The Deep Foundations Institute (DFI) has awarded David Weatherby with its highest individual honor, the Distinguished Service Award (DSA). The award recognizes those who have made exceptionally valuable contributions to the advancement of the deep foundations industry. It will be presented at the awards banquet during DFI’s International Conference on Deep Foundations, Seepage Control and in New York, Oct. 12-15.

“While chair of DFI's Soil Mixing Committee, Dave tirelessly led the group in key initiatives to educate our members on this technique, which at the time, was relatively new to our industry as a ground improvement solution. His time and efforts were admirable and a testament of his dedication to the deep foundations industry,” says Theresa Engler, DFI executive director. “On behalf of DFI, I am pleased to see Dave receive this honor at our annual conference.”

Weatherby is a senior engineer consultant at Schnabel Foundation Company in Washington, D.C. His areas of expertise include excavation support systems and permanent retaining structures, structural cutoff walls, ground anchors, soil nails, soil mixing and micropiles. He has developed design guidelines for Schnabel, performed contract R&D for government agencies, and supervised the development of new methods and products.

Weatherby was the principle investigator on four FHWA/DOT research contracts. One of those contracts established the state of the practice for U.S. ground anchor testing and corrosion protection. Another project provided the technical support for most of the recommendations contained in “FHWA Geotechnical Engineering Circular, No. 4 – Ground Anchors and Anchored Systems.” Much of the permanent ground anchor wall work in the U.S. is designed and constructed using the recommendations from those two research projects.

An active member of DFI, ASCE’s Earth Retaining Structures Committee, The International Association of Foundation Drilling (ADSC) and Post-Tensioning Institute (PTI ), Weatherby is a past chair of DFI’s Soil Mixing Committee and served on the board of the PTI. He was a working group leader on the AASHTO-AGC-ARTBA Joint Task Force. He is the recipient of the 2004 Distinguished Alumnus Award for Work on Earth Pressures from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering-University of Illinois and the 2008 Harry Schnabel Jr. Award for Career Excellence in Earth Retaining Structures from ASCE’s Geo-Institute.

Weatherby received his bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from the University of Maryland and his master’s in civil engineering from the University of Illinois.

The DFI is an international association of contractors, engineers, academics and suppliers in the deep foundations industry with more than 3,300 members worldwide. For more information about the Deep Foundations Institute, visit www.dfi.org.