T2 Utility Engineers Celebrates 30 Years of Subsurface Utility Engineering (SUE)
T2 Utility Engineers, part of the Kiwa Group, is excited and proud to celebrate 30 years of providing Subsurface Utility Engineering services. Thanks to the support of our clients and the work of our outstanding team members, we provide Subsurface Utility Engineering and related services for more than 2,000 projects each year from 26 offices in the United States and four offices in Canada.
A lot has changed in the SUE industry over these past three decades including technology, new project delivery mechanisms, and much more. What has not changed is T2 Utility Engineers excellent team members, our commitment to safety, to quality management processes, and to innovation. We’re proud to provide unparalleled field investigations and professional advice to support the success of each project we are engaged with by reducing utility-related risks.
Competence and professionalism over the years
Technology in many areas has experienced significant change, while in other areas some older technologies still remain part of our investigation best practices. The volume and level of detail of data and the speed at which data can be captured has increased exponentially. Our focus on SUE and related services means that we realize how important it is to continue to invest in acquiring the right technology and training for our people so we retain our reputation of providing reliable, accurate information and advice. We plan to stay a leader in our industry. Experience does matter in a SUE provider.
We are proud to look back and share some of the technologies in use across the years and highlight a few of the notable projects and events that have fueled our company’s growth and our contributions to the industry. Tremendous thanks to our clients. We greatly appreciate and value our long-standing and our new client relationships.
Here’s to the next 30 years and beyond!
Origins of SUE:
The growth and development of T2 Utility Engineers corresponds quite nicely with the development of Subsurface Utility Engineering in the United States. The Federal Highway Administration, which strongly supports the use of SUE, has an extensive history on their website- SUE Then and Now. Being responsible for roadway and highway funding and construction, the FHWA recognized that the common approaches to dealing with utilities surrounding highway projects in the 1980s were not working. The basic approach was to deal with utilities during construction. Imagine doing that now.
By the late 1980s a few states’ highway engineers were beginning to use geophysics and vacuum excavation to learn more about subsurface utilities to minimize disruption to the roadways and buried infrastructure. No more digging with a shovel or backhoe. The Virginia Department of Transportation, Maryland DOT, Delaware and Pennsylvania DOTs began requesting subsurface investigations. SUE started to evolve as the interest and awareness of the value of SUE investigations grew and continues to grow to this day.
In 1995, the FHWA and ASCE requested the development of Standards to present a system of classifying data and present a consistent process for Subsurface Utility Engineering across the US. Started in 1995 and published in 2002, the ASCE 38-02 Standard was launched. Several members of our team were active contributors in developing that Standard. We’ve our continued engagement supporting the industry Standards through our membership on the ASCE UESI Standards Committee, which was responsible for the recent update to the Standard, ASCE 38-22.
T2 Utility Engineers’ major infrastructure projects have included SUE and Utility Coordination work as part of the multi-year rail transportation project on the Washington Dulles Airport, and the Gordie Howe International Bridge Design-Build, a $5.7 billion design-build P3 project consisting of a 1.5-mile cable-stayed bridge and border crossing across the Detroit River and to connect Detroit, Michigan in the United States and Windsor, Ontario in Canada.
The next chapter of the T2 Utility Engineers story has begun with the recent inclusion of Applied Professional Services (APS), a leading provider of utility locating services in Washington and Oregon, USA. The company provides a suite of utility locating services, including utility designating, vacuum excavation, Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR), and video pipe inspection services (CCTV). APS will continue to provide those services as well as supporting the expansion of T2 Utility Engineers’ Subsurface Utility Engineering (SUE) services in the US Pacific Northwest region.
T2 Utility Engineers strives to be a trusted advisor by providing unparalleled service, the most reliable information, and sound advice based on our professional experience. Our priority is to add value to each project we are privileged to work on. We look forward to the next decades.
To learn more about our history, details about our services, and to see more project examples, explore our website or contact us.
1993 – The truck that started it all. T2 Utility Engineers, then TBE, bought our first vac truck to support the SUE services we were providing for Florida DOT.