Message from the Trust Chair I am pleased to present the 2019 Trust Annual Report, which is also available online at www.dfitrust.org. Thanks to the year ending with some good investment returns, the Trust for the first time had assets in excess of $4 million, a significant increase from the prior year. More importantly, the Trust awarded over $150,000 in scholarships during 2019. I am also pleased to report that, in December of 2019, the Trust was awarded a $50,000 grant from the Terracon Foundation to start a scholarship fund in Terracon’s name. This is thanks to Terracon employee and Trust board member Andrew Verity’s applying for the grant along with DFI staff’s expert assistance. As part of the process we were interviewed by the Foundation’s board and Andrew did an excellent job of explaining how important DFI and the Educational Trust are to the industry and how his involvement in both has benefited him and Terracon as a whole. The Trust has also supported the DFI Women in Deep Foundations (WiDF) Committee since its inception. The goal is to foster greater success and interest of professional women in the industry by promoting networking events, endorsing outreach and building mentoring relationships. The Trust’s Women in Deep Foundations Fund has been awarding professional development grants to deserving women to cover travel costs to attend DFI’s annual conference (along with a free registration from DFI) for several years now. The WiDF Committee filmed an exceptional video during the 2019 annual conference that answers the question: “What is the geotechnical field?” Their enthusiastic members take you from the office to project sites and through the many roles available in the geotechnical field including designing, supplying specialty equipment and materials, managing, constructing, and more. The Trust’s scholarships provide significant financial support to our student recipients so they can realize their dream of completing their undergraduate or graduate civil engineering education. College expenses continue to rise dramatically and so does the level of debt students take on in order to meet these costs. We therefore ask you to support our efforts by making a personal or corporate donation to the DFI Educational Trust this year as an investment in the future of our industry. Any amount you donate will make a difference. We need to attract more young people and women into all aspects of our industry whether as a contractor, consultant, supplier, academic or owner. You can make your donation online by visiting www.dfitrust.org. We look forward to your support. Sincerely, Tracy Brettmann Chair, Board of Trustees DFI Educational Trust New Trustees Jonathan Huff, P.E. Huff is a design engineer/project manager and estimator for Goettle, where his responsibilities include engineering design, estimating, project management and relationship building. His areas of expertise include augered cast-in-place piles, drilled displacement piles, micropiles, caissons and tied back earth retention systems. A member of DFI, ADSC and PDCA, Huff is chair of the DFI Augered Cast-in-Place Pile Committee and a former chair of the Cincinnati Section of the ASCE Geotechnical Group. Huff’s term began August 1, 2019. Matt Roberts Roberts is senior business development manager for Kiewit Foundations Co., part of Kiewit Corporation. He is responsible for the growth and development of Kiewit’s foundations business and supports client needs nationwide. During his Kiewit tenure Roberts has supported the successful completion of a wide range of underground and foundation projects including secant pile, slurry wall, driven pile and micropile installation. He also has industry expertise in drill and shoot, soft ground tunneling machine operations, shaft excavation and support, roadheader excavation and support, pipe installations in tunnels, cellular grout operations, pipe jacking and microtunneling. Roberts’ term began January 1, 2020. 2 | ANNUAL REPORT 2019
