DFI Elects New Members to Board of Trustees

Foundation drilling, engineering group expands leadership, global scope

The Deep Foundations Institute elected six new members to its board of trustees and expanded the board to 21 members, including the group’s three regional chapter members.

New members include:

Frank Haehnig, Dipl. Ing., of Zueblin Spezialtiefbau, Germany. Haehnig leads that company’s international ground engineering division and also serves as CEO of North American operations. He has 25 years of experience in civil engineering and has chaired DFI Europe since 2012. He’s a graduate of the University of Stuttgart in Germany.
Khaldoun Fahoum, Ph.D., PE, of Langan International in Dubai, UAE. Fahoum is a vice president and Middle East regional manager for Langan, and also chairs the DFI Middle East. He has worked extensively across the Middle East over the last 20 years, including in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Oman. He’s also worked in the United States. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Damascus University in Syria, a master’s degree from The Catholic University of America, and a Ph.D. from the University of Maryland.
K.S. Rama Krishna, who recently retired as chief engineer-technology from L&T GeoStructure. Krishna, who serves as chair of DFI of India, has spent more than 35 years researching and designing special foundations and geotechnical projects. He has a Ph.D. in geotechnical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.
Gerry Houlahan, PE, of Moffatt and Nichol. Houlahan heads the firm’s deep foundations, offshore platform and wind structure groups, and has more than 40 years of experience designing and building offshore platforms, bridges and towers. He formerly chaired the DFI Marine Foundation Committee. Houlahan graduated from Monash University in Australia.
Marine Lasne of Soletanche Freyssinet in France. Lasne is the company’s corporate sustainability manager. The European Federation of Foundation Contractors designated her in 2011 to lead a task force toward developing a European Carbon Calculator, a joint project of the EFFC and DFI. Lasne has a degree in civil engineering and a master’s degree in environmental management and engineering. She previously chaired the DFI Sustainability Committee.
J. Erik Loehr, PE, of the University of Missouri. Loehr is director of research and associate professor in the schools Civil and Environmental Engieering Department. His research covers deep foundations for slope stabilization and LRFD. He earned bachelor’s, master’s and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Texas and previously served as chair of the DFI’s Committee on Deep Foundations for Landslides/Slope Stabilization.

See a complete list of the DFI board of trustees, including new other new appointments and changes, on the group’s website.

The DFI is an international association of contractors, engineers, academics and suppliers in the deep foundations industry with more than 3,300 members worldwide. For more information about the Deep Foundations Institute, visit www.dfi.org.