Meet the Team | Alliance Geotechnical

David Duff

David has over 25 years of experience working in geotechnical consultancies in Australia. He has extensive experience in investigation, design and construction of major infrastructure and transport projects as well as small scale residential, commercial and industrial developments. His practical experience, positive attitude, technical, managerial and commercial acumen is well respected and these attributes deliver substantial benefits to the projects he works on.

Lachlan Taylor

Lachlan has over 25 years of geotechnical consulting experience and operated his own consultancy for over 19 years. He has significant experience in geotechnical investigation and reporting, and expertise in construction phase services, specialising in projects requiring basement excavation support and shoring. He also specialises in bearing capacity assessment for shallow and deep foundations, working platform assessment and design & slope stability risk assessment.
If you require a geotechnical solution, Lachlan can advise you on a practical solution to meet your needs.

Thomas Dale

Thomas Dale is a practising Geotechnical Engineer and leads our geotechnical consulting team. He has over 11 years of experience in the civil consulting sector with a focus on construction phase services, geotechnical investigations and project management. Since commencement with Alliance Geotechnical in 2011, Tom has helped to develop and sustain a successful and experienced team of engineers and geologists.
His typical responsibilities cover the engineering team’s oversight with strategic planning, personnel development and operations direction. This includes managing the risk and quality for on-time and on-budget execution of engineered outputs through clear communication and coordination. He also has significant experience with client relationship management and the departments business development strategy.

Matthew Swinbourn

Matthew is a practising engineering geologist working as part of the Alliance Geotechnical (AG) consultancy team. Matthew has four years’ experience working as an Engineering Geologist in the Sydney Basin area and previous experience working as a Soils Laboratory Technician. This experience has given Matthew a practical knowledge of Sydney’s soil and rock formations and their associated geotechnical issues.
Matthew has been involved in a range of projects, in areas ranging from infrastructure and earthworks projects to residential and commercial developments. In all projects Matthew works closely with clients to build strong communication channels and provide practical solutions to any issue that may arise.

Denny Jacob

Denny has over 6 years of experience working in the United States of America, Middle East and Australia on a wide range of geotechnical and civil engineering projects. These include highways, airports, industrial complexes, energy infrastructure, gas pipelines and new and historic building works in addition to road, rail and building construction contracts. Denny’s current project responsibilities as a geotechnical engineer with Alliance Geo include the following: slope risk assessments, numerical and FEM modelling and analyses, pile, pier and footing inspections, preparing fee proposals, supervising drilling, carrying out fieldwork and report writing.

Lubos Melicharek

Lubos has over 20 years of experience within the geotechnical field throughout Sydney and NSW. in Australia. He has vast and wide acquired knowledge of field investigations, drilling, coring, sampling, supervising, planning, budgeting, and report writing. He has finished a number of medium to large scale residential and industrial projects, pavement designs, rail investigations, and residential subdivisions. With strong communication and client liaison skills combined with practical expertise allow him to relate across professional and social boundaries.

Aidan Rooney

Aidan is an experienced Principal Environmental Scientist with over 13 years’ experience in the environmental sector covering a broad range of associated technical disciplines including contaminated land assessments, planning and environmental approvals and environmental impact assessments for the water, wastewater and waste related projects in both Australia and in Europe for private and public sector clients. Aidan has vast knowledge on a broad range of contamination parameters including asbestos, hydrocarbons and pesticides.

Craig Cowper

Craig has more than 25 years of experience and is the Technical Director for the Environment Division at Alliance. His extensive land contamination experience spans the property, infrastructure, manufacturing, petroleum, waste and residential sectors. Craig has worked on projects across Australia, with a particular focus on metropolitan and regional areas of NSW. He is responsible for providing technical leadership to the team, fulfilling the role of project director, and advising clients on complex land contamination matters. Craig is also a Certified Environmental Practitioner – Site Contamination Specialist (CEnvP-SC).

Mehran Asadabadi

Mez has over 10 years of combined environmental and geotechnical engineering experience, with particular focus on linear infrastructure and residential subdivision projects & profound knowledge of project technical assessments and using statistical analysis software. His experience includes contamination assessments, waste classifications, geotechnical investigations, salinity assessments & management plans, subgrade & footing investigations, pavement design & evaluation, pavement rehabilitation, basement excavations, soft soil assessment & improvement, lot classifications, acid sulfate soil assessments & management plans, remedial planning & site validation.

Thalia Park-Ross

Senior Environmental Consultant

Michael Dunesky

Michael has over 10 years of experience in contaminated land consultancy and environmental science and has coordinated both waste classification and contamination remediation programs for a multitude of contractors on many major infrastructure projects including North West Growth Center Stages 1, 2 & 3A, South West Growth Center Package 1 and Priority Sewerage Program (2010 – 2014). Michael manages many of our larger clients and projects, to help identify and mitigate and possible delay with approvals and construction schedules.

Brett Bellingham

Brett has 14 years of construction materials testing and experience managing and coordinating testing on many of our Sydney Water and major infrastructure projects.

Matthew Redfern

Matthew has over 10 years of construction materials testing experience and excels on complex infrastructure where on site advice to clients in regard to specification conformance is essential. Matthew is highly respected and sought after field technician by some of Australia’s largest construction companies working on major infrastructure projects.

Mark McGill

Mark has over 30 years of experience in the testing of construction materials for civil construction projects and has managed site laboratories in the mining and infrastructure sectors throughout Australia and overseas.
He is a NATA Approved Signatory for concrete, soils, aggregate and rock testing for both Australian Standard and Roads and Maritime Services test methods. Currently Mark is responsible for the coordination of the laboratory samples to ensure the highest quality test results are delivered on-time to our clients. Mark is also responsible for assisting with personnel technical training, equipment calibration and maintenance.

Arni Ibiric

Arni has over 12 years of construction materials testing experience and over 4 years in Laboratory management. He is currently the Earthworks Laboratory Manager here at Alliance Geotechnical. Arni has signatory status for a large scope of test methods within the laboratory, and has a wide range of experience in soils, aggregates, concrete, field testing and inspections. Arni has worked on a wide range of infrastructure, residential, non-residential and conformance testing projects both in New South Wales and Queensland.

Ian Goldschmidt

Ian is the Department Manager of our specialty geomechanical testing section responsible for client management, strategic development, and innovation. Ian has been a NATA Technical Assessor in Geotechnical and Civil Construction Materials Testing since 1996 for Soil & Rock Mechanics. Ian has over thirty years of experience in the Civil, Geotechnical, Environmental & Mining Industries in Australia & Internationally.

Dr. Bowei Yu

Dr. Bowei Yu is our Technical Manager responsible for staff training, testing innovation and development. He has solid research and development backgrounds in soil mechanics, unsaturated soil mechanics, clay liners, contaminated investigations and remediations with over 7 years experience in geotechnical and geoenvironmental specialist testings. His research outcomes include 10 published technical papers and many global conference presentations.

Nathan Foster

Nathan is a Principal Environmental Scientist with over 16 years of industry experience. His principle areas of expertise are Contaminated Land Management, Acid Sulfate Soils and Soil Salinity. Nathan has a wealth of experience investigating and remediating legacy soil and groundwater contamination across metropolitan Sydney and regional NSW. Nathan also provides due diligence advice to clients and profiles risk for property transactions.

Jacob Walker

Jacob is an experienced Environmental Scientist with 2.5 years’ experience in the environmental sector covering a range of associated technical disciplines including contaminated land investigations, environmental impact assessment, waste management, environmental compliance monitoring and reporting and air quality monitoring.

Mark Green

Specialising in slope risk assessments and slope management (to AGS and RMS), earthworks forensic/expert investigations, construction support services including rock inspections and remedial works, Mark provides a leading role in reviews and mentoring to the team. He collaborates in preparation of proposals and reporting with clients to find the best value scope and solutions for the projects. He is your trusted advisor.

Paul Onukaogu

Paul is an experienced environmental engineer and an NSW Licensed Asbestos Assessor with over four years of Australian infrastructure industry experience across a diverse range of environmental and WH&S consulting projects.

Paul possesses robust field and technical environmental management and monitoring skills, medium-to-large scale Project Management skills, Community/stakeholder engagement skills, high level of risk evaluation and control design & implementation.

Benjamin Byrnes

Ben is the laboratory supervisor for the earthworks and compaction division as well as being a very experienced field and laboratory technician. Ben is responsible for the day to day running of the laboratory testing for the earthworks and compaction division which involves organising the daily workload and human resources and supervising the testing staff. Ben has 10 plus years of experience in construction materials testing.

Shane Power

Shane’s role is the management of earthworks projects. Shane is the primary contact for our civil contractor clients who are requesting field testing, he allocates the work to our field staff and reports the results of the field testing, ensuring their compliance with the project’s specifications and ITP’s. Shane has 5 years of experience in construction materials testing.

John Moore

John is the laboratory quality manager for both divisions, he manages the calibrations and servicing of all the laboratory’s testing equipment and supports the technical manager in making sure that the laboratory maintains it’s accreditation with NATA and Transport for NSW. John has 10 plus years of experience in construction materials testing.

Jhan-Paule (JP) Arbizo

JP serves as an Engineering Geologist for Alliance and has over 4 years' experience in his current field. His main role is undertaking geotechnical site investigations with significant experience for rail infrastructure across Sydney. He also provides construction phased support services such as bored pile inspections and detailed geological rock mapping. He assists with project management, logistics, and quotations as well as supporting the team with the use of GIS mapping and ensuring the quality control of digitised geotechnical borehole logs.

Simon Thomas

Managing Director

Simon established Alliance Geotechnical Pty Ltd in 2004. Alliance primarily provided construction materials conformance testing for civil contractors on residential subdivisions throughout Western Sydney. After 10 years of sustained growth, the need to transform the company to include engineering and environmental consulting services became essential. Alliance has now grown to over 90 employees providing specialist geotechnical, environmental, soil and rock mechanics specialist testing and consulting services to the company profile.

Isobelle O’Brien

Chief Financial Officer

Stevie Mackay

Office Manager/Project Administrator

Paul Fakes

Quality Manager
Paul has 30 years experience in Integrated Management Systems. His career started out as an Electrician on large infrastructure projects, but he soon moved into Management roles and then business consulting. This is where his skills were finely crafted in the development of Quality, Safety and Environmental Management Systems. Paul’s main focus at Alliance Geotechnical is to ensure that our Quality System’s meet the highest possible standards and that those high standards are reflected in the way we service our customers. Paul’s other focus is the well-being of our workers and the promotion of environmental awareness.

Robin Derkatz

Graphic Design & Social Media Manager

Suresan Kanapathippillai

Contracts Administrator

Denyz Khouri

Executive Assistant

Gaylene Pone

Lab Administrator

Shalika Sharma

Accounts Receivable & Payable

Darien Law

Darien is an integral part of the Soil & Rock Mechanics Laboratory and leads our software development for the installation of new equipment and customised testing. Darien majored in Nanotechnology, with physics and chemistry being a particular focus. He is experienced in data analysis/interpretation.

Upamanyu Suryadevara

Manyu is part of Alliance Geotechnical’s consultancy team and employed as a geotechnical engineer. With competencies relating to structural/civil engineering before entering the geotechnical discipline, Manyu’s current project responsibilities as a geotechnical engineer with AG include: geotechnical investigations, pile/pier inspections, pad/strip footing inspections, preparing fee proposals, supervising drilling rigs, carrying out fieldwork, report writing, liaison with subcontractors and clients.

Aaron Hong

Aaron is employed as part of Alliance Geotechnical’s (AG) consultancy team. Aaron worked in AG’s geotechnical testing/CMT laboratory during the final year of his undergraduate degree (2017) and was promoted to the role of Graduate Geotechnical Engineer after the completion of his Honours degree in Civil Engineering (mid 2018).

Shambhu Shrestha

Shambhu has been involved with occupational hygiene and environmental investigations since early 2017. He possesses skills in investigating environmental hazards, ensuring compliance during hazardous materials handling works, and evaluating environmental policy and guidelines.

Hamed Mohammadi

Soil Technician

Aichata Traore

Aichata is a civil engineer with seven years’ experience in geotechnical and pavement engineering. She has worked on various pavement rehabilitation and resurfacing projects in New South Wales and Queensland. She has also worked on pavement design for infrastructure projects and site investigation for pavements, housing developments, and mining infrastructure in Western Australia. She has gained sound knowledge of the use of marginal pavements materials, and the provision of sustainable solutions for use in pavement design and construction. Aichata will be providing support mostly in infrastructure and industrial projects.

Nicholas Leong

Nicholas is a geotechnical engineer who has worked on major infrastructure projects throughout Sydney, most notably on Sydney Metro, NorthConnex and WestConnex. With strong experience in site investigation and geotechnical instrumentation works, Nicholas continually aims to deliver timely results for his clients and the team at Alliance.