FROM THE GROUND DOWN

Cañada College   — Woodside, CA

Cornerstone Earth Group, Inc. provided Geotechnical and Construction Services for the San Mateo County Community College District at Cañada College at the site of the 2-story Kinesiology and Wellness Building. The development includes 25,685 square feet of academic space and 11,379 square feet for the local community. The building houses the Cañada College Athletics, Kinesiology and Dance Department, bringing the structure to a total of 105,000 square feet.
 
The new classrooms  provide state-of-the-art settings for dance, Pilates, indoor cycling and other fitness and wellness activities and  include an instructional and a competitive swimming pool. The nearby South Plaza area was developed to create a visually inviting space that acts as an extension of the new Kinesiology and Wellness Building.
 
The location of the new building and pools was originally a knoll and ravine that had historically been cut off and filled in as part of grading for the campus. About two-thirds of the new building was positioned directly on shallow bedrock with the remaining one-third over deep fills around the edges of the previous ridge line knoll. The project consisted of analyzing the existing descending slopes beyond the building and surrounding improvements and supporting the building on shallow foundations in locations of shallow bedrock and deep drilled piers where the building extended over the deep fills. The fills extended to depths greater than 50 feet.

cornerstone's added value benefit:

  • Provided geologic and geotechnical services to determine and evaluate limits of shallow bedrock and deep fills, competency of existing fills, and stability of the adjacent down-sloping existing slopes.
  • Provided recommendations to efficiently and economically support the Kinesiology and Wellness Building on a combined shallow and deep drilled pier foundation system.
  • Provided economical recommendations to support the pool and pool support buildings on shallow foundations rather than deep foundations. Developed recommendations to reduce potential for differential movement beneath the buildings across zones of shallow and deep bedrock.
  • Provided geotechnical oversight and recommendations during construction for the limits and depths into bedrock for shallow and drilled pier foundations, subgrade preparation to reduce potential differential settlements beneath buildings and improvements, and stabilization of surficial slope failures due to wet weather.

FOLLOW US:

Linkedin Twitter Facebook Instagram

Our History

Although Cornerstone Earth Group, Inc. (Cornerstone) officially opened its doors in 2007, the seeds that grew into Cornerstone were planted years earlier. The founders originally met at Lowney Associates, where Cornerstone President and CEO, Ron Helm, had been since the late 1980s, eventually becoming COO, and later, President. But they became unhappy with the direction the company took when they were acquired by a larger public engineering firm in 2003. The future Cornerstone founders found themselves in agreement that the new company placed too much focus on dollars and cents and too little on customer service.

Eventually, the lack of priority given to the client’s needs became unacceptable, and Mr. Helm, along with Barry Butler (retired), Scott Fitinghoff (deceased), Laura Knutson (retired), Danh Tran, John Dye, Peter Langtry and Ron Massone launched the fledgling enterprise. They opened for business in Sunnyvale, California where, although it has since expanded, Cornerstone’s original office is still located today. Soon after, Kurt Soenen came on board. Before long, the company opened a second office in Walnut Creek, California.

In the beginning Cornerstone had no employees; the Principals drew no salary; and the Sunnyvale office was so wide open that they would amuse themselves and release the stress of working long hours by holding chair races on the premises. Who eventually became the chair racing champion remains a subject of contentious debate. The founding Principals generated their own business; performed the field work; performed the engineering analyses; and prepared their own documents.

After a year or two, enough business began to roll in that the first few employees were hired and, although they might not have known it, were actually paid more than the founders in the beginning. Over the next few years, the Principals found themselves happily surprised as some early successes occurred and the amount of business generated significantly increased. As an example, Mr. Helm describes an early meeting he had with Facebook when it was a small privately owned company. Even though at the time Facebook’s projects were small, Cornerstone treated their business the same as they would their largest client, and as a result Facebook remains a loyal client to this day. Eventually, many more Bay Area giants retained the services of Cornerstone Earth Group such as Adobe, Google and LinkedIn, to name a few. 

As the company has increased in size, emphasis was placed on organic growth, with most new customers coming through recommendations and word-of-mouth. It is also a core belief held by Cornerstone that to continue the growth of the company it is critical to follow our four corners of success:  1) Be Exceptional; 2) Add Value; 3) Learn and Improve; and 4) Have Fun. In addition, it was clear that Cornerstone also emphasized providing employees with a clear path forward to success by consistently creating opportunities for employees to grow with the company.

Mr. Helm is quick to point to the selfless teamwork and genuine friendship among the founders, along with their client-first approach and cost-effective practical recommendations, as the primary reasons the company at first survived, and eventually, thrived.