ABOUT US
40 YEARS OF HISTORY
Since 1976, Giles Engineering (Giles) has provided unparalleled expertise in geotechnical engineering services, environmental consulting, construction monitoring and testing services, forensic engineering, subsurface exploration and instrumentation, and property condition assessments. President and Founder Terry Giles began his professional career on the East Coast and brought his experience in geotechnical engineering back to the Midwest to found Giles, based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Giles grew quickly due to their relationship with multi-unit commercial development clients, having embraced the idea of working for these clients anywhere in the United States. Such multi-unit concepts eventually overtook the development landscape, resulting in multiple opportunities for Giles to provide their expertise to national commercial businesses from coast to coast.
In working with a fast growing segment of the economy, it was crucial to know, understand and perform to each client’s needs to give them the information needed in the time frame required it, and to provide continuous communication about their project sites. Over the past 40 years, Giles has expanded the breadth and depth of their projects ranging from small boxes, to large boxes, to multi-story and high-rise structures and to include clients of all sizes in the private, commercial, industrial, financial and government sectors in all 50 states, as well as Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, St. Croix and Brazil.
The ability to recognize development challenges in dramatically different regions is something that distinguishes Giles from many peers that are focused on a particular industry and/or particular area of the country. We are dedicated to continual education to ensure the expertise of our professionals to provide the most innovative solutions. Our senior staff and project leaders remain involved in each project they initiate, working closely with the client from beginning to end, and ensuring timelines and quality control are monitored and achieved with perfection.
Each project Giles does, regardless of how large or small, is the most important project they do.
Distinctive Projects from Giles’ 40 Year History
A steep slope, considered to be part of an ancient landslide by the governing agency and historical reports, and our client wants to construct a six-story building on and into the slope, and, of course, has a limited budget. The slope had previously been explored and evaluated by a number of other firms for similar developments and considered to be uneconomical. Utilizing a combination of systems to resist the lateral forces and employing active pressures on retaining walls separate from the building versus at-rest pressures against the building, the project became a reality. Difficult access test boring locations may be a challenge, but are not impossible.
A retaining wall constructed with geotextile wrapped layers of granular materials proved to be the most economical solution to removing the toe of a slope about 80 feet high to allow for the construction of a new commercial development. When completed, it turned out to be the highest wall of its type in the U.S.
The ski-lift gondola, being used on VISA commercials, was stuck at the terminal ski-lift tower at Telluride Village, and it must be operable for the coming ski season. After extensive evaluation, it was determined that the tower had twisted due to the initial stages of an adjacent landslide. The landslide was subsequently controlled by a combination of drainage systems and buttresses. Our investigation of the conditions around the stuck gondola tower also determined that the adjacent proposed terminal building and a second ski-lift tower were about to be constructed over a previously undetected filled-in lake which resulted in a complete revision of the planned foundation systems.
Giles was an integral part of the entire construction/ development process for the MSOE soccer field and parking structure, from drilling/borings, to the Geo-technical side, to CMT services. Geo made recommendations for the structure to be on piles, CMT was on hand to observe over 800 piles being installed, and concrete and reinforcing observations of the pile caps, interior and exterior walls. The next phase of the structure was pre-cast concrete installation up to the soccer field level, 4 stories total, during which structural observations of the welding were performed. One particularly memorable aspect of the project involves the amount of soils which were removed, 2 to 3 stories below the existing ground level. Yet perhaps the best memory is witnessing a parking structure being transformed into a soccer venue at street level; hard to visualize until its completion.
LAX gave the Endeavour, which weighs about 169,000 pounds and its transport, with a combined weight of about 400,000 pounds, 1 hour maximum, between midnight and 1:00 A.M. to cross the end of the runway; the only route available out of LAX onto the city streets was not slowed or even worse, stopped, when passing over unexplored subsoils with underground utilities, many of which were at unknown depths, types and sizes and that none of these underground systems, especially the cables controlling the LAX flight communications, were crushed or otherwise affected by the Endeavour as it passed over the area.