Business View Magazine - October 2018

30 31 ENGINEERING, INC. SOMAT A FASCINATIONWITH INFRASTRUCTURE S omat Engineering, Inc. is an award-win- ning infrastructure solutions provider with expertise in the planning, design, construction, and administration of small to large scale infrastructure, transportation, and water/wastewater systems, built facilities, and en- vironmental pollutant controls. The company was founded in Detroit, Michigan, in 1986, by Ramji Patel. Somat is a portmanteau of “soils” and “ma- terials.”“Our original focus was on geotechnical foundations engineering,” says Arpan Patel, the company’s Washington, D.C. Area Manager, and son of its founder. “It’s the study of foundations – soils and materials – that hold up structures, whether they be buildings, highways, roads, or runways.” “So, we started off in geotechnical foundations engineering,” Patel continues, “and at the time, we even did basic grunt work in the sense that we owned drill rigs to take the samples in the field.We sold those off many years ago and hired people to do that. But we do maintain three testing laboratories in the Midwest, so we still do a lot of our own materials testing– concrete, soil, other materials that go into con- struction and foundations. Along the way, we expanded into other areas, like structural and site civil, which is dealing with the development of real estate and AT A GLANCE SOMAT ENGINEERING, INC. WHAT: An infrastructure solutions provider WHERE: Headquarters in Detroit, Michigan WEBSITE: www.somateng.com