March/April 2021 - 67

MEMBER

PROFILE

Brook Brosi,
a Geologist to the Core

Brook Brosi's interest in all things
" outdoors " started early in life while
carrying on the long family tradition of
Scouting. Brosi achieved the muchrespected rank of Eagle Scout, as had
his father and all three of his brothers.
He loved camping and taking in all that
is offered by spending time in the
wilderness. When in high school, Brosi
had a general interest in environmental
science. One of his assistant scoutmasters, Richard Wilcox, worked for
the U.S. Forest Service. Wilcox encouraged him to consider a more focused
subject in the field of environmental
sciences. Brosi took his advice and, after
taking a variety of related courses in
college, chose geology as his major, a
subject that seemed to satisfy all of his
interests and that offered a fulfilling
career path. This turned out to be sage
advice, ultimately resulting in Brosi
being engaged in some of the most
challenging dam construction and
remediation projects in the country
during his 19-plus years with the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers (USACE, or
" the Corps " ).

University Studies and
Beyond
Brosi graduated from Juniata College in
Huntington, Pennsylvania, in 1995
with a bachelor's degree in geology. He

AUTHOR

went on to complete a master's degree
in geology from Eastern Kentucky
University in Richmond in 1998. He
also was exposed to and mentored by
wonderful professors and colleagues
during those years. He credits his first
undergrad geology professor, Keith
Mann, Ph.D., for making geology fun
and interesting. In grad school, Ralph
Ewers, Ph.D., helped him better
understand water movement in karst,
which turned out to be prescient as he
has spent half of his career working onsite at dams sitting on karst.
His professional career began in 1998
while working with FMSM Engineers in
Lexington, Kentucky. In his three years
with the firm, he took on a variety of
roles, from logging to soil and rock
drilling, and he mentored new employees in logging techniques. He
worked on barges, in dam galleries, on
steep slopes with skid drills, on
embankment dams and levees. He
installed and read piezometers, inclinometers, tiltmeters and extensometers.
As it turned out, one of the firm's major
clients was the USACE. Perhaps this
relationship portended the future.
Being a licensed professional
geologist in Indiana and a registered
professional geologist in Tennessee,
Brosi has been able to take a lead role in
a host of high-profile and difficult dam
and waterway management projects
for the Corps. He currently works with
its Southwestern Division in Little
Rock, Arkansas. He has also been
assigned to the Nashville District in
Jamestown, Kentucky, and the state's
Louisville District, as well as the Corps'
district in Peru, Indiana. Projects under

the umbrella of these key districts have
included some of the nation's most
important and challenging ones. Of
particular note are the well-known
258 ft (78.6 m) tall Wolf Creek Dam on
the Cumberland River in Russel
County, Kentucky, the Amistad Dam on
the Rio Grande River (an international
dam shared with Mexico), and the Mississinewa Lake Dam cutoff wall near
Peru, Indiana, just to name a few.
He has filled a variety of lead roles in
each of these projects, ranging from
design, hands-on project tasks, and
general administration that has
included contract development and
administration. All told, Brosi has been
directly involved in over 30 major dam
projects, and still counting. When it
comes to taking on the wide range of
tasks associated with dam construction, remediation and dam safety, he
feels fortunate to have had the opportunity to do it all.
When asked what he finds to be
most challenging about the work, he
responded, " As a geologist in an
engineering organization, my role is to
effectively communicate my perspective to engineers. As geologists, we
are taught to look at time differently
than engineers - in millions of years
- and we are taught to think regionally
instead of very site-focused. I also
need to understand an engineer 's
perspective, which is very quantitative, and translate geologic ideas into
their language. "
The value of marrying the roles
played by geologists and geotechnical
engineers has been discussed in both
professions for many years. Regarding

S. Scot Litke, Hon. D.GE
DEEP FOUNDATIONS * MAR/APR 2021 * 67



March/April 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of March/April 2021

TOC
March/April 2021 - Intro
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