UF Gator Geotech Alumni Photographs

Gator Geotechs:

 

First of all, I want to wish all my Gator Geotechs a very Happy Holiday season. As you remember, a few years back I was concerned that all of our precious pictures from the Geotech wall at the PIT in Weil Hal that so much means to all of us, were going to disappear. No need to go over what has happened in the last few years as we all know. The good news is that now in November of 2021, we have a path forward which is the following. To recap, as many of you know, our Alumni Photographs Legacy, were almost forgotten at the PIT at the Weil Hall Building after Dr. Townsend retired. When the PIT was going under some renovations a few years back, Dr Ana. Mohseni, a Geotechnical professor in the Engineering Department (ESSIE), and without a doubt a leader for the current geotechnical group, saved the photographs and kept them. I have been talking with Ana for a while now and she is willing and eager to revive the tradition by helping this group to get the photographs restored and reframed, and restart the tradition of taking the photos every year with the grad students.

 

Dr. Mohseni and I worked an agreement with Dr K Hatfield (ESSIE Director) about setting up an appropriate space for the photographs. The department accepted to provide us a NEW permanent and visible wall space in the soil lab as well as the Weil Hall Building, so that future generations of geotechnical engineers might appreciate the importance of those faculty and alumni who came before them.

This GoFundMe campaign is set to raise donations for the restoration and framing costs of the photographs, as well as a design and making of the Geotech wall . The funds will be administered by Dr. Mohseni in a newly created account at the Department of Civil and Coastal Engineering and will only be utilized for this purpose. The current goal of $5K is to both restore and frame the photos, and a design and creation for the wall where will set them up.

 

The intention is also that this account will remain permanent, and that old and new alumni who want to donate to support future expenditures of preserving our legacy, such as painting, framing, cleaning, and so on, would be able to do so each year.

 

Please donate and I hope that in the spring of 2022, we will have a very nice area at our college in place with our photos and for future generations to come.

 

I will be happy to be the first to donate to this cause!

 

Go Gators and Happy Holiday season

 

Juan D. Villegas P.E