BCI Engineers and Scientists

Lakeland, FL - July 24, 2010
BCI Engineers & Scientists, Inc., a Lakeland-based engineering firm, is pleased to congratulate Jacque Levine for five years of service to the company. Levine is currently employed as a Technical Assistant for BCI’s Water Resources department.

Levine started with BCI in February 2005 as a member of the Administrative group and quickly began assisting in modeling/simulation for a variety of hydrologic projects. As her skills increased, she moved into the Water Resources group as a field technician, where she trained on fluvial geomorphological projects and eventually started work on a four-year study of streams for the Florida Institute of Phosphate Research (FIPR). She was also promoted to technical assistant, which has allowed her to work with BCI’s Stream Team on a long line of stream related projects.

During her tenure, Levine has worked on numerous projects for the Lakeland firm, including the Southwest Florida Water Management District’s (SWFWMD) Hampton and Judy Tract project, a key initiative that will restore historic hydrology to critical wetlands. She also took a lead role for the Pine Level project, a field evaluation of more than 18,000 acres of MOSAIC property for stream existence.

Levine’s expertise focuses on stream restoration and includes habitat assessments, data rendering and summarization, and wetland delineation. As a primary member of the Stream Team, she has extensive field experience directly related to stream studies and has surveyed more than 100 streams throughout Florida. Her experience has allowed her to collect and identify many of the state’s fish species, as well as increase her knowledge of vegetation both native and non-native to Florida.

Lakeland, FL - June 01, 2010
BCI Engineers & Scientists, Inc. announces the hiring of Sean M. Callihan, as a Geologist in the firm’s Forensic Engineering & Science group.

Mr. Callihan began his employment with BCI February 22, 2010. Sean performs ground subsidence investigations on sites suspected to exhibit sinkhole activity - primarily in support of insurance claims. Mr. Callihan holds a M.S. in Geology from the University of South Florida.  Prior to joining BCI, Mr. Callihan’s experience included geophysical surveys, hydrogeological fieldwork, structural geology fieldwork, site surveys, field mapping, and field mapping.

Lakeland, FL - June 01, 2010
BCI Engineers & Scientists, Inc. announces the hiring of Stephen Schwebke, as a Staff Geologist in the firm’s Forensic Engineering & Science group.

Mr. Schwebke began his employment with BCI February 22, 2010. Stephen performs ground subsidence investigations on sites suspected to exhibit sinkhole activity - primarily in support of insurance claims. Mr. Schwebke holds his B.S. in Geology from Illinois State University. Prior to joining BCI, Mr. Schwebke’s experience included geophysical site assessments, UST closures, soil and groundwater sampling, and environmental site assessments.

Lakeland, FL - June 03, 2010
BCI Engineers & Scientists, Inc. announces the hiring of Rachel Cook Bullock, as a Geology Field Technician in the firm’s Forensic Engineering & Science group. Ms. Bullock began her employment with BCI March 01, 2010. Rachel performs field activities on sites suspected to exhibit sinkhole activity - primarily in support of insurance claims.

Ms. Bullock holds a Bachelor of Science in Horticultural Science and Biology from Florida Southern College and is a member of the Southeastern Geological Society and the American Horticultural Society. Prior to joining BCI, Ms. Bullock’s experience included installation, maintenance, and management of microirrigation systems; microbiological laboratory work; and field research and soil sampling.

Lakeland, FL -  May 28, 2010
BCI Engineers & Scientists, Inc. announces the hiring of Samantha D. Andrews, PG, as a Staff Geologist in the firm’s Forensic Engineering & Science group.

Ms. Andrews began her employment with BCI April 19, 2010. Samantha performs ground subsidence investigations on sites suspected to exhibit sinkhole activity - primarily in support of insurance claims. Ms. Andrews is a registered Professional Geologist in the State of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas.

Prior to joining BCI, Ms. Andrews’ experience included geophysical site assessments; soil and groundwater assessments and remediation; contamination removal, transport, and disposal; and water well installation, monitoring, and analyses.

Lakeland, FL - May 21, 2010
BCI Engineers & Scientists, Inc. is pleased to congratulate Mr. Mike Gonzales for 5 years of service to the company. Mike is currently employed as a Lab Technician for BCI’s Geotechnical Engineering & Mining services department.

Mike Gonzales started with BCI on April 14, 2005. His on-the-job training began with laboratory soil testing and has progressed to on-site testing, sampling, and monitoring. Mike has performed soil analysis/testing on many of BCI’s geotechnical, mining, construction, and sinkhole investigation work. Mike’s versatility and ability to learn quickly have proven to be a tremendous asset to BCI while allowing him to be involved in a wide variety of fieldwork and many different projects.

He has been involved in road construction, dam building, sinkhole remediation (pressure grouting), dredging projects, liner placement, and slurry wall construction. His duties include collecting samples in the field and laboratory testing. During his tenure with BCI, Mike has worked on projects such as Dam Rehabilitation and Design for Coronet Industries, L-8 Reservoir Dredging, Reclamation Design for multiple Mosaic mining sites, and Gypsum Stack Closure for Agrium, Inc. Mike is a Certified Hazardous Materials Technician as well as MSHA certified. He is currently attending USF in pursuit of a degree in Chemical Engineering.

Lakeland, FL - May 14, 2010

BCI Engineers & Scientists, Inc. announces senior geologist earns his Professional Geologist license.  BCI Engineers & Scientists, Inc. is pleased to announce that Joel Cornwall, a senior geologist in the Forensic Engineering & Science group, has recently received his Professional Geologist (PG) license from the Florida Board of Professional Geology.  Mr. Cornwall is a project manager specializing in subsidence and sinkhole damage investigations of multi-unit commercial properties, primarily in support of insurance claims. Joel holds a bachelor in Geology from Western Washington University, and is an active member in the American Institute of Professional Geologists, and The Geological Society of America.

Lakeland, FL - May 14, 2010
BCI Engineers & Scientists, Inc. is thrilled to announce a new branch office in Tampa that enhances our exceptional service capabilities and strengthens our presence in Hillsborough County and surrounding communities.

As we continue to explore areas for improving our level of service, we’re proud to announce the grand opening of our Tampa, Florida office, strategically located at the intersection of I-75 and Highway 60. Dedicated solely to the Forensic Engineering & Science group, the facility provides office and meeting space for more than fifteen forensic group staff members.

BCI’s Forensic Engineering & Science Director, Mr. James Funderburk, PG, CPG commented about BCI’s new Florida location, “Opening a west coast office allows for a quicker response time and increases our ability to service the area more effectively.”

Our expansion to Tampa comes on the heels of the recent opening of our Denver, Colorado office, and boosts the number of BCI office locations to eight. The new Tampa office will allow BCI to provide greater responsiveness to its Hillsborough County clients, as this is the firm’s second location within the county.

Lakeland, FL – April 30, 2010
BCI Engineers & Scientists, Inc. is thrilled to announce that John Kiefer, PE, PWS has been awarded his PhD by the University of Florida!  Dr. Kiefer has been at BCI for eight years offering his expertise which includes more than 15 years designing streams and an impressive history of evaluating more than 300 streams throughout his career.

His dissertation research, more than four years in the making, focused on important hydrologic and biological thresholds associated with the formation of peninsular Florida streams and their floodplains. The research was needed because Florida provides a unique stream setting, its streams have been under-studied, and many have been destroyed or heavily altered since the 1930's. The study was designed to have practical value and is already drawing interest from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection for potential application to riparian system conservation and restoration. Furthermore, his work led to the discovery of a stream type not previously described in the scientific literature.

Dr. Kiefer has pioneered new technological approaches to stream restoration construction, has co-developed a new stream classification system for Florida’s wide variety of fluvial forms, and is qualified as an expert in fluvial geomorphology, hydraulics, ecosystem restoration, wetland mitigation, water quality, environmental engineering, and engineering cost estimation. He has worked on riparian systems spanning from Michigan to Venezuela, with the majority of his experience in Florida.

Additionally, Dr. Kiefer has authored or co-authored numerous well-received technical reports including some peer-review journal articles and a book chapter.  He has guest-lectured at local schools, taught a two-credit college course on Restoration of Southeastern Coastal Plain Uplands and Wetlands, and is often an invited speaker at regional conferences.

Lakeland, FL - April 21, 2010
BCI Engineers & Scientists, Inc. is pleased to announce that Nirjhar Shah, PhD has passed the Association of State Floodplain Managers’ (ASFPM) exam to achieve the status of Certified Floodplain Manager (CFM). The ASFPM CFM Program is directed toward individuals from a wide variety of occupations, interests, and educational backgrounds who have routine floodplain management duties. The ASFPM Certified Floodplain Manager Program was put in place to lay the foundation for ensuring that highly-qualified individuals are available to meet the challenge of “breaking the cycle of disaster losses and stopping its negative drain on the nation’s human, financial, and natural resources.”

Dr. Shah joined BCI’s Water Resources group in 2008, and is working on watershed management plans, flood studies, and water resource initiatives for projects in the Central Florida area. Dr. Shah has done extensive research centered on developing models to predict the extinction depth of plant species for any given soil conditions. He has also been instrumental in the study of wetlands and quantification of wetland hydroperiods. His modeling research has been part of more than 10 journal and national conference publications. Dr. Shah has considerable programming experience and is well-versed in the use of statistical programs. He has been part of continual research for and development of the Integrated Hydrologic Model (IHM that is being developed by The University of South Florida (USF) and Tampa Bay Water to model the hydrology of the Tampa Bay region. He has significant expertise in drainage and flood study computer modeling programs, including MODFLOW, HYDRUS-1D, HEC-RAS, HSPF, MIKESHE, MIKE11, and HYDQUAL. Dr. Shah received his doctoral PhD in Civil & Environmental Engineering from the University of South Florida and a bachelor of science in Technology – Civil Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology.