Helical Anchor & Foundation Seminar - Helical Pier World

     ^{Helical Anchor & Foundation
                   Engineering Seminar}
                  Sponsored by Chance Civil Construction
                October 18 - 20, 2006 - Columbia, Missouri

Helical Pier World’s pledge to cover the industry led us to Columbia, Missouri this week for the annual engineering seminar hosted by Chance Civil Construction.  HPW’s commitment to unbiased coverage of the industry notwithstanding, Chance’s seminar is a significant event for the industry and deserving of HPW’s coverage.

It appears the goal of the Chance seminar is twofold. The first goal is to provide continuing education for existing Chance distributors and installers and also for the civil engineers that wish to specify Chance products in their designs. The second goal is to introduce helical piers to a host of engineers and contractors who are not currently using them. Obviously this second goal is of particular excitement to HPW as this is our goal as well – bring more architects, engineers, and contractors into the world of helical piers. The popularity of this seminar has been growing for years.  In fact, after the course filled up originally, accommodations were made to allow additional attendees. Attendees came from virtually every corner of North America - from Florida to Oregon, and from Texas to Canada, and pretty much everywhere in between.

Chance packs in a massive amount of information in two and a half days. The schedules started as early as 6:30A.M. and went straight into dinner - making for some long, but information packed days.  Although there were some minor early morning grumblings, things seemed to get quickly back on track after two or three cups of coffee.

Day 1:
After meeting the Chance engineering team, we started off with the history of helical anchors delivered by University of Massachusetts' professor Dr. Alan Lutenegger (member of HPW’s Technical Review Panel). There is no greater scholar than Dr. Lutenegger when the subject is helical pier history. The seminar then moved to soil mechanics, and an introduction to basic helical pier design. After lunch, we studied designing with helicals and resistance piers. Cocktails and dinner and the Mets knotting up the NLC series ended day 1.

Day 2:
7:15 and everyone was on the bus to Centralia for a factory tour, installation demo and load tests. Most people were wide eyed in the factory as you might expect. The installations went off without a hitch, and the load tests were performed with results scheduled to be reported the following day.  After the load test, the bus filled up and that’s when things got interesting. Centralia is only about thirty minutes from Columbia and the conference center, but the bus ride was an entertaining 75 minutes long. The bus began to have transmission issues immediately after leaving Centralia, and limped along at about 20 mph the whole way back to the conference center. Undeterred, the passengers eagerly filled the conference room to learn about the Chance helical pier design software Helicap^TM. Cocktails, dinner, and the local favorite, St. Louis Cardinals making it to their second World Series in three years ended day two.

Day 3:
Load test results from Day 2 installations were presented, followed by case histories, and that consumed the morning session. After lunch, the meeting was opened up for roundtable discussions until conclusion.

Summary:
It is safe to say that every seminar attendee left packed with more information than they came with. Chance has certainly refined these seminars into a streamlined information festival that leaves attendees better prepared to increase the use of helical piers throughout the world.

While an underlying objective is certainly to sway the opinions of attendees, the manner in which the two-fold mission is accomplished is both professional and void of open bias against competing companies and their products.

Apparently the seminar was inspiring at an artistic level as well. The following poem was handed to me by one of the Chance Distributors. Who knows, maybe Chance will want to use this in some marketing literature!