2021
dutragroup.com
INDUSTRY LEADER IN AGGREGATES, DREDGING, AND MARINE CONSTRUCTION SERVICES
OCEAN BEACH Engineering in the sand
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MEET DUTRA’S NEW VICE PRESIDENTS
RESTORING, IMPROVING & RAISING ALAMEDA MARINA SEAWALL
DUTRA GOES PINK FOR BREAST CANCER AWARENESS MONTH
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FAMILY OWNED FOR FOUR GENERATIONS
CAPACITY. CAPABILITY. CHARACTER. OUR MISSION Dutra's mission is to strengthen our nation's maritime infrastructure and improve our waterways through sustainable dredging, marine construction, and aggregate manufacturing. The "Three Cs" of Dutra — Capacity, Capability, and Character —reflect our commitment to the many public and private customers we work hard for, to the safety and growth of our team, and to our core values that have guided us since 1904.
OUR CORE VALUES SAFETY Safety is our top priority. No operation proceeds until safety has been fully addressed. The safety and health of all our employees is not only critical to our success, but it also reflects the collective commitment of every employee each and every day. INTEGRITY We define integrity as acting with honesty, transparency, and trustworthiness in all aspects of our internal and external relationships. It embodies how we treat each other as employees, how we treat our customers, and how we represent ourselves to the subcontractors that work by our side.
COMMUNITY Dutra is committed to contributing to the communities we serve in a sustainable and environmentally friendly way. Dutra will always operate in the safest manner possible for the surrounding community. We believe a sense of community starts from within and is evident in the strong bond we have among our employees. RELATIONSHIPS Our relationships mean the world to us. It is critical that we treat our partners with integrity and honesty, holding ourselves accountable for our actions, decisions, and policies. Every day we strive to develop and foster a positive relationship with our employees, customers, suppliers, and subcontractors.
QUALITY Dutra has many experienced and talented people who strive every day to be responsive and deliver the highest quality product possible. We take great pride in our consistency and effectiveness because we know that good business is about delivering high value to our customers.
See more: www.dutragroup.com/history.html
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A MESSAGE FROM OUR CEO
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021 has been a challenging but rewarding year. We have accomplished a lot, we have overcome a lot, and we have achieved many milestones.
As we face new challenges in 2022, we will find ourselves innovating to continue molding and strengthening the company. This will happen not only by winning new work, but also by knowing our market and where we best fit. We need to win. But innovation alone is not enough to win. We don’t have to be the first at everything. We win because of our people, and because we’re growing professionals in all our divisions. These developing professionals will help us meet the challenges in front of us, and they will help mold the company in the future. We must keep in mind that to win, we must both maintain the quality of our work and meet our customers’ growing demand. We must recognize that the quantity of work we win will increase as we grow our sweet spot, but we must also maintain the high quality of our work to meet our customers’ high standards. We must also have the mental strength to move forward when things don’t go as planned. As we move into the future, with evolving technology, people, and resources, there will inevitably be things that don’t go right. We will have to adjust. And when things get challenging, we will have to inspire, encourage, and rejuvenate ourselves and each other to move forward and develop even greater profitability for our company. We will continue to regenerate and train our people and the youth who will move this company further forward.
In addition to a pandemic, we have confronted severe sea and weather conditions this year. We have seen how an atmospheric river can impact our projects, and how COVID-19 has affected our professional and personal lives. But we have dealt with all these challenges by respecting the conditions and by figuring out how to use people and equipment to best advantage. The strength, savvy, and commitment of our workforce has addressed and overcome these events. We have used our professional wisdom, our increased knowledge, and our physical and mental strength to prevail. These are the new realities that are reshaping our world into the next decade. The commitment that this company has made in both people and new equipment will support our efforts going forward. The leadership, talent, and commitment that each of us brings to the company is a tribute to us all. As we move into 2022, we know there will be new global challenges due to weather, climate change, and sea level rise. These areas will be our sweet spot. They will be the strength and backbone of The Dutra Group’s continuing growth. Let’s continue to enjoy working in a safe, innovative and profitable company. Best,
Bill T. Dutra, President/Chief Executive Officer
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A MESSAGE FROM OUR COO
s we wrap up FY2021, I am pleased and proud to report another outstanding year of successfully executing a number of very challenging projects. Across all operating segments of the company — dredging, construction, and materials — our timeliness, quality of delivery, and customer satisfaction have been exemplary. Our equipment, estimating, accounting, purchasing, and other support teams have all played critical roles in our great successes. Most excitingly, I am delighted to report another outstanding safety record in 2021. With a multiyear trend of exceptional safety performance, The Dutra Group has succeeded in reaching “best in class” safety status. I want to encourage each and every employee to continue embracing our No. 1 core value, safety. It’s a critical job requirement. I am also happy to report that our environmental protection and preservation “scorecard” for both projects and locations has been outstanding. Dutra’s remarkable performance throughout the past year is a true testament to strong leadership throughout our management teams, and to our employees’ commitment to a culture of safety and teamwork, with everyone looking out for one another. It is also evident that our newer engineers and managers are embracing their critical roles in our challenging assignments and are absorbing our culture of cost consciousness and safety.
also remain near an all-time high. On both federal and local levels, it is widely recognized that improving infrastructure adds tremendous value to our economy, job creation and national defense. At Dutra, we also recognize that strengthening infrastructure greatly benefits our employees and their families. We have previously reported our commitment to investing heavily in new equipment and technology, which are essential to our businesses. With these investments, and with the outstanding development of the teams that use them, the company remains well positioned to win our fair share of challenging work going forward and to continue supporting the clients whose projects are the reason for our success. While advances in equipment and technology are wonderful, it is our employees who are by far The Dutra Group’s most valuable asset, providing the strength, leadership, and discipline to continue our great successes into the future. I applaud all our fantastic employees and thank each one of you for a job well done! With great leadership throughout the company, outstanding talent, and a strong record of safety and quality delivery, I remain extremely optimistic and eager to continue our growth in coming years. I wish you all great prosperity and success, and urge you to please continue living by our No. 1 core value: Be Safe!
I am also glad to report that our backlog is currently near an all-time high, bringing us an outstanding collection of challenging projects for 2022. This reflects the broader pent-up demand for, and our nation’s commitment to, improving our ports, waterways, bridges, and roads, which
Harry Stewart, Chief Operating Officer
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A GLIMPSE AHEAD
Here is a look at some projects Dutra has on the horizon for 2022 Bremerton, WA Repair Concrete Walls, Floors and Pumpwell, DD6, Puget Sound Naval Shipyard $521k / Department of the Navy
Baltimore, MD Maintenance Dredging of Cape Henry Channel (VA), Baltimore Harbor and Channels $15m / U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Baltimore District
Wilmington, NC Maintenance Dredging, Wilmington Harbor Mid-River Channels and MOTSU, New Hanover and Brunswick Counties, North Carolina $12m / U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Wilmington District
Long Beach, CA Pier G Wharf Improvements $35m / Port of Long Beach
Crockett, CA C&H Wharf Repairs $5.4m / C&H Sugar Company, Inc.
Alameda, CA Alameda Marina Seawall Rehabilitation Project $18.5m / Alameda Marina
San Francisco, CA
Mobile, AL
Bay Bridge Fender Repair Project $7.3m / Caltrans
Contract for Rental of Hopper Dredge with Attendant Plant and Operations for Maintenance Dredging $15m / U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Mobile District Contracting Division
Staten Island, CA North Mokelumne River Multi-Benefit Project $7.12m / Reclamation District No. 38
Vallejo, CA Former Vallejo Manufactured Gas Plant Sevenson $5.2m / PG&E with Sevenson as Prime
Cape Canaveral, FL Canaveral Harbor Maintenance Dredging 41, 42 and 43 Foot Project Brevard County, Florida $9.7m / U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Jacksonville District
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DUTRA CAREERS
MEET DUTRA'S NEW VICE PRESIDENTS
MIKE EDDE VP CHIEF ESTIMATOR
CLIFF HUNT VP RISK MANAGEMENT
AARON JOHNSON VP MATERIALS
J.C. KRAUSE VP DREDGING DIVISION
Congratulations to our new VPs Mike Edde, Cliff Hunt, Aaron Johnson, J.C. Krause, and Steve Lee. Together, this Vice President Team has provided more than 116 years of service to The Dutra Group. Each and every one of these Vice Presidents has demonstrated the responsibility and commitment to guide their departments and support our long-term growth strategy building year-round financial confidence. They provide the leadership that The Dutra Group needs to propel us into the future and bring about new leadership so we can further expand and grow. “They are entirely deserving of this title recognition to run alongside their peers in the industry,” said Harry Stewart, The Dutra Group COO. “A heartfelt congratulations! We are very proud of you.” Join us in congratulating these fine people and support them in helping to lead The Dutra Group into our next phase of growth. Congrats on your new role! Let’s take it back a few years, why did you choose Dutra? ME I was attracted to Dutra for several reasons. First, the types of projects that Dutra builds are very enticing for a Civil Engineering college graduate. High-profile bridge projects like the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge Self Anchored Suspension Span and the RichmondSan Rafael Bridge retrofit projects really caught my attention. As a Bay Area native, I had driven over those bridges countless times in my life and I always wanted to work on them some day. Every Dutra project was unique, and I knew that work would always be challenging and stimulating. Second, I was immediately drawn to the size and culture of Dutra. During my first interview, I met both Bill and Harry and they were very warm and clear about a potential career growth path. I got a sense of how employees are treated like family, and that was something that made Dutra stand out from some of the other companies with which I interviewed. I liked the fact there was a lot of opportunity for career growth for a recent
graduate with little experience. Third, I loved the fact that Dutra self-performs most of the work on its projects. As an employee in estimating and/or operations, you have a real say on how the work is performed and are always striving to figure out a way to build a project more efficiently. AJ Coming from a family-owned business, I liked knowing there wouldn’t be layers of management and red tape to get through when decisions or action needed to be taken. What do you see as the most important part of your role as a Vice President? ME To develop and cultivate future leaders of the company and to help guide the strategic direction of the company to ensure Dutra continues to be a leading contractor in dredging and marine construction. CH Governance, mentorship and bringing a historical perspective to things. AJ Making sure the younger employees get what they need to be successful in their careers here, and giving them flexibility to make decisions.
STEVE LEE VP EQUIPMENT
JK To help grow the future leaders of the company and help set the company’s course into the future. SL Maintaining a safe workplace for all employees and collaborating with other Managers in The Dutra Group et al. to provide support to create successful projects and developing a path to Leadership for younger candidates. How has your previous experience prepared you for your new role as VP? ME My career path at Dutra started in the Estimating Department. For the first few years, I learned the fundamentals of estimating. This prepared me to go out to the field as a project engineer working on a multitude of marine construction and dredging projects. I eventually worked my way up to Project Manager having full responsibility over a project. In between projects, I would come back to the estimating department to help bid and win more work. Eventually, I was offered a permanent role as Chief Estimator and have been there ever since. Through my career path, I have been involved with all types of projects that Dutra builds including dredging, marine construction, and levee/rock placement work. This experience has given me the acumen to understand how the work is built in the field and how it is properly estimated. I have learned how to lead others and feel that I am ready for this new role as VP to help lead the company into the future. CH Running the three different departments, their synergies and working with all levels of employees in all departments. AJ Having worked so long with Bill and Harry, watching them and how they manage and make decisions, was probably the biggest factor. JK I feel I have good working relationships with the other VPs & Senior management.
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SL Being a Division Manager gave me experience in Team Building, meeting Division objectives and budgets, training Division Teams and focusing on Safety. Who has been your strongest influences in life? ME My father, Steve Edde, has been the most influential person in my life. He was an Industrial Engineer for the US Navy at Naval Air Station Alameda and helped develop my passion for problem solving. I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree after all! CH On a personal basis, my wife, kids, grandchildren, family and friends. At work, I would say that I had a great mentor at Chevron, and of course, the last twenty two years with the best mentor, Bill Dutra. AJ I had 2 sets of wonderful Grandparents growing up, who were influential in the business world, as well as being wonderful role models for my siblings and me. JK My mom & Chris Peterson SL I am grateful to many great people who have adorned the vessels and halls of this company through the years and especially grateful for Bill Dutra’s mentoring and training on equipment, fiduciary responsibility and being a good leader. What led you to your career? CH I spent nearly 20 years at Chevron USA. 9 Years of shift work as an Operator and then they gave me the chance to go back to school and complete my B.Sc. in Computer Science from USF. I transferred to the Corporate headquarters in SF for several years. They then moved to San Ramon and I was living in Sebastopol at the time and began looking elsewhere, which led me to Dutra. I worked as the IT manager as well as the Safety Manager. In 2009, I completed my MBA in Risk Management with the help of the company and transitioned into the Risk Manager role. AJ I started in the family quarry business in 1990 right out of college, as an Operating Engineer. JK A desire to work around the water.
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ME A family man, a loyal friend, an adventurous traveler, a passionate sports nut, and a music enthusiast. CH Hopefully a good family man. I also hope that my colleagues would share that, even though we have not always agreed, I always have in mind what’s best for this company. AJ Reserved, but a good listener, and willing to help those in need. JK Pain in the ass but fair, I would never ask them to do something that I wasn’t willing to do myself. SL I would hope that I would be considered a man of good work ethic and character and a devoted Husband, Father and carrier of the Dutra Flag.
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and the projects they were used in and the collaborations and teamwork they required. Any advice for those seeking a leadership role at Dutra? ME All your efforts will pay off in the long run if you remain disciplined and work hard. Sometimes the days can seem long, but the years fly by. Stay inquisitive and learn from the people around you. Dutra has a wealth of experienced people that will help you grow and develop. Getting exposure to other parts of the company will help you understand the bigger picture of how the company operates. CH Just go for it. One of the many great things about this company is that if you want to make a difference, the only one stopping you is yourself. I would like to see more employees take on the risk and develop into a leader.
What are you most proud of accomplishing? ME I am most proud of a couple achievements that I earned while working here at Dutra. First, I obtained my California Professional Civil Engineering License back in 2006. Second, I earned my MBA from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley in 2014. Both accomplishments required a lot of hard work and time management, as I was working full time for Dutra while studying and going to school in the evenings and weekends.
AJ Dutra is a diversified business, so there are many fields here that should interest future leaders. So decide where you fit in best, and develop skills that will be valuable to the team, and you’ll be on your way. SL Master your craft, maintain a safe workplace filled with pride in care and custody of the company’s equipment. Collaborate and cooperate with integrity and your tap on the shoulder will come.
They are entirely deserving of this title recognition to run alongside their peers in the industry... Heartfelt congratulations! We are very proud of you.” - Harry Stewart, Dutra COO CH Our IT System that continues to blossom and support our operations, our safety program and the results that we have accomplished and how Risk Management is no longer a mysterious position in the company. Let me mention, there are several people that have worked very hard with me over the last twenty two years to accomplish all of this.
SL My father was a hot rodder and left us too soon but gave me an interest in mechanical skills. I fueled that interest over the years with Caterpillar and that opened the door to marine equipment where I later joined with The Dutra Group. It seemed the larger the equipment, the more my interest peaked. I’m very proud of the massive pieces of equipment and fleets we have all built together.
AJ I’m quite proud of my team’s safety record, and of the company’s safety culture as well. We’ve come a long way. It wasn’t easy, and it sure wasn’t like this when I started 30 years ago. Everyone knows they have to be doing their job with the safety of themselves and their coworkers first above all else.
How would your friends and colleagues describe you?
SL I am very proud of the last 25 years of fleet recapitalization efforts we have undergone
JK My Kids, well some days that is :)
What is something surprising people would be interested to know about you? ME I once was an adrenaline junkie and loved activities like sky diving and bungee jumping. CH I was originally a Jazz Performance Major, at one of two colleges in California, that offered the program at the time. I began playing the trumpet at age 5 and with the support of my parents was able to nearly eke out a career as a musician. Music is everything to me. I immersed my children in all types of music and I look forward to teaching my grandsons to appreciate it and hopefully pick up an instrument. AJ I don’t like surprises! JK I’m a homebody.
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RESTORING, IMPROVING AND RAISING ALAMEDA MARINA SEAWALL
Just seven miles east of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and barely 250 yards across the cold blue channel that separates the city of Alameda from Oakland, the Alameda Marina and its surrounding area have been showing their age for some years now. >>
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The area’s heyday harks back over a century to when it was best known as home to a drydock and shipyard that built ferries as well as minesweepers and similarly sized vessels for the Navy and Coast Guard during World War II. The marina was born in the 1960s, but in recent decades much of the area’s seawall, docks and pilings have fallen into disrepair. In 2020, the area’s current owner, Alameda Marina, LLC, received City Council approval of its plans for a major redevelopment around a commercial maritime core, dockyard, a possible boatyard and a waterfront promenade. The development will include housing (including affordable housing) as part of a “mixed-use community with amenities, such as dining and entertainment, public open space and access to water activities.” Essential to this redevelopment is The Dutra Group’s replacement — or in some areas, repair and reinforcement — of nearly half a mile (2,400 feet) of seawall whose purpose is to protect the area behind it from the elements and sea level rise and to keep everything dry. “What we’re doing, in essence, is bringing the structures up to current engineering standards,” says Dutra’s Construction Division Manager Bryan O’Sullivan. The work began in November 2020 and is scheduled to be completed by March 2022. It involves not only upgrading the seawall and raising it four feet to a new height of 14 feet but in some areas also demolishing piers and other “over-the-water structures” to clear the way for retrofit and installation. According to O’Sullivan, there are “about seven or eight different types” of previously existing seawall structure, some needing “heavy retrofit — more rock, piles, tie rods, strengthening — and others still in pretty good shape, where we’re just doing light retrofits.” Dutra deployed its 230-ton Manitowoc 4100 crawler crane to drive some 400 piles of several different types. In some sections, the piles support concrete walls. In other areas, H-piles (whose cross-section is like an exaggerated I-beam) were called for to anchor robust wooden beams (lagging) between the flanges of neighboring piles to create sturdy new wall. The biggest part of the job has been the building of seawall sections made of riprap — piled, irregularly shaped, roughly basketball-size chunks of stone — hauled from Dutra’s San Rafael quarry 25 miles away. It took 262 truckloads to carry some 3,500 cubic yards of these rocks to
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Alameda. (To picture 3,500 cubic yards, imagine a tennis court — 78 feet by 36 feet — piled nearly 35 feet high with rocks.) The rock had to be trucked to the project since the existing marina and the narrow channel precluded delivery by barge. According to O’Sullivan, construction was done from dry land as well because confined space at the shoreline made barge-based work impractical. Instead, excavators, loaders and bulldozers did much of the work that a barge-borne crane would have done in a more typical shoreline project. Work on the marina differs from the usual in another respect. Unlike Dutra’s many public-sector projects, on this project Alameda Marina, LLC — a private-sector client — brought Dutra in early, even before the drawings were finished. “We were able to help the client and designer plan for the most affordable solutions,” said O’Sullivan. “It just made everything easier to be able to provide input on a range of things that can affect the results we deliver. We worked with Alameda Marina and their designer from the beginning to go over constructability, schedule, methods and the
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price of materials. And we’re continuing to meet with them every week to discuss anything that needs to be addressed. It’s been an excellent relationship with a great client.” The client, however, has hardly been the only entity with an interest in the project. Alameda Marina had to receive approvals from agencies such as the Army Corps of Engineers, Alameda County, the Alameda County Water District, and the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission, whose jurisdiction includes everything within a hundred feet of the bay’s high-water mark. (High water is an interesting concept in San Francisco Bay. At Alameda Marina, tides rise and fall about five or six feet twice a day, every day. This makes the timing of access to certain work areas critical. When the sun and moon line up twice a month to create a “spring tide,” the difference between high and low water increases to about eight feet.) Of particular interest to officials have been environmental issues, particularly stormwater runoff and wildlife concerns. Pile driving, for example, was constrained by “water windows” designed to avoid interference with the runs of migratory salmon and sturgeon. Mammal monitors were also contracted to alert Dutra whenever seals or sea lions were seen approaching the area. The project had the potential to affect people as well as wildlife, so the Dutra team “had to pay particular attention to ensuring that working in a residential area of an active city” does not interfere with — as O’Sullivan put it — “our efforts to be a good neighbor.” Clearly, building the new seawall has been a team effort for the 30 members of O’Sullivan’s crew, in whose accomplishments he takes great pride. He singles out “Project Manager Jason Tse, our general superintendent Scott Brooks, our pile-driving superintendent Robert Utley, the estimating team, safety team, field team, and everyone involved in efficiently providing a great result for our client.” He expressed particular satisfaction with Tse’s achievement of an incidentfree safety record. “Yes, safety is definitely No. 1 for us,” O’Sullivan affirmed — “followed by making our client happy.”
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BY THE NUMBERS ALAMEDA MARINA SEAWALL PROJECT
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MAN HOURS 18 , 2 0 0 T O D AT E
L E N G T H O F E X I S T I N G S E AWA L L R E P L A C E D 2 10 0 F T
L E N G T H O F E X I S T I N G S E AWA L L R E I N F O R C E D O R R E PA I R E D 300 FT N U M B E R O F F E E T B Y W H I C H E X I S T I N G S E AWA L L WA S R A I S E D 4 FT
N U M B E R O F P IL E S D R I V E N 400
T R U C K L O A D S O F R IP R A P B R O U G H T T O P R O J EC T S I T E 262
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OCEAN BEACH
ENGINEERING IN THE SAND
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When they were kids, Marshall Thompson and Erik Peterson loved to go to the beach and “rearrange” the sand with plastic buckets and shovels. Fast forward a few decades, and they were rearranging the sand again, or rather carefully engineering it, this time directing a skilled Dutra Group team equipped with bulldozers. How did Project Manager Thompson, Quality Control Manager Peterson and the roughly four dozen members of the Dutra team find themselves reliving — sort of — a childhood pastime at Ocean Beach? This threeand-a half-mile strand appears to be a fine example of a place where an irresistible force meets an immovable object. But not quite. The force — ocean waves — relentlessly pummels San Francisco’s Pacific shore, but the shoreline turns out to be not quite immovable. Blame it on two things: rising sea levels and the inexorable work of ocean currents and tides. As the saying goes, Time and tide wait for no man. Nor does climate change. Ocean Beach, popular with legions of San Franciscans and their cavorting canines, has been narrowing for years. Part of the shrinkage can be attributed to sea level rise, and part to the long-standing erosion caused by the area’s heavy wave action and strong currents, which have been washing sand away for centuries. Some people believe that government often waits till the last moment to avert catastrophe. Fortunately, San Francisco did not have to wait for Ocean Beach to vanish before action began. Remarkable as this might seem to some observers, several factors came together to save the beach. One was alarm at the prospect of losing a much-loved recreation area and landmark.
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This project had more site visits from all these stakeholders as well as congressmen and the mayor in about a month and a half than I've ever seen on any project... Everyone wanted to come and look. Nothing like this had never been done before, so it was a pretty big deal for the area. It was exciting.” - Marshall Thompson, Dutra Project Manager
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Still more powerful was fear of how the loss of beach sand could endanger a piece of infrastructure critical to health and safety — the 14-foot-wide Lake Merced Tunnel that runs under the beach, carrying wastewater from the city’s Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant through a pipeline and discharging it miles out to sea. As quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle, a project manager and climate adviser at the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (PUC) said, “If that [pipe] gets exposed, it could crack. If it ruptures we’re spilling stormwater and sewage onto the beach.” With alarm bells like these loudly ringing, a raft of government agencies got involved. While Thompson, Peterson and their Dutra teammates rolled up their sleeves to save the beach, no fewer than 15 city, state and federal agencies were involved. As might be expected, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Dutra’s client, played the key oversight role and shouldered 65% of the project’s cost. The city’s PUC picked up the balance. Others involved in the planning, according to a Chronicle report, were the National Park Service’s Golden Gate National Recreation Area, the California Coastal Commission, the California Water Quality Control Board, the National Marine Fisheries Service and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. “This project had more site visits from all these stakeholders as well as congressmen and the mayor in about a month and a half than I've ever seen on any project,” said Thompson. “Everyone wanted to come and look. Nothing like this had never been done before, so it was a pretty big deal for the area. It was exciting.” Even more exciting was the work itself. Unlike virtually every other beach project that Dutra has done over the years, this one did not involve extending the beach out into the ocean. Instead the objective was to build a 28-foot-high, 3,500-foot-long berm behind the beach that would, among other things, protect the city’s wastewater treatment plant and its effluent pipeline. This required dredging up 256,588 cubic yards of sand from nearly a mile out, pumping it to shore, and bulldozing it into the Army Corps’ required shape. (To visualize 256,588 cubic yards, think of a football field — 100 yards long and 53.33 yards wide, or 5,333 square yards — piled nearly 50 yards high with sand.) The major pieces of equipment that Dutra mobilized to build this monumental berm were one big oceangoing dredge, four dozers, an excavator and a loader, and a crew boat. The dredge, Dutra’s 372-foot Stuyvesant, is equipped with two 90-foot drag arms, one on each side of the vessel, whose 12-by-6 foot “business ends” sucked sand off the ocean bottom and pumped it some 5,000 feet to shore — plus up to an additional 1,500 feet along the shore to the discharge point, where the bulldozers took over, building the berm.
According to Thompson and Peterson, the project presented a number of challenges: weather-generated swells that washed newly deposited sand off the beach, the sand’s fineness which made it more prone to washing away than the coarser, stickier material found at most beach projects, and a confined working space for shaping the steep-sloped berm, “with a cliff at our back and the ocean on the other side,” as Peterson put it. Thompson is quick to share credit for the team’s success with site superintendent Robby Brun and foreman Jeremy Phillips, both of whom have worked on all Dutra beach projects over the last decade and are the company’s “backbone” when it comes to building beaches. Great troubleshooters and problem solvers, they also “run a really tight ship.” He says they “take safety personally” and deserve credit for the perfect safety record of a project with a high-risk activity: multiple dozers working in confined watery, sandy spaces.
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Ultimately, Thompson and Peterson report, their byword at Ocean Beach was Adapt and Overcome. “Everyone was just kind of spit balling,” they said. What didn’t work one day, did work the next. They went at it persistently and “just kept hammering.” Thompson said, “Everyone coming into the job — including us — thought it was a crazy idea and couldn't be done. The Army Corps had been working for years to get approvals for Ocean Beach. So it was certainly challenging, but when we finally got all the sand up on the beach, we felt pretty proud. It wasn't the biggest beach job we've ever done, but it had lots of moving parts. It definitely kept us going!” A little tougher, one might say, than “rearranging” sand with buckets and shovels.
BY THE NUMBERS OCEAN BEACH CALIFORNIA PROJECT
MAN HOURS 30,000
C I T Y, S TAT E A N D F E D E R A L A G E N C I E S I N V O LV E D 15
C U B I C YA R D S O F P AY M AT E R I A L P L A C E D O N T H E B E A C H 256,588 P AY M E N T F O R M AT E R I A L O N T H E B E A C H $ 2 , 3 0 9, 2 9 2
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No matter the deadline, we always manage to get the job done.” - Ryan Abood, Dutra’s Delta Manager
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STEAMBOAT SLOUGH A RIPARIAN REPAIR PROJECT People have been dealing with flood control and navigation issues in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta for well over a century and a half. The effort has been going on ever since thousands of settlers came to the area following the Gold Rush in the mid-1800s. They soon began grappling with the prodigious challenges of the annual winter-and-spring flooding cycle, which regularly created what a distinguished California historian, Robert L. Kelley, called an “inland sea.” Water would cover the entire area, including what is now the state’s capital, for several months each year. Fast forward to more recent decades, and Dutra’s client for the Steamboat Slough project, Reclamation District No. 3, remains continually engaged in maintaining the seemingly endless miles of levees that keep Delta waterways from inundating what has long since been turned into year-round dry land. >>
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A complex of other state and federal agencies also have a stake in the health of these waterways and levees and the habitats they support and protect — the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Central Valley Flood Protection Board, California Department of Water Resources, California Department of Fish and Wildlife, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the California Air Resources Board. This is the background on which this story — of The Dutra Group’s 2021 project to repair and upgrade some 1,700 feet of eroded and unstable levee on the southern bank of Steamboat Slough — is but a single chapter. The purpose of the project — located just short of the confluence of Steamboat Slough and the Sacramento River, barely two miles north of Rio Vista — was not just to repair the levee. It was also to address critical erosion, bank loss, and waterside instability while restoring riparian habitat by establishing a waterside berm planted with native species. This would entail placing rock on the waterside levee slope and reconstructing a section of the bank with a soil planting berm and rock containment berm. With the project now completed, the restored levee and berm reach some 20 feet above the water. Dutra was ideally suited for this work thanks not only to its decades of experience with dozens of similar projects but also to its commitment to having the rock and soil resources required for this type of work. The rock was barged in from the company’s San Rafael Rock Quarry — some 45 nautical miles from the project site. The fill came from Decker Island, just eight miles downstream from where it was to be placed on the berm behind the levee. Looking ahead several years ago to further work on Delta projects, Dutra had acquired Decker Island as a source of millions of cubic yards of fully permitted, clean construction material as well as the facilities to process the fill and load it on barges. According to Ryan Abood — Dutra’s Delta Manager, who also served as the Steamboat Slough project manager — the work on the levee was a relatively modest job, involving
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a compactor (which some readers might be old enough to think of as a “steamroller”). The barges were equipped with a dragline crane and a 90-ton long-reach excavator. The dragline gave the team greater reach than even the long-reach excavator. Abood said that while dragline operator Austin Stevens was one of the stand-out members of the project team, he worked closely with Delta Division Manager Chuck Walker who, in Abood’s estimation, “is an expert in the ‘lost art’ of operating draglines — an invaluable resource in teaching the younger generation.” Abood also singled out Craig Stephens, the landside foreman, and Kevin Engles, the laborer foreman, as outstanding contributors to the project’s success. Abood had nothing but praise for the entire team’s unwavering attention to safety, echoing thoughts that Walker expressed about Dutra’s “incredible culture of safety, which drives everything we do.” Abood and his team overcame two major challenges in completing the project, on which work began September 1 and was completed just 30 days later. The first challenge was finding qualified people in what Abood called “a diminished labor pool in a booming construction year.” Combining that with Covid, he said, “made it very difficult to put together the crews we needed.”
“only” about 10,000 tons of riprap (piled, irregularly shaped, approximately basketballsize chunks of stone) and 6,000 tons of “clean dirt” from Decker Island. (To try visualizing 10,000 tons, picture a closely packed herd of 1,500 elephants averaging six and a half tons each.) Putting all that rock and fill in place required a team that at times reached a total of 14 savvy people, working both on two barges and on shore. To move and shape all the rock and fill, they operated a lot of heavy-duty machinery — a Link-Belt 330 long-reach excavator; Caterpillar 325 and 335 excavators; a Caterpillar D-4 bulldozer; a motor grader and
The second big challenge was the unusually early date by which work had to be completed, September 30. Normally, Abood said, reclamation projects of this type are required to be completed by the end of October, but the finish line for this one was set for a full month earlier than usual. As a result, he reported, there was something of a struggle to complete it on time, especially in the week leading up to the deadline, when he had all hands on deck. “But we got it done,” Abood reported. “No matter the deadline, we always manage to get the job done.” Chalk up another win — not just for Dutra, but for all the people, creatures, vegetation and economic enterprises that depend on the health and integrity of Steamboat Slough’s levees.
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2021
EQUIPMENT UPDATE
A WORD FROM EQUIPMENT
2021 saw The Dutra Group undertaking fleet recapitalization in all divisions. We completed a new workboat to replace one previously taken out of service, and she is now working at our Pier G Project. Making way for the fleet’s new equipment, we have removed some assets from service, completing the scrapping of several barges and purchasing replacement barges to keep the fleet capable of moving large amounts of material for Delta and Marine Construction projects.
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e added several dump scows to our current fleet, which has boosted overall carrying capacity.
The maritime industry has seen significant new regulatory oversight, with USCG Subchapter M, under which workboats, tugboats, etc. are now required to undergo regular dry-docking and comply with stringent equipment, inspection and operational requirements. We are happy to report that The Dutra Group has maintained compliance throughout the Sub M rollout. As each vessel is upgraded to Sub M compliance, we are also replacing engines to continue complying with Air Resource Board tier requirements.
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We are also pleased to announce that The Dutra Group is building a new dredge in 2021-2022. Currently under construction, it is an ABS 65’ x 220’ x 14’ Spud Barge with office complex and all accoutrements that will be able to perform as a modern, high-production vessel. The dredging will be conducted with a Liebherr 8300.2 crawler crane currently being assembled at the Liebherr factory. The crane and barge will be brought together in Q2 of 2022. The completed vessel will be named the HARRY S. Performance has been carefully crafted to meet the needs of intended markets. The Dutra Group Fabrication Facility has had a busy year servicing equipment both in the field and here at home. It continues supporting all shipyard dry-dock operations with pre-fabrication and field service installations. Our hoppers have also had a busy year, being utilized on a wide range of projects on all coasts. Finally, we are happy to be making progress in the design and planning for the introduction of a new hopper dredge into our fleet in coming years.
See more: www.dutragroup.com/fleet.html & www.dutragroup.com/fabrication.html
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2021
QUARRY UPDATE
A Memorable Year for San Rafael Rock Quarry
While work continued as usual at the San Rafael Rock Quarry over the past year, Quarry workers and the hundreds of other Dutra employees who depend on a reliable supply of high-quality rock and stone for their various projects will not soon forget 2021 — the year the Quarry gained two additional decades of life.
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he milestone was reached on November 2, when the Marin County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a 20-year extension of the Quarry’s reclamation plan, an action that allows Quarry operations to continue through the end of 2044.
“I think the extension is good not just for the San Rafael Rock Quarry but for our community as a whole, all around the San Francisco Bay Area, and especially in our low-lying areas,” said Aimi Dutra, Community Relations Director for The Dutra Group. “The Quarry is a key resource
in the effort to deal with sea level rise, which we’re all facing together — heavy rains and king tides keep reminding us of it. I think our county supervisors were looking at that, as well as many other favorable considerations, as they were deciding to extend the reclamation plan.” Thousands of people and businesses in communities around the Bay Area depend on the Quarry’s supply of stone for economically and environmentally critical projects — for example, the restoration and improvement of seawalls around San Francisco International Airport and the Alameda Marina (see page 8, Restoring, Improving and Raising Alameda
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Marina Seawall), a series of levee projects in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta (see page 22, Steamboat Slough — A Riparian Repair Project), and an upcoming sea level rise resilience project to protect San Francisco’s Embarcadero area. Another benefit the Quarry brings to the Bay Area is that it is Northern California’s only source of rock with direct access to a navigable waterway. The advantage of this — as opposed to a landlocked quarry — is that barge transportation to projects where rock is needed is much less expensive than trucking. Most of the cost of rock comes from the transportation of all that weight. Barge freight is not merely cheaper, it’s also less polluting, emitting much lower amounts of CO2. If San Rafael Rock Quarry didn’t exist, projects would have to truck rock 30 extra miles from Solano County, spewing pollutants all the way. The unanimity of the County Council’s approval of the Quarry’s 20-year extension was no doubt made possible by the fact that since the previous reclamation plan was
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approved in 2010, the Quarry has compiled a rock-solid record of compliance with all of that plan’s 172 conditions. The Quarry team was not only diligent in its compliance, it also collaborated closely with community organizations to resolve a number of issues that had previously triggered concerns about noise, dust and hours of operation. The Quarry has taken a variety of steps to comply with its operating and reclamation plans and to respond to concerns expressed by the community. For example: • It washes down all loaded trucks and covers them with tarps before they leave the Quarry. • It generally completes all excavation, drilling, crushing and similarly noisy operations several hours earlier than the mandated 8 p.m. weekday deadline. • It employs an environmental consultancy to survey and monitor such things as wildlife, invasive plant species, stormwater storage and marsh restoration.
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Beyond its diligent plan compliance, the Quarry makes considerable efforts to be a strong community partner — to meet its neighbors halfway or better. One of the Quarry’s major community partners is its neighbor Friends of China Camp, a state park to which Dutra contributes materials almost every year. It’s a beautiful park with wonderful trails right in the Quarry’s backyard that Aaron Johnson, Vice President of The Dutra Group’s Materials Division, said “we’re delighted to partner with.” Johnson observed that the Quarry’s relationship with the San Rafael community was “somewhat rocky back in the early 2000s.” However, he pointed out, “there’s been a clear change, with more and more folks now seeing us as an asset to the community. We now partner with our neighbors and local organizations on projects, and I think we’ve come quite a long way thanks to these collaborative efforts.” See more: www.sanrafaelrockquarry.com
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COMMUNITY GIVING
No One Fights Alone Dutra Goes Pink for Breast Cancer Awareness Month As a family-run business since 1972, the essence of Dutra’s company culture feels like a page torn out some unwritten handbook of what it means to be a family: when celebrating successes or supporting during hardships, you always show up, and no one fights alone.
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o other moment put the company’s culture more into focus than when Aimi Dutra Krause, Bill Dutra’s daughter and Director of Community Relations, received a devastating diagnosis of late-stage 2 breast cancer in December of 2020. It was a battle that neither Aimi, nor The Dutra Group, took lying down. With a little help from her friends, a “Team Aimi’’ logo was crafted into a battle cry alongside a dedicated, public Facebook page titled No One Fights Alone which chronicles Aimi’s journey – all the good, the bad, the weird and heart-wrenching days that punctuate a year of a physical and mental anguish. “Sharing my journey was my outlet. It was the only way I knew how to process and make sense of what I was going through, while still
logo credit: Terrence Knoles • www.andthemdesign.com
trying to be present as a wife and mom,” says Aimi. “Cancer has affected so many people, and it impacts everyone in your life. There’s no other option but to stay hopeful. You have to draw strength from your community, including your friends, family and co-workers.” As a pivotal member of the Quarry division and its operations, a large portion of Aimi’s work last year centered on the County of Marin’s approval for the Quarry’s 20-year extension plan. Under regular circumstances (pandemic be damned), it would be a careerdefining year that would typically energize Aimi. But in the brutal irony that defined 2021, in one moment she was immersed in lobbying for the Quarry’ future, and in the next, battling for her own. By fall, Aimi had 6 surgeries in 7 months under Covid-era hospital restrictions,
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“It all began when Quarry Plant Manager Daryle McLaughlin, came to us with the idea back in August, and it just snowballed from there... Going above and beyond is what we do for each other at The Dutra Group, in good times and bad, and that all comes from Bill’s influence on our company culture.”
photo credit: Asa Mathat • www.asamathat.com
- Patty Dutra Bruce, Aimi’s sister and Dutra Human Resources Manager
where curbside drop-offs for patients became the new norm. So by the time Friday, October 1, rolled around, Aimi had a million other things on her mind when her sister, Denise Dutra Maloney, insisted that she join a last minute Zoom meeting. Aimi reluctantly joined in, but then came the big surprise: a sea of about 60 pink-clad Dutra employees filled the screen to support Team Aimi for the first day of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Then the team debuted a 5 minute video featuring hundreds of Dutra’s employees sporting pink safety vests and T-shirts out in the field, in office buildings, on barges and more. Little did Aimi know that
over the past few months a secret coalition had formed– including Nanci La Rue in Purchasing, Shannon Pasquan in HR, Brandon Sanders and Bryan Alston in IT– to kick-off Dutra’s month long Go Pink campaign for Aimi, and for all breast cancer survivors. “It all began when Quarry Plant Manager Daryle McLaughlin came to us with the idea back in August, and it just snowballed from there,” said Patty Dutra Bruce, Aimi’s sister and Human Resources Manager. “Going above and beyond is what we do for each other at The Dutra Group, in good times and bad, and that all comes from Bill’s influence on our company culture.” >>
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We are deeply grateful for The Dutra Group’s generosity and support. Your donation will help us continue to grant funds to Bay Area nonprofit organizations that provide critical emergency and direct services to underserved breast cancer patients. Because of your support, members of our community will be able to move through all phases of their breast cancer treatment and healing a little easier. You are helping to make our vision a reality… No one should face breast cancer alone.” - Shari Dagg, President To Celebrate Life Breast Cancer Foundation
THANK YOU! We’d like to express our sincere gratitude to our following partners in charity who donated to “To Celebrate Life” in recognition of Aimi’s fight against breast cancer: MARK EITZEN AND RICK HUNT OF GUNDERSON MARINE BILL FURMAN, OWNER OF GUNDERSON MARINE THE GREENBRIER COMPANIES
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“It completely took my breath away,” said Aimi with a deep sigh of emotion. “The cancer had robbed me of so many moments I had worked so hard for last year, and to see this show of support from my team and understanding what it took to orchestrate felt truly unbelievable. All I can say is thank God for waterproof mascara.” As of September 2021, Aimi was declared officially cancer free and has begun the road to rehabilitation and reconstructive surgery. Aimi’s No One Fights Alone Facebook page remains active as Aimi continues her personal brand of disclosure – a mixture of zero-B.S. with dazzling resilience, while lifting others up in the process. As any survivor will tell you, living with cautious optimism in defiance of the disease is a different kind of battle, but every day is a gift to be celebrated.
TO CELEBRATE LIFE BREAST CANCER FOUNDATION DONATION In honor of Aimi’s journey and that of others who have battled breast cancer, Dutra was met with incredible generosity by Gunderson Marine of Portland, Oregon, the builder of Dutra’s newest scow. Part of Gunderson’s tradition is to provide an “owner’s gift,” which is formally presented at a Builder’s Dinner to accompany each new vessel. At the suggestion of Dutra’s Equipment Manager Steve Lee, the gift came in the form of a charitable donation to a non-profit very close to Aimi’s heart: To Celebrate Life Breast Cancer Foundation. Thanks to Gunderson Marine and its parent, The Greenbrier companies, which provided a healthy additional gift, the final donation amounted to $20,000 for the Marin-based foundation that supports breast cancer patients and survivors. If you would like more information on how to donate visit https://tocelebratelife.org
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THE DUTRA GROUP EMPLOYEE AWARDS & MILESTONES
2021 TENURE AWARDS
THANK YOU FOR YOUR DEDICATION AND SERVICE
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YEARS
Dennis Salyers
25
YEARS
Daryle McLaughlin Aaron Johnson
20
YEARS
Doris Laul Cliff Hunt Cindy Cella Craig Atwood
15
YEARS
"I have been with Dutra Group for over 21 years. Mr. Dutra has always treated me like family and makes sure that everything is good with me even in my personnel life. I could not ask for a better company to work for. I also have great co-workers that I consider as family, which makes it easy to come to work each day. Love You All."
“The culture of the company, its core values, and the people, make it an honor to be a part of it all. The pride in contributing to the infrastructure of our country, to make lives safer and easier, can be felt when a project is completed.
- Cindy Cella, 20 Years
-Doris Laual, 20 Years
Giovanna Vitau Chris Milam Dennis Ferguson Joseph Correia
10
YEARS
Molly Jacobson Peter Ford Valerie Daley Bryan Alston
5
YEARS
Steve Yokim Ryan Swink Erik Peterson Randahl Hagen Ben Elias Randy Carollo Dale Carlson Jacob Burke
“Being part of the Dutra Team while meeting so many challenges head on has been a fun ride, and led to many rewarding experiences. I look forward to what lies ahead.” - Chris Milam, 15 Years
“Bill and Harry create an atmosphere of belonging and collaboration, and they continually offer appreciation, respect, and partnership. It has been the most satisfying and fulfilling job in my career to work for such wonderful people of heart and character.” - Giovanna Vitau, 15 Years
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HUMAN RESOURCES/RISK UPDATE
OUR CLIMB PROGRAM IS BACK
When Dutra employees speak, the company listens! Their voices help us better understand their needs, and they are critical to our focus on retention. After all, what is the value of benefits and development programs if they aren’t meeting employees’ needs?
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he best way to find out what employee needs are is to just ask! Which we do every year. Our annual benefits survey helps us better understand what’s working well for our employees and what isn’t. Thanks to what we’ve learned from past surveys, The Dutra Group has made changes to our benefits structure to better serve our people’s needs.
Most recently, employees let us know they wanted more paid time off and an increased employer match in our 401(k) plan. The Dutra Group delivered on both! Other changes over the years have included adding lower-cost options for our medical plans, strengthening our vision and dental benefits, and enhancing our educational assistance program. In 2021, we added In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) benefits to several of our medical plans. As a family business, The Dutra Group knows the importance of supporting our employees’ growing families as well as offering assistance to those who need support to start a family. In addition to benefits, The Dutra Group is committed to our employees’ development and career growth. How else could we accomplish this, but by investing in our people? We work to enhance employees’ education and development through two key initiatives — our Educational Assistance Program and the internal leadership development program we call CLIMB (Continued Leadership Instruction for Managing Business).
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“In 2022, after a nearly two-year COVID hiatus, Dutra will be rebooting the CLIMB program, which provides educational sessions and case studies designed to take employees’ business and leadership skills to the next level.” - Patty Dutra Bruce, Dutra HR Manager
EDUCATIONAL ASSISTANCE PROGRAM The Dutra Group encourages employees to take advantage of educational opportunities. Whether it’s college classes to complete an accounting degree or tutoring to obtain a Professional Engineer license, we are happy to offer employees access to annual funding assistance in support of their individual educational goals. With tuition fees going up, in 2021 the company raised the annual assistance limits available.
CLIMB In 2022, after a nearly two-year COVID hiatus, The Dutra Group will be rebooting the CLIMB program, which provides educational sessions and case studies designed to take employees’ business and leadership skills to the next level. We have worked closely with an outside consultant to develop customized training sessions that address critical leadership issues and other topics relevant to our business. The CLIMB program represents a significant company investment in the training and development of our employees. We are delighted to be able to reboot this program and again make available the opportunities it provides. We look forward to getting the Team back together and resuming the CLIMB experience. Students will be back in session in March 2022.
Meet our 2021 Interns
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JOIN THE DUTRA TEAM
DUTRA RECRUITS TOP TALENT TO BUILD THEIR CAREERS The Dutra Group has been hitting the road on a search for our 2022 Interns! With competition for young talent becoming more intense, career fairs are a great way to interact with emerging talent right on their own turf.
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he Dutra Group offers an exceptional paid internship program for civil engineering, construction management, mechanical engineering, marine engineering technology, mining engineering, business administration, computer science and information technology (IT) students at accredited colleges and universities. Working alongside experienced professionals – estimators, project engineers, superintendents and project managers – our interns gain invaluable, firsthand experience on a wide range of heavy construction and dredging projects. And we provide our interns with feedback on their work!
Dutra’s interns apply their coursework to practical, real-world skills, like: • Estimating, budgeting and scheduling • Temporary design • Submittals • Quality control • Plan reading • Field measurement and field sketches
• Contracts and correspondence • Quantity takeoffs • Methods of operations • Accounting • Computers (IT) • Surveying/Hydrographics
We actively hire people with degrees in the following areas: • • • • •
Construction Management Civil Engineering Mechanical Engineering Mining Engineering Marine Engineering Technology
• • • •
Business Administration Contract Management Information Technology (IT) Computer Science
Gavin Abel Division: Dredging School: Eastern Florida State University Major: Engineering
Ezra Dickens Division: Equipment School: Cal Maritime Academy Major: Engineering
Max Eller Division: Dredging School: Texas A & M University Major: Industrial Distribution
Oliver Hadeen Division: IT Department School: Long Beach City College Major: Computer Networking & Security
Eric Machado Division: Construction School: Cal State Chico Major: Construction Management
William Ng Division: Construction School: Cal Poly Major: Civil Engineering
Connor Richardson Division: Construction School: Texas A & M University Major: Mechanical Engineering
Lucas Walker Division: Construction School: San Francisco State Major: International Business
At The Dutra Group, we build careers by providing opportunities for development. Dutra is about commitment. It’s a function of our people and the character of our brand.
APPLY NOW! Our 2022 internship positions are seeking applications! Visit www.dutragroup.com/opportunities.html
Derek Brower Division: Legal University: USF School of Law Major: Juris Doctorate Candidate
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2021 HARVEY FREEMAN AWARD
DUTRA SAFETY HONORS KYLE MORSE WITH 2021 HARVEY FREEMAN AWARD
The safety of our employees at The Dutra Group is our greatest responsibility and something we never take lightly. At our annual meeting, the Safety Department honored Kyle Morse with the 2021 Harvey Freeman Award.
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he Harvey Freeman Award is given to an employee who demonstrates exceptional qualities that would make Harvey proud: integrity, honesty, mutual respect, and leadership. In addition, Harvey was proactive and open-minded in understanding that safety and production can and should go hand in hand. A dedicated employee for more than 19 years, Kyle exemplifies these qualities. He has worked across all departments as a deck hand, deck engineer, boat operator, crane operator, dredge operator, pile driver foreman and in various lead positions. In fact, Kyle has been operating and in charge of his own barge since 2005. Kyle has a captain’s license and is working on his towing certification. Respected by his peers, Kyle is a key employee who teaches safety and watches over everyone around him. He is incident- and accident-free. We congratulate Kyle on his achievements, and we look forward to many more years of success for him.
2021 SAFETY UPDATE The Dutra Group has been on a positive safety trajectory over the last 20 years. In our industry, there have been many changes in how customers measure safety performance, which now includes scrutiny of total recordable incident rates, EMRs and unredacted OSHA logs. We realized some time ago that to remain competitive, we had to turn safety and production into a partnership. All our hard work and investments in safety have paid off significantly. In fact, in 2018, 2019, and 2020, The Dutra Group celebrated its best years in terms of safety. The Total Recordable Incident Rate and the Lost Time Incident Rate were both at all-time lows, going all the way back to the year 2000. The year 2021 has proven that our safety successes in 2018, 2019, and 2020 were not anomalies but a significant trend in managing our safety program. It is also significant that 2021 represents the fourth consecutive year of great safety performance. This will further lower the EMR rate and average incident rates, causing premiums to fall and making Dutra more attractive to potential project owners. Premiums for State Act coverage fell an impressive 29% in 2021 and Longshore rates fell 13%.
Like 2020, 2021 was a challenging year as our team continued our great safety success while managing our projects during the Covid-19 pandemic. In fact, the communication and implementation of our Covid-19 Health and Safety Plans have had a significant impact on maintaining a safe workforce and have therefore enabled operations to continue performing safely while meeting and exceeding customers’ expectations. At the time of this update, we’re still on this positive trend. We continue holding biweekly Site Safety Health Officer Committee meetings where Dutra’s entire safety team shares lessons learned, near misses, great catches, and creative safety procedures. We continue to promote safety awareness, in particular that safety is our No. 1 Core Value. We are now in the process of brainstorming 2022 initiatives that will help us sustain the great safety progress we have made. The most important thing is for our employees to go home every day safe and healthy to their families and friends.
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DUTRA MUSEUM
HOPE & OPPORTUNITY To protect the health and safety of our loyal donors, employees and friends, we reluctantly canceled the Dutra Museum Foundation Golf Tournament for 2021. Every year we look forward to connecting with our participants and to sharing golf and laughter in a good cause, but we had to prioritize people’s health. So, for the second year in a row, we had to scrub this annual fundraiser in support both of a partner charity and of Dutra’s higher education scholarships that the foundation funds annually through the Portuguese Historical Society and Rio Vista High School.
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very year, funds raised by the tournament make a big difference in young people’s lives, so — as we did the year before — we had to try another way to keep the funds flowing. From lessons learned and experience with 2020 digital giving, we maintained our online giving site, where individuals and businesses could assist selected students on their journey to college. As was the case the previous year, 2021 donations went to the Edward and Deolinda Dutra Scholarships for Higher Education as well as toward the expansion, preservation and exhibition of the Dutra Museum of Dredging’s collection. The goal of Dutra’s higher education scholarships is to offer “hope and opportunity.” Following are words of gratitude from recent recipients:
“It is organizations like yours that give young people like me a chance to experience new things. I promise to work and study hard.” “I am very grateful and honored to receive this scholarship. With your support, I will be able to pursue my education goals. Thank you for your generosity.”
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“Thank you for accepting me for this scholarship and having a hand in helping me further my education. This is a blessing that I am truly grateful for.” “It is an honor to be chosen for your scholarship. As you know, college is very expensive and thanks to your generosity I will be able to achieve my dreams of attending a university.” Thanks to the continued support of many generous sponsors, the Foundation was able to raise funds to continue awarding scholarships although not at the financial level of past years. We’d like to extend a huge THANK YOU to our 2021 donors: BENDER INSURANCE SOLUTIONS CARPENTER RIGGING CATHAY BANK NANCY K. CATON CWL LAW FIRM
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THE DUTRA GROUP ETRAC FMI GHILOTTI CONSTRUCTION KIE-CON MONTEZUMA WETLANDS JIM & DEBRA MURRAY ODIN CONSTRUCTION SOLUTIONS OPERATING ENGINEERS LOCAL 3 PENDLETON GROUP LLC RITCHIE BROTHERS AUCTIONEERS VULCAN MATERIALS CHARLES WALKER STEWART INDUSTRIAL SUPPLY INC. Do you want to help our scholarship recipients improve their lives? For young adults just heading into the world, it can be difficult to imagine what life will be like 10 years from now, especially without the opportunity to go to college. We hope you will help us to give students the ability to see their path to a career that provides growth and a means of support that lasts a lifetime. Donate today at www.dutramuseum.org. Thank you for your continued support of the Dutra Museum Foundation. Your contributions are making an impact.
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SAVE THE DATE!!! After a two-year hiatus, the Dutra Museum Foundation Golf Tournament will return!!! Our 2022 tournament is scheduled for Monday, August 22, at Marin Country Club in Novato. It will be wonderful to see everyone again and enjoy a fun-filled day of golf! We hope you will attend. More details coming soon.
If you would like more information on how to participate or ways to get involved, please contact Denise Dutra at deniseddm@yahoo.com
THE DUTRA GROUP Corporate Office 2350 Kerner Blvd., Ste. 200 San Rafael, CA 94901
Tel. (415) 258-6876 Fax (415) 258-9714
WE THANK YOU.
There is a saying that crisis doesn’t create character, it reveals it. What we have witnessed during the last two years from our clients, vendors, and our very own is an incredible amount of empathy, professionalism and perseverance. With your continued support and commitment, we will continue to be a leader in running a safe and productive operation. Everyone in this industry is Essential during these challenging times, and we would not be the company we are today without your support. Thank you for your trust in The Dutra Group as we forge ahead in support of our communities. Let us now move forward and lead the way toward a healthy, safe, and prosperous future for all of us.
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