ETTL News & Views
Volume 12 • Fall 2004 Newsletter
The second issue of the new electronic version of ETTL's Newsletter … Keeping you up to date on what's happening at ETTL Engineers & Consultants … typical current projects … how we can be of service to you … links to our web site, people … and more!

HERMANN WALKA, P.E., MANAGER OF
OF ETTL's TYLER GEOTECHNICAL AND
MATERIALS LABORATORY SERVICES,
BECOMES A U.S. CITIZEN

CONGRATULATIONS
HERMANN WALKA
AMERICAN !!!!

It's taken many years for Hermann to find, reach and officially become a citizen of a nation he delights in. When he was just a little boy, living on his Moravian family's large farm in western Czechoslovakia, the Nazis annexed the country and put it under the dominion of Germany. The Second World War began soon after, and Hermann's father was forced to become a soldier in the German army. He survived, but was captured by the French and spent three years after the war in a labor camp. His family didn't know if he was dead, nor where in the world he might be if he were still alive.

In the meantime, the Soviets took over in Eastern Europe, confiscated the family farm, and drove the Moravians out of west-central Czechoslovakia. Nearly two million people died. But Hermann's family managed to find safety in Austria and, after a year, was able to get to non-communist West Germany, where Hermann's father finally found them through the Red Cross.

So Hermann grew up in West Germany. He studied civil engineering in Frankfurt, in a state school, and in due time became co-partner of a structural engineering firm in the Southern part of West Germany, in Ettlingen (a city whose name, as Heaven would have it, was appropriate indeed for an engineer destined to join ETTL!). He migrated to the U.S. in 1988, a year before the Berlin Wall came down, and represented the firm in the U.S. until he joined ETTL in 1996, taking up his present duties.

Three years later, in December, 1999, Hermann became certified as a professional engineer in Texas. Under his aegis, ETTL has instituted the use of best possible ASTM (and TxDOT) procedures for accuracy of results in a wide variety of laboratory and field tests. A few years ago, a new "clean room" (left-hand photo above) was constructed to house ETTL's "air board," an advanced pressure-control unit that uses compressed air to apply pressures to soil, rock or combination samples for the purpose of deriving permeability values, providing drastic savings in time. It also carries out triaxial testing (shown in the photo). A companion unit, a "constant head" permeameter, also is used by Hermann and his staff to measure hydraulic conductivity of gravels, silts and coarse grain soils. To the best of our knowledge, no comparable testing equipment is available east of Dallas in the Northeast Texas area. Such testing capabilities (and many others) not only are part and parcel of the geotechnical and construction materials engineering project services that ETTL makes available to its clients. Hermann also manages ETTL's contract soil laboratory testing service which enables clients to bring in their own samples to be evaluated. (Click here to see a summary, on ETTL's web site, of some of the many tests Hermann's laboratory staff carries out for contract soil lab clients - and also for ETTL's regular testing projects.)

"Was the testing difficult?" we asked.

"It's an easy test, if you do your homework. You don't attend classes. You study on your own. You have to be able to read and write English. After the testing, the award ceremony was held right here in Tyler. There were about 100 people from various parts of Texas who came to get their certificates. The government holds periodic ceremonies around the state." Hermann smiled. "It was a lovely day. I love the freedom people have here in America. And so does my family. My little grandson is an American through and through! It's been a different world here."

And we pray that continues to be the case for our dear land!

News & Views
is published by: