Moving up the Bachy Soletanche ladder
Bachy Soletanche Limited is a firm that has always put time and dedication into creating potential ‘rising stars’ in the geotechnical engineering field from its NVQ schemes, to graduate programmes. Richard Totty, who joined the leading geotechnical firm after finishing university in 2003, is proving to be a prime example as he now joins the team of Sol Experts as Engineer at Bachy Soletanche’s parent company, Soletanche Bachy France.
Martin Pratt is the Managing Director of Bachy Soletanche Limited and explained:
“Being a part of the Soletanche Bachy group is a great advantage for talented engineers such as Richard. It means there is always a potential to expand their knowledge and experience through the international group and this can only be an attractive quality for ambitious geotechnical engineers.”
The Sol Experts department is the centre for individual business units of the international group, Soletanche Bachy, to make enquiries. For instance, if there is a construction issue which cannot be solved at a regional business unit level, or is a particularly specialised project, the Sol Experts department will provide specialist expert advice.
Richard will continue to work as an Engineer, however his new role means he will be working from Soletanche Bachy’s headquarters in Nanterre – a northwest suburb of Paris – where he will join the Sol Expert department at an intermediate level. This is a particularly exciting move for Richard as he explained: “Joining the Sol Experts department gives me the opportunity to work with Soletanche Bachy’s most knowledgeable experts. My role is to learn all that I can from them, act as an intermediary to communications with the UK, and hopefully as my engineering experience grows, to possibly become a fully fledged Sol Expert.
My aim is to learn as much as I can about new and varied geotechnical techniques and there is no better place to do this than Soletanche Bachy’s head office where research and development is at the forefront of the business.”
Richard will be initially working with the department’s Ground Anchors expert to learn about the group experience and specialism in this field. However, as other opportunities present themselves, he will also be gaining experience from other members of the team in techniques such as diaphragm walling, jet grouting, compaction grouting and piling.
The position was offered to Richard after working closely with the French team on Bachy Soletanche’s high profile King’s Cross Compensation Grouting project. Richard continued:
“I’ve been working on this project for the past two and half years and feel that I have gained so much experience within that time, especially as I had never worked with the grouting technique before. As part of the project I was trained by the French team to manage the compensation grouting process and it was this working relationship – alongside my passion to travel – that I was offered the new position.”
The highly technical Kings Cross project has also opened up other opportunities for Richard. On March 20, he conducted a presentation on the project at his old university, the University of Surrey for the Thames Valley Students and Graduates Regional Group of the ICE.
Martin Pratt concluded:
“We hope the experience gained at Bachy Soletanche has stood Richard in good stead for the future and wish him all the best in his new and exciting role.”