Press Release

Nicolas Oettle Joins GEI as a Senior Geotechnical Engineer

September 1, 2021

Oakland, CA (September 1, 2021) – Nicolas “Nick” Oettle, Ph.D., P.E., G.E., has joined GEI Consultants as a Senior Geotechnical Engineer. Nick is a Senior Geotechnical Engineer with more than 14 years of experience in geotechnical and earthquake engineering. His project experience includes dams and levees, water and wastewater infrastructure, tunnels, bridges and transportation, energy, and buildings.

“We are excited to have Nick join our team,” says Annmarie Behan, Geotechnical Engineer in GEI’s Oakland Office. “Having worked in the academic, private, and public sectors, Nick has advanced technical skills and the unique advantage of understanding project planning, development, and execution from an academic, owner, and consultant perspective. This experience greatly helps facilitate dialogue and deliver projects that address the concerns of all the various stakeholders.”

He is experienced in overseeing large geotechnical design efforts, controlling project cost and schedules, and management of large geotechnical project teams. Nick has coordinated between government agencies on large projects for important stakeholder issues. He previously worked for the Santa Clara Valley Water District where he was on the management team for the $2.5 billion Pacheco Reservoir Expansion Project. Nick has extensive experience conducting detailed seismic analyses and advanced geostructural numerical modeling. He has given presentations to conferences, local society meetings, universities, and public agencies for review of highly technical information and project designs.

“GEI has an outstanding reputation in the industry to be a great place to work,” says Nick. “There are so many talented people here; you get the opportunity to learn from other amazing people every day. GEI also has some really great clients to work with on important projects that address dam safety, improve access to clean drinking water, renewable energy, and enhance public infrastructure, it’s really a difficulty opportunity to pass up.”

Nick is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) 7-22 seismic subcommittee, the United States Society on Dams (USSD) earthquakes committee, and the ASCE committee on computational geotechnics. He authored several significant changes to the forthcoming ASCE 7-22 standard, which is incorporated by reference into the International Building Code and is currently co-authoring new USSD guidelines for conducting earthquake ground motion studies for large dams. Nick traveled to Japan as a member of the GEER/NSF reconnaissance team that documented the geotechnical damage from the Kumamoto Earthquake. At UC Berkeley, he worked on developing new numerical modeling techniques for surface fault rupture interaction with structures.

In addition to his Ph.D. in Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering from UC Berkeley, Nick holds a Master’s Degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering, and a Bachelor’s Degree in Civil Engineering, both from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.

About GEI: GEI Consultants, Inc. is a consulting engineering firm that delivers professional services that improve our world’s built environment. With more than 900 staff and 42 offices in North America, GEI is a leader in providing multi-disciplined engineering and environmental services to a range of private and public sector clients, both domestically and abroad.

As an employee-owned firm, we foster personal relationships with our clients and support our staff in a partnership model, which is underpinned by continuous learning and sharing of knowledge. We retain proven, recognized experts and attract the best minds to deliver to our clients a refreshing blend of technical expertise, collaborative spirit, and innovation that is rare in our profession. We engineer solutions in five primary end markets: Water Resources, Energy, Buildings, Infrastructure, and Industrial. For more information on GEI, please visit www.geiconsultants.com.

Media Contact:

Rachel Sa
Director of Communications
GEI Consultants
(647) 988-9300
rsa@geiconsultants.com