PEOPLE, PROJECTS AND EQUIPMENT Peter J. Nicholson: Embracing Innovation Peter J. Nicholson is the “consummate con- tractor,” according to Arturo Ressi di Cervia of Kiewit, and a DFI Trustee. Pete, as he is universally known, “is open to trying new things, and knows how to evaluate risks.” He is not a foolish risk-taker, says Ressi, who has known Nicholson since the 1970s. Seth Pearlman, president of Menard, says the culture at Nicholson’s firm when he worked there with Pete, was one of “looking for new techniques; of always looking for a better way to do things.” He also credits his former boss with inspiring the innovative spirit in his employees. Engineers, Pearlman says, are “inherently” conservative. Nicholson himself credits his father with this attitude toward innovation in construction. The senior Nicholson, Arthur, founded the Nicholson Pile Company in 1955 after visiting the U.K. in 1969. He had read an article about the new technology of permanent ground anchors in the British magazine, Ground Engineering, and wanted to see how they worked. The visit turned into a new Nicholson venture, Nicholson Universal Anchorages Company, a joint- venture with a British company, to install rock and soil anchors in the U.S. Looking back, Nicholson thinks his father tried innovation to keep his son interested; he knew his son would not want to spend his life “checking blow counts for piles.” It was always assumed that Nicholson would become an engineer, he says. He was “good at math,” and the company “was there.” After graduating from Notre Dame, Nicholson served in the U.S. Army for two years in Missouri, and then returned to the family firm in Bridgeville, Pa. Not wanting to work directly for his dad, he asked for a job in the firm’s Atlanta office, where the head man turned him down, saying he “couldn’t afford the young engineer.” So Nicholson began work back in Bridgeville, where he reported to an executive VP, not his dad. Following his father’s pioneering attitude, Nicholson has embraced innovations in foundation techniques throughout his career. When he joined the family firm, he says, there were only driven piles or drilled shafts, “That was it.” Continuous flight augers (CFAs) were an innovation as were temporary tieback anchors, instead of raker or cross-lot bracing, which for many years were the only way one could build a deep excavation. He was a pioneer in the then unknown field of permanent ground anchors. Nicholson was an early proponent of micropiles and pin piles when these techniques entered U.S. geotechnical practice. Most of these innovations were widely adopted, he says, and eventually moved on to become “commodities.” Soil mixing is another area where Nicholson has been especially active from the start. Similarly, he helped convince Bechtel and Parsons Brinckerhoff to conduct two major soil mix demon- stration projects at Birds Island Flats and Fort Point Channel, which led to the largest use of soil mixing in the U.S. at the time, at the Central Artery Tunnel Project in Boston. Seth Pearlman recalls Nicholson’s early work with soil mixing teaming with retained by the Corps to help oversee seepage barrier installation work mainly with soil mixing. Geoconsult is headed up by Donald Bruce, and includes Stefan The culture at Nicholson’s firm…was one of looking for new techniques, of always looking for a better way to do things. the Japanese firm, SMW, to introduce the technology in the U.S. Today Nicholson is a consultant, and about 80% of his work, he says, relates to soil mixing projects. Nicholson says he has spent most of his career talking about innovations in the deep foundations industry and convincing other engineers, particularly those in the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers and at Penn Dot, and other highway departments, to try them. Demonstration projects done by those agencies confer a “blessing” on new tech- nology, and the results enhance acceptance by the profession. The results are seen as objective information by engineers. Today, Nicholson is consulting at Lake Okeechobee, at the Herbert Hoover Dike, working with Geoconsult, which was Jefferis and Peter Cali. Randy Bush is part of the Corps cadre of retirees who advise the organization, and is now overseeing the three test zones for foundation rehab and cut-off walls along 21 miles of the lake. Bush has known Nicholson for more than 25 years and says, he is knowledgeable, gets interested in the project, and is a “great guy, always interested in the latest and greatest in his field, and in moving the state of the art forward.” Managing Innovation Over the years, Nicholson’s interest in innovation was teamed with management skills. In 1978, the two companies, Nicholson Pile Company and Nicholson Anchorage Company, were merged into DEEP FOUNDATIONS • MAY/JUNE 2012 • 41
