MEMBER PROFILE Seth Pearlman: Philosophical Designer and Industry Advocate Pearlman grew up in Steubenville, Ohio, and was born with a natural curiosity and interest in how things were built. He remembers riding around the neigh- borhood on his bike as a child and exploring residential construction sites after the crews had left each day. In high school he recalls when a large landslide took out two lanes of a nearby highway; he was so interested that he drove there, climbed the fence and walked into the slide mass to take photos. A talented musician, Pearlman had considered majoring in music performance, but decided instead to pursue civil engineering at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburgh. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees and had the opportunity to work as a teaching assistant for foundation engineering and hydraulics and hydrology classes, which expanded his interest in the field. After graduating in 1979, Pearlman took a position with GAI Consultants, Inc., in Pittsburgh. He worked on research- based projects for design of power transmission lines, wrote computer code for analysis and rating of truss bridges, and performed general structural design for dam rehab, retaining walls and deep piping systems. Even as a young engineer, Pearlman knew he had a great interest in business development. So in 1982, Pearlman began work at Belot Concrete Industries earning the position of vice president of marketing. For almost four years he did all the selling and ran the precast plant. He developed new products for bridge parapets, tie-back retaining walls, and designed architectural panels for buildings. The owners of Belot gave him entrepreneurial freedom to determine the product choices, develop the customers and organize the production work. Dur ing thi s t ime, Nichol son Construction was one of Pearlman’s clients when they asked him to redesign precast waler panels for tie-back walls and make them more constructible. These elements weren’t covered in the American Concrete Institute (ACI) design guide at the time, so Pearlman used engineering principles and concrete theory to perform the redesign. In 1987, he became the chief design engineer for Nicholson. He grew progressively in the design, engineering and business development areas, and worked his way into executive management. Regardless of position, Pearlman’s favorite part was going out and solving a really big problem. Some of his most memorable projects were a 60 ft (18 m) shoring design in East Boston at terminal A of the airport, putting a power plant back online by anchoring it in loose sand, and supporting the Mandalay Bay Casino in Las Vegas using 536 micropiles (200 ft [61 m] deep) after getting a call that the building was settling 0.5 in (13 mm) per week. Each of these projects required innovation, inge- nuity and quick thinking to establish and implement a solution. He enjoyed being on the “front end” of anchored walls, soil mixing, micropiles and diaphragm walls — utilizing and designing them before they became governed by agency manuals and subjected to the conservatism that comes with consensus documents. Marty Taube, business development manager at Menard USA, describes Pearlman as “a gifted engineer with a wide ranging skill set that makes him unrivaled when it comes to understanding, evaluating, simplifying and solving complex problems. There is an unmistakable energy and intensity about him that brings out the best in those around him.” He adds that he considers Pearlman to be a great friend and mentor and that he “is definitely one of a kind.” Pearlman professes that “as we continue to obtain more data on different aspects of a technology, we can improve and further hone key design values.” Design Philosophy Pearlman has a particular philosophy regarding the engineering profession as it continues to evolve and change. He believes that the design documents that we use represent a snapshot of where the industry is, and that this is particularly apparent with Load and Resistance Factor Design (LRFD) methodology—an assessment of risk centered around statistics. Pearlman professes that “as we con- tinue to obtain more data on different aspects of a technology, we can improve and further hone key design values. However, the same process that allows us to standardize a technology by creating consensus design guidelines and specifications consequently causes designs to become increasingly conservative.” According to Pearlman, we lose our free- dom to experiment as technologies mature DEEP FOUNDATIONS • NOV/DEC 2014 • 51
