BY KRISTEN YATES, PE – AET RAPID CITY, AND BEN MATTSON, PE – AET WAUSAU

As a community grows, so does its need for health care. AET has had the privilege of pro-viding services to support the design and construction of several hospitals, medical cen-ters and clinics across the Upper Midwest.

As a project team member, we’ve identified the following as considerations that would likely pertain to any health care project.

Prepare for a fast-tracked schedule

Most health care projects, in our experience, are fast-tracked following the decision to proceed, especially when the scope involves additions to existing facilities. These scenarios represent impressive signs of growth, but are disruptive to the normal flow of doctors, patients and visitors. Hence, they are “schedule critical!” For this reason, it is important to compile an experienced team that can hit the ground running, as many projects simply cannot afford a learning curve. The project team should have the

necessary equipment and human resources to meet fast-tracked schedules, too. For instance, to expedite our fieldwork for large health care projects, we regularly use more than one drill rig—and sometimes three—on-site at the same time.

Minimize day-to-day disruption

When planning an expansion of a hospital or other health care facility, it is critical to make sure that its day-to-day operations are not impacted by construction activities.

Considerations I Continued to page 2

Considerations for your next health care project

AET has supported the design and construction of several health care facilities throughout the Upper Midwest, including this addition to St. Elizabeth Hospital in Appleton, Wisconsin. Many such projects require special considerations.

Solving the Kensington Rune Stone mystery, part II: Sacred numbers near and far

Have you ever noticed symbolic references to the num-ber 13 on the backside of the dollar bill? We suggest finding one now; you’re going to want another look.

BY SCOTT WOLTER, PG – APS/AET SAINT PAUL

In this series, we’ll reveal ancient mysticisms related to the Kensington Rune Stone, a medieval artifact unearthed in 1898 in northwestern Minnesota, and how these beliefs could redefine what we know about North American history.

Our previous article closed with a promise to explain the importance of the number 8, so let’s get to that right away—in Hebrew mysticism it represents Deity. How so? The ancient Hebrew letters that spell the immutable name of Deity are Yod, Heh, Vuv,

Kensington Rune Stone I Continued to page 3

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

AMERICAN EDGE A NEWSLETTER FOR CLIENTS AND BUSINESS PARTNERS OF

AMERICAN ENGINEERING TESTING, INC. WINTER 2017

THE

Considerations, continuedPAGE 2

Project Update: Rapid City Regional HospitalPAGE 2

Kensington Rune Stone, continuedPAGE 3

AET Updates PAGE 4

(800) 972-6364 • www.amengtest.comPage 2

AMERICAN EDGETHE

Considerations

Continued from page 1

Health care is a vital service; facilities that provide it must maintain regular hours with minimal disruption to patients and employees. For example, at a facility expansion in Rapid City, South Dakota, the parking area was limited, which meant we couldn’t reserve enough space to safely operate the drill rigs in and amongst hospital staff and patient parking during normal operating hours. To address these issues, we drilled on nights and weekends, which accelerated the work and kept our equipment out of the way.

One-Call services may be insufficient

In terms of preventing service disruptions, it is also important to think about underground utilities. Health care facilities typically have an abundance of public and private utilities on

the property because of the services they provide. One-Call services alone are insufficient because they only locate and mark public utilities. Before soil exploration work or excavations are performed, it is mandatory to coordinate with the facility’s maintenance and engineering departments.

Plan for heavy foundation loads

Hospitals in particular tend to have large foundation loads—just think about the heavy equipment and large systems these buildings house, in addition to the weight of these structures themselves! It is important for your geotechnical consultant to have other methodologies to maximize allowable bearing capacities to site soil conditions. To accommodate these large design loads, we often perform special testing in addition to more-routine soil borings. For a recent project in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, we performed seismic piezocone (CPT) testing in addition to soil borings. As a

result of the CPT testing, we were able to approximately double the recommended allowable soil bearing capacity that would have been obtained from soil borings alone, avoiding the need for expensive and time-consuming deep foundations and/or ground improvement.

Stay focused ahead for success

Proactively addressing potential issues and setbacks is key to staying ahead on any type of project. Pulling together an experienced team that can adhere to a fast-tracked schedule, coordinate with project stakeholders, and provide a range of services is sure to set your next health care project on the path to success.

Kristen Yates, PE, is the manager of AET’s Rapid City office. She can be reached at kyates@amengtest.com. Ben Mattson, PE, is the geotechnical manager in AET’s Wausau office. He can be reached at bmattson@amengtest.com.

BY KRISTEN YATES, PE – AET RAPID CITY

Since its official opening in 1973, Rapid City Regional Hospital has grown into western South Dakota’s leading medical center. The hospital offers a full range of health care services and, as of 2012, boasted 329 inpa-tient beds. But with the region’s population on the rise, the hospital realized a need to broaden its capacity and service offering. These critical needs resulted in an aggressive expansion project—currently in Phase II—that includes a new hospital building for specialty services, a covered, attached park-ing structure, and renovations to many of its existing facilities.

The AET Rapid City team has been involved in the project since providing preliminary geotechnical exploration services in January 2016. Currently, we are providing materials testing services as construction progresses.

AET is working directly for Regional Health alongside the design and construction team consisting primarily of Structural Design Group, ESa Architects, Heavy Constructors, and Layton Construction. Construction

began on the parking structure in October 2016, and on the Central Utility Plant addition in January 2017. However, progress has not been without its challenges due to winter weather.

Winter weather hasn’t been the only hurdle we’ve encountered with this project. In the fall, the contractor came across soft, wet subgrade soils that were unable to support the drilled pier rig and associated operations that needed to be staged around excavated areas. They quickly requested AET’s assistance to provide recommendations to remedy the situation. Based on our recommendations, the contractor team added a combination

of clean rock and engineered fill to the subgrade soils. This provided a stable base for the rig, and operations carried on as planned.

It’s safe to say everyone on the project is hoping Mother Nature cooperates as we move into spring. For now, we are pushing ahead, and excited to be a part of a new chapter at Rapid City Regional Hospital.

Kristen Yates, PE, is the manager of AET’s Rapid City office. She can be reached at kyates@amengtest.com.

A photo taken in the fall of 2016 shows subgrade stabilization rock and engineered fill for a new three-tiered parking structure at Rapid City Regional Hospital. Photo credit: Construction Management Department, Regional Health

Project update: Rapid City Regional Hospital expansion

AMERICAN EDGETHE

(800) 972-6364 • www.amengtest.com Page 3

Kensington Rune Stone

Continued from page 1

and Heh. (In many Christian churches, these four letters appear in an upward-pointing triangle or delta.) Gematria is the science of numbers in the Kabbalah, and, using numerology reduction, it allows for any Hebrew word to be reduced to a single number. There are twenty-two letters in the Hebrew alphabet; each is assigned a numerical value. When the numbers correlating with Yod, Heh, Vuv, and Heh are added together, the sum can be reduced as follows: Yod = 10 + Heh = 5 + Vuv = 6 + Heh = 5, Total = 26; convention then is to create a new sum of two numbers, i.e., 2 + 6 = 8. And there you have it. This is why so many sacred spaces, like most church steeples, the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the Newport Tower in Rhode Island, and the flared Templar cross, are octagonal in shape.

The number 22 is also sacred to the ancient Hebrews. In addition to the number of letters in their alphabet, it represents the number of bones in the human skull: eight comprise the cranium, and 14 comprise the face. There’s something else that’s special about 8 and 22 related to an ancient measuring system called the megalithic yard, which is precisely 2.72 feet. Calculated using the precise movements of Venus, it was the measuring system our Founding Fathers covertly intended for this country, but Congress elected to stay with the English standards.

In fact, my friend and British researcher Alan Butler recently discovered that Washington, D.C., was laid out using the megalithic yard

geometry. Interestingly enough, 22 divided by 8 equals 2.75, which is pretty darn close to the megalithic yard. The fact that 8 and 22 are the first two numbers that appear in the Kensington Rune Stone inscription, as well as its measurement of close to one megalithic yard in length, could also be a symbolic acknowledgement of Deity to bless and protect the Templar’s land claim. Another sacred number that I want to bring to your attention is 13—the number of the ancient goddess, Isis. Most esoteric researchers trace the association of 13 and women to the moon and its synodic cycle, or the number of times it cycles from new moon to new moon. Each cycle is 28 days and occurs 13 times in a 364-day calendar year.

In the Isis-Osiris legend, Osiris is killed by his jealous brother Set, who cuts his body into 14 pieces and scatters them along the Nile River for the crocodiles to eat. The distraught Isis goes in search of her missing husband and finds all the pieces except his phallus. Isis’s discovery of the 13 pieces is an allegorical reference to her association with the moon and its thirteen synodic phases. Unable to find the phallus of her lover, Isis molds one out of gold or beeswax and impregnates herself. She eventually becomes pregnant and gives birth to her son Horus, who grows up to become Osiris, and the same story repeats itself. This entire legend is simply an allegorical reference to the annual cycle of life on Earth: birth in the spring, death in the fall, and rebirth/resurrection of the sun on the winter solstice.

The Templars and modern Freemasonry have

always held the number 13 as sacred, often sending out troops into battle or knights on their ships in groups of 13. This practice was a plea of protection, courage and strength from the Great Goddess. It was no coincidence the Roman Catholic Church and the King of France, Philip the Fair, ordered the arrest, torture, and burning of over 100 Templar knights in France on Friday, October 13, 1307. Historians say the putdown was primarily over money as the King was heavily indebted to the Templars, but you can bet the Church intentionally picked the date to send a strong message to the Templars in response to their covert reverence for the Goddess.

Here’s where all of this gets really interesting. It appears our own government considers 13 to be sacred, as evidenced by subtle details on the backside of the one-dollar bill. Take a moment and count the number of horizontal beads on both ends of the bill, rows of stones in the pyramid, letters in the Latin phases “Annuit Coeptis” and “E Pluribus Unum,” fig leaves and berries in the eagle’s left claw and arrows in its right claw, stripes in the flag, and stars in the shape of the Seal of Solomon over the eagle’s head. Many believe these symbolic references to 13 give homage to the original 13 colonies. While this may be true, have you ever wondered if the number of colonies was simply a matter of chance, or was it intentional all along? We’ll leave this question for next time.

Scott F. Wolter, PG, is a forensic geologist and the president of American Petrographic Services, Inc. He can be reached at swolter@amengtest.com.

raised by AET and 11 other local engineering firms. Thank you to our partners and employees for another great year of giving back!

Annual ECEOM Food Drive Challenge results: $209,000+ for

Minnesota charities

At left: Vice President Gail Cederberg, CEO Dan Larson, and Vice President Gerard Moulzolf serve up smiles at the annual AET Managers Pancake Breakfast fundraiser.

See Us at These Upcoming EventsPlease visit our website for a full list of upcoming conferences, speaking engagements and more: www.amengtest.com/resources/event

The following staff members recently obtained their PE registration:

Liang Chern ChowBrad LetcherEric Olson

Jacob MichalowskiChris DeDeneSteve Mullen

Megan Huberty of our Saint Paul Petrography Department has been appointed as a member to the American Concrete Institute Student & Young Professional Activities Committee.

Wausau associates and their family members spread holiday cheer with a decorated drill rig at the Wausau Holiday Parade on Dec. 2.

At the annual ACEC/MN banquet held on on Jan. 27, we were honored to receive the following two 2017 Engineering Excellence Awards with our clients:

• Grand Award with Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority for Innovative Environmental and Geotechnical Engineering Solutions for U.S. Bank Stadium

• Honor Award with Anderson Companies and their client Project for Pride in Living for Hamline Station Apartments

Our work on the Hamline Station Apartments (together with Anderson Companies and Project for Pride in Living) also earned a 2017 Excellence in Economic Development Award from the Economic Development Association of Minnesota.

New Employees Nov. – Jan.

Published four times a year by AET for our clients and business partners. Comments? Contact:

Dan Larson – CEOdlarson@amengtest.com or (651) 659-9001

AA/EEO

Employee Spotlight – Matthew Ruble, PE

Matthew Ruble recently joined AET as a vice president and principal engineer. Matthew will be responsible for geotechnical and pavement engineering,

construction services, project management and consulting as a member of our senior leadership team. Having managed several high-profile building inspection and transportation projects, Matthew brings valuable perspective to his role.

AMERICAN EDGETHE

(800) 972-6364 • www.amengtest.comPage 4

American Engineering Testing, Inc.550 Cleveland Avenue NorthSaint Paul, MN 55114

GO PAPERLESSPlease visit www.amengtest.com/newsletters to sign up for electronic delivery.

AET UPDATES

Staff Announcements

Seth (Todd) OrdahlTammy Paulsen

Matthew Ruble

Awards and Recognition