DFI Magazine March/April 2020 - 9

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR UPDATE

SuperPile - A Must-Attend 2020 Event
etworking, Education, Communication

N and Collaboration - the staples of DFI's

mission and activities - will all be part of
the upcoming SuperPile Conference from
June 3-5 in St. Louis, Missouri. SuperPile
'20 marks the 13th such event and the fifth
one in partnership with ADSC. Registration
opened in February, and we are on pace to
have over 500 participants and a sold-out
exhibit area featuring the products and
services of 75-plus companies.
During the conference there will be
plenty of opportunities for networking,
such as the Women in Deep Foundations
(WiDF) Networking Reception, the
Welcome Reception and the breakfast,
breaks and lunches throughout.
Committee and working group meetings
are the place to be as the members
communicate their progress on
varied projects and discuss ways to
collaborate with each other and
other committees from industry
organizations. The technical
sessions will also provide a setting
for many educational opportunities, as will the preconference
workshop on dynamic soil testing
and the first business session for
manufacturers, suppliers and service providers at SuperPile.
Specifically, the preconference workshop will provide an overview of the
limitations, benefits and uses of methods,
and how to characterize the subsurface
using approaches such as SPT, CPT and
shear wave velocity methods. It will
include case histories that demonstrate

practical usage of such methods,
while providing ample time for
discussion among workshop
attendees. Highlights of the
plenary session will include a
keynote lecture by Paul Giroux of
Kiewit Infrastructure on the
historic Eads Bridge, which was
built in the late 1800s in St. Louis using
what was then a new, innovative technique
of pneumatic caissons. This is still considered one of the greatest bridge-building
stories. Other highlights will include the
Osterberg Memorial Lecture, being
delivered by Erik Loehr, Ph.D., P.E., DFI
trustee and associate professor at University
of Missouri, and a panel discussion on
geotechnical baseline reports, both to be
broadcast live for those unable to attend so

Theresa Engler
Executive Director
tengler@dfi.org

Courses - Pile Testing" panel discussion, a
final forum for interactive communication
among attendees.
I do hope you'll join us and ADSC for
these three days of learning and exchanging ideas. There's something for all
industry professionals - design engineers,
specialty contractors, researchers, material
and equipment suppliers and manufacturers, and government agency representatives. We're grateful for the many
members of the nine technical
committees who came together to
create this year's unique program.
Our thanks go out especially to
Conference Chair Lyle Simonton,
P.E., of Subsurface Constructors,
and Technical Program Chair Paul
Axtell P.E., D.GE, of Dan Brown and
Associates. DFI's community of
dedicated volunteers underlies our
organization's ability to create a
consensus voice and a connected membership that benefits from us providing
opportunities like this conference for
networking, education, communication
and collaboration. See you at SuperPile '20!
Read more on page 25 or visit
www.dfi.org/SuperPile20 for more
information and to register.

Networking, Education, Communication

and Collaboration - the staples of DFI's

mission and activities - will all be part

of the upcoming SuperPile conference.
they can benefit from the educational
knowledge from this "super" event.
The parallel sessions on the last day will
provide many options for attendees to learn
about driven piles, drilled shafts, augercast
and drilled displacement piles, helical piles,
foundations for transmission lines, and
testing methods for these pile types. The
conference will close with the "Horses for

COVID-19 (Coronavirus) Update
At the time of printing this issue of the magazine, the outbreak of Coronavirus had caused DFI to postpone the DFI-PFSF Piling &
Ground Improvement Conference in Australia and conduct two Traveling Lectures virtually. Events such as SuperPile and others
coming up in 2020 are still scheduled as planned. Effects of the outbreak on the events are being actively monitored and updates
will be provided via email announcements and on event-specific web pages at www.dfi.org.

DEEP FOUNDATIONS * MAR/APR 2020 * 9

DFI Magazine March/April 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of DFI Magazine March/April 2020