAS results,” says McDonald. “PFAS chemicals can affect the health of individuals or even entire communities. Therefore, we’ve developed a comprehensive checklist of PFAS investigation do’s and don’ts to ensure our clients understand their potential exposure and liability,” he said.

PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) is a group of man-made chemicals that includes PFOA, PFOS, GenX, and many other chemicals that have been manufactured and used in a wide variety of industries since the 1940’s. Because of this, PFAS was omnipresent in household and industrial items prior to 2015, including in chemicals associated with manufacturing facilities, paper mills, landfills, wastewater treatment plants, military bases, electroplating plants, aerospace industry, tanneries, Teflon related facilities, and numerous other innocuous properties.

Therefore, G2’s PFAS protocol checklist includes the following recommendations:

Field staff

• No Gore-Tex products
• No cloths laundered with fabric softeners
• No unauthorized cosmetics, moisturizers, hand creams, or sunscreen
• No waterproof or resistant rain gear
• Field staff should wear safety boots made from PVC and polyurethane

Field equipment

• No Teflon or LDPE materials
• No waterproof books on-site
• No plastic clipboards, binder, or spiral notebooks.
• All sample materials made from stainless steel, HDPE, acetate, silicon, or polypropylene.
• These are just a handful of the many PFAS investigation best practices that G2 employs for its clients.

Experts have only recently begun to understand the prevalence of PFAS as well as the potential adverse health effects of exposure. G2’s expertise is helping clients understand their potential exposure and offering solutions in instances where PFAS is present. The recognition and proper evaluation of a property for the presence of PFAS is a critical part of any environmental due diligence process.

G2 Consulting Group is experiencing robust activity in its core cellular tower services as a result of this summer’s Federal Communications Commission actions to facilitate the faster deployment of 5G networks nationwide.

Stating that “next generation networks are critical to expanding economic opportunities and supporting public health and safety in American communities,” the FCC directed that “state or local government shall approve within 60 days any request for modification of an existing structure that does not substantially change the physical dimensions of that structure.”

G2 Consulting supports the FCC action to help the industry meet booming demand for mobile data at greater speeds and bandwidth. The firm is working with its telecomm clients to assess new and existing cellular towers to ensure they meet all local, state and federal regulations required to achieve the accelerated rollout.

“Although the industry agrees that 5G is the future, it won’t immediately replace other networks or their small cell and distributed antennae system counterparts,” said  Anthony Poisson, P.E., from G2’s Chicago office.  “Adding or replacing tower technologies and building new small cell sites requires careful due diligence, an area where G2 Consulting is uniquely qualified to help.”

Poisson suggests the following as due diligence best practice:

1.) Ground conditions: Understanding the geotechnical and geoenvironmental conditions on-site is critical for cellular towers. Not only do you have to ensure the tower foundation structure is stable, operators also have to understand if adding or subtracting weight will impact its posture.  Meanwhile, the National Environmental Policy Act has strict rules in place to govern cell tower ecological impact that need to be followed.

2.) Regulatory environment: Although the FCC governs much of cellular tower regulation, the myriad of other local, state, federal and tribal authorities laws are equally important. G2 is certified in 35 states for cellular tower projects and can help clients understand the complex web of regulations.

3.) Macro towers: Some carriers are upgrading existing towers with 5G capabilities, effectively integrating new infrastructure into the current network. It’s important to note that these existing cell towers may also continue transmitting 4G signals and contain other hardware for respective service areas.  Integrating the new tech requires careful coordination.

4.) Small cell: In addition to towers, 5G coverage will require carriers to add at least 250,000 new small cell sites nationwide. However, though these small cell technologies perform similar functions, they’re not your typical cell tower. While most current cell towers are large, freestanding structures, the small cell “towers” required by 5G are much smaller devices that can be mounted on existing infrastructure like traffic lights, lampposts, rooftops or other appropriate spot in urban spaces where licensing and construction issues are particularly difficult.

5.) Securing older equipment: With all the talk of new technologies, it’s easy to forget that many towers have been around for 25 years or more.  Further, most of the tower equipment is located at or near the tower’s highest point.  This “pressure at the top” cause structural stress over time. Tower companies need to shore up these older sites both to bring them into current code and to ensure they can safely accommodate the new equipment.

“5G has been in the works for years, however the COVID pandemic has underscored the need to improve communications infrastructure.  The challenge now is to ensure a smooth, safe and efficient roll-out, which are areas where G2 can help,” Poisson said.

G2 Consulting Group is proud to announce the promotion of Jennifer M. Casey, P.E. from Senior Project Engineer to her new position as Project Manager. Jen joined G2’s geotechnical engineering team as a Staff Engineer in January 2000 after completing her bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering at Lawrence Technical University. She continued her education while working at G2 and ultimately earned her master’s in Civil Engineering, also at Lawrence Tech. Later, Jen was promoted to a Project Engineer and subsequently to her most recent position as a Senior Project Engineer

During her time at G2, Jen has consistently demonstrated her engineering acumen through her efforts on more than 1,000 projects where she provided geotechnical engineering and quality control services. Her more recent projects include geotechnical investigations for the FCA paint shop additions at the Mack Avenue Plant and Warren Truck Assembly Plant, geotechnical designs for numerous MDOT bridge projects, and mass concrete temperature modeling and monitoring for the GLWA Lake Huron Water Treatment Plant raw sludge clarifiers.

In her new role, Jen will be reviewing geotechnical reports, training staff, overseeing projects at the highest-level of management, and serving as the main point of contact with many valued G2 clients. We are incredibly excited for Jen and know that she is going to knock it out of the park. Congratulations, Jen!

Mark Stapleton P.E., project manager at G2 Consulting Group, will speak at the 2020 MDOT-ACEC Partnering Workshop on a panel discussion titled “Improve your design of Temporary Earth Retention Systems (TERS) & Bring your A-GAME to Subsurface Exploration.”

The annual MDOT-ACEC event typically attracts 600+ attendees from the Michigan Department of Transportation as well as other public and private entities actively involved in building and maintaining the state’s infrastructure. The event will be held Thursday, February 6, 2020 at the Lansing Center.

Stapleton brings his more than 30 years of geotechnical engineering experience to the conversation which will introduce  MDOT’s new manual for design of cofferdams, sheet pile walls and soldier pile walls. Stapleton’s comments are geared toward the highly technical audience and will include explanation of the manual’s key points as well as practical advice and industry best practices to meet the new criteria.  Joining Mark on stage are  MDOT representatives Dick Endres and Ryan Snook and Dr. Stan Vitton, a civil and environmental engineering professor from Michigan Tech University.

“As with any technical manual, the devil is in the details,” said Stapleton. “Through this panel, my colleagues and I hope to clearly communicate the most important aspects of the manual while offering practical suggestions for real-world implementations.”

For more information on the MDOT-ACEC Partnering Workshop, please visit https://web.acecmi.org/events/2020-MDOTACEC-Partnering-Workshop-Reception-154/details.

Mark Stapleton P.E., project manager at G2 Consulting Group, has been named as an associate to the Michigan Infrastructure and Transportation Association’s (MITA) board of directors for a two-year term.

In this role, Stapleton will offer his 30+ years of geotechnical engineering insights to the MITA board and its 500 member companies. MITA is Michigan’s premier statewide construction trade association representing construction disciplines such as road and bridge, sewer and water, utility, railroad, excavation and specialty construction throughout the state.

“I’m honored to be joining the MITA board at such a critical juncture for Michigan’s infrastructure,” said Stapleton. “MITA’s board includes individuals from a wide array of public and private entities, men and women who have the collective expertise and dedication to help Michigan renovate and enhance its infrastructure in the most efficient and cost effective manner possible.”

Stapleton joined G2 Consulting Group in 2001. His work at G2 includes geotechnical and geo-engineering projects including complex earth retention systems, deep foundations and drilled piers, harbors and waterways, storm water and sewer, and all manner of road and bridge projects. Earlier in his career, Stapleton was with the United States Army Corps of Engineers where he was involved in a number of major civil works projects and helped develop a comprehensive Soo Locks analysis called “Connecting Channels.”

Justify isn’t the only Triple Crown winner of 2018. G2 Consulting Group won its own Triple Crown in May when for the third year it was named one of the Top 100 “Hot Firms” nationally in the architecture, engineering and construction services industry. The award is based on G2’s year over year revenue growth measured in both dollar and percentage change.

“Business growth fuels job creation and builds communities,” said Chad Clinehens, CEO of Zweig Group, the leading industry research, publishing and consulting group that presents the award. “That’s why it’s important to celebrate these companies’ success.”

G2 Consulting is a nationally recognized leader and one of the fastest growing firms in geotechnical, environmental and construction services. The company works in more than 30 states on projects including highway, road and bridge construction, port and harbors, schools, stadiums, telecomm, health care, renewable energy and more. G2 has reported double digit growth in each of the past six years.

“Our ‘Smart. Results. Fast.’ promise has resonated with our clients and our ability to consistently deliver on the promise has brought us repeat and new business,” says Mark Smolinski, G2 principal. “With this new recognition and the construction surge the country is experiencing we’re in an ideal spot to continue the growth. One of our biggest challenges now is to find the right qualified professionals to join our team and help us keep the momentum going, but that’s a good problem to have.”

As wireless data traffic has increased exponentially in the past few years, telecommunication companies are under enormous pressure to provide quality services to their customers wherever they may be and whenever they may be there.

Easier said than done.

Telecom facilities, including small cell, distributed antenna systems (DAS) and traditional towers, are springing up everywhere. And the next generation of 5G telecommunications will bring infrastructure even closer to the end user, making site selection even more crucial. Finding these favorable locations and environments requires special know-how and skills. Enter G2 Consulting Group, a Troy-based geotechnical, geoenvironmental and construction services firm steeped in the telecom industry.

G2 has been an active and trusted player in the telecom construction business for years, helping America to stay connected and telecom providers to stay on time and on budget with their time-sensitive projects.

G2 has conducted thousands of geotechnical investigations, environmental site assessments, and National Environmental Policy Act regulatory reviews for telecom sites ranging from cornfields to mountain tops and from historically and culturally sensitive areas to dense urban environments across the country. As technology demands increase, so do the demands on existing towers and G2 has proven to be a valuable partner for structural engineers by providing foundation mapping and soil analysis to allow optimization of a tower’s capacity.

“Over the past couple decades, we’ve become leaders in this field,” says G2 principal Mark Smolinski, P.E. , “and with the constant demand for better, broader communication receptivity, backed by the strong partnerships we’ve built, G2 expects this area of our business to continue to grow.”

Having worked on over 20,000 telecom projects in 35 U.S. states and Canada for all major carriers, G2 has a deep understanding of complex compliance issues and helps its clients meet all levels of regulations. At the same time, G2 reviews site information to determine qualifications for any exceptions under the most recent FCC guidelines. All project data is then inventoried in a comprehensive database for quick and complete client reporting.

“Telecom projects are highly specialized and require a full understanding of the geo-technical and geoenvironmental conditions at and near the proposed site,” says Smolinski. “We’ve built our relationships and expertise in this sector over the past twenty years, so it’s become a significant part of our business.”