Mendocino County’s best food, wine, beer, champagne, and gifts were showcased at the Mendocino College Foundation’s Annual Gala on October 1^st, which raised over $110,000 for the Foundation.  SHN supported the event by donations of both money and time; SHN Willits Principal and Regional Manager Tom Herman sits on the Board of Directors and is currently Chair of the Land Committee, which manages, maintains, oversees and makes recommendations to the Board involving the disposition of real property.  Tom has been an active Board member for 15 years, representing the Willits area of residence.

Thanks Siskiyou County, for selecting SHN to survey nine remote landfills using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and the latest image processing technology, along with typical surveying instruments such as total stations and GPS.  Surveying and mapping using UAVs is proving to be cost-competitive with traditional surveying techniques.  “Point cloud density” generated by photogrammetric methods can provide higher definition than standard grid and conventional survey methods, and UAVs are often more cost effective than manned airplanes, because they are more flexible with respect to weather, and they can be flown at lower altitudes, producing higher resolution images.

SHN collected and continues to test 2,300 concrete samples as part of the decommissioning of Unit 3 at PG&E's Humboldt Bay Power Plant. The decommissioning requires a way to access the non-operating nuclear reactor caisson for decontamination, demolition, and removal. However, any deep hole along the bay will quickly fill with groundwater unless an underground wall can be constructed that keeps the water out. PG&E contractors (including CB&I, DrillTech Drilling and Shoring, SHN, and many others) recently completed this circular underground wall.

As Vice President of the Redwood Coast Energy Authority’s Board of Directors, Sheri Woo is working to increase public engagement as Humboldt County moves toward establishing a Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) program.  A CCA is a program that allows residents to choose the source of their electricity, either from the publicly owned utility or the CCA. 

Congratulations to Cody Long and Dawnly Yang, who are now licensed, California Professional Civil Engineers.  Licensing exams are rigorous; the 2015 pass rate for the 8-hour “Principles and Practices” test was only 44%.   The pass rates for the other two additional exams, in surveying and seismic principles, were 51% and 41%, respectively.  Cody and Dawn studied numerous hours on weekends and after work to prepare for and successfully pass these three exams. 

Heidi Otten, an environmental resources engineering student studying at Humboldt State University, will be gaining experience and making contacts as SHN’s most recently hired intern, the first of three for Summer 2016.  She will be based in the Eureka office, but to understand the numerous facets of civil and environmental engineering, she will be visiting projects based out of our Redding, Willits, and Coos Bay offices.