Denver-based geotechnical engineering firm CTL|Thompson is welcoming back one of its former principals and one of Colorado’s foremost materials experts, Jeffrey Groom. CTL, which operates one of the most sophisticated testing laboratories in the country, recruited Groom to provide his experience and expertise to its clients, mentor the firm’s new generation of leaders and train future recruits to work in this highly technical environment.
“Our team gained real firepower when Jeff agreed to rejoin our team,” says CTL|Thompson Vice President and Senior Principal Engineer Marc Cleveland. “He joins a well-seasoned team of experts who will mentor our next generation of leaders and engineering staff and assist our clients with difficult geotechnical challenges.”
Cleveland was referring to longtime engineers Ron McOmber, Bill Hoffmann and Orville (Bud) Werner, who are now serving advisory roles in Denver, Colorado Springs and the company’s Materials Division, respectively.
“Our materials engineering clients will benefit from both Mr. Werner’s expertise and Mr. Groom’s significant international experience on large-scale infrastructure projects,” says Cleveland. “Meanwhile, our young engineers can tap into our senior team and their invaluable technical expertise and leadership and project management skills.”
Groom previously worked at CTL for 21 years. He started as a staff engineer and rose quickly to become Vice President and Principal Engineer of CTL|Thompson Materials Engineers, Inc. He left in 2007 to gain additional international experience, after managing the firm’s infrastructure projects for the Department of Defense in Diego Garcia – a tiny island in the Indian Ocean where bombers headed for Iraq and Afghanistan refueled – and on the Marshall Islands. For the past four years, Groom has worked on the island of Guam for GHD, Inc., managing government-funded infrastructure projects.
He returns to CTL as Senior Principal Engineer with specific oversight of the cement/fly ash/concrete materials engineering and testing laboratory, which Civil + Structural Engineer magazine called “one of the most extensive materials testing laboratories in the United States.”
A recognized expert in concrete and concrete aggregates, Groom helped create norms for national testing and specification of concrete and concrete aggregates for the American Society of Testing and Materials (ASTM). He is a recognized examiner for the ACI International Certification program and former president of the American Concrete Institute, Rocky Mountain Chapter. For the past 13 years, he has been a speaker at the World of Concrete and is a published author of journal articles in Concrete Construction, Masonry Construction, and the American Society of Civil Engineers’ Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering.
