SEAOI Service Award

Congratulations to Bob Lukas, 2017 SEAOI Service Award Recipient

The SEAOI Service Award is given to individuals for outstanding contributions to SEAOI or to the profession of structural engineering in the State of Illinois.

Robert G. Lukas is a Principal at Ground Engineering Consultants, Inc. He earned both a B.S. and M.S. in Civil Engineering at Northwestern University, and holds PE licenses in Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, New York, Indiana, and Kentucky. He is a member of ASCE's Committee on Foundation & Excavation Standards, American Society of Testing and Materials, Committee D-18, ISPE, and NSPE. Mr. Lukas was awarded the Martin S. Kapp Foundation Engineering Award by ASCE in 1991. He has published dozens of articles in his career.

His expertise in geotechnical projects includes dynamic compaction, pressuremeter testing and interpretation, pile and drilled pier foundations and slope stability analysis. He has participated in re-analysis of six earth dams for the Corps of Engineers in Ohio, where slope stability and seepage studies were undertaken, in ground improvement recommendations and monitoring of over 300 projects where dynamic compaction was used as a site improvement technique, and in making geotechnical recommendations for nine flood storage projects for the Soil Conservation Service. Mr. Lukas has also been involved with analyzing capacity and monitoring pile installations for over 300 projects and interpretation of pressuremeter tests to predict settlement of over 1,000 projects. His research involvement includes a 2-year project to prepare a users manual on dynamic compaction for the Federal Highway Administration, and a 2 ½ year study for the Federal Aviation Administration on thickness design procedures for airfields containing stabilized pavement components.

(Photo courtesy of Andrew Breen)

About the Award

The SEAOI Service Award is intended to be given to a person in the design, construction, or related field, who has achieved outstanding success and distinction in his or her career, and who has made a significant contribution to the advancement of structural engineering.

The candidate must be active in his or her field or retired for not more than two years. There is no limit to the number of awards nor to the time span between awards. Candidates for this Award do not have to be members of SEAOI, nor be a structural engineer.