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Goble Rausche Likins - DFI Educational Trust

Goble Rausche Likins Scholarship

Spring applications will open April 1, 2025

The Goble Rausche Likins Scholarship Fund was established in October 2020 with a generous donation from GRL Engineers, Inc. (GRL) and Pile Dynamics, Inc. (PDI). The fund provides scholarships to full-time undergraduate or graduate civil engineering, electrical engineering and computer science students attending any accredited college or university in the United States, and who demonstrate prior employment, co-op or intern experience with a civil engineering application.

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Award

Two awards of $5,000 each will be awarded in 2025. Awards may be used for funding tuition, fees, books, and/or educational living expenses.

Scholarship check, payable to the student, will be sent in August 2025 after proof of enrollment and other required information is received by the DFI Educational Trust.

Eligibility & Requirements

This scholarship is open to full-time graduate or undergraduate students of civil engineering, electrical engineering, or computer science at accredited institutions in the United States and who can demonstrate prior employment, co-op, or intern experience in civil engineering.

*Scholarships are awarded based on standards that do not discriminate relative to the applicant’s race, color, religion, age, gender, sexual orientation, nationality or ethnic origin.

Eligibility

  1. Applicants must be currently enrolled full-time (as defined by the school) in a graduate or undergraduate civil engineering, electrical engineering, or computer science program.
  2. Applicants must demonstrate prior employment, co-op, or intern experience with a civil engineering application.
  3. The minimum GPA required is 3.0/4.0.
  4. Applicants must demonstrate an interest in the deep foundations industry.
  5. Applicants must demonstrate financial need.

Required Documents

  1. Personal essay, no more than 500 words, highlighting why the applicant chose to pursue a deep foundations- related career, extra-curricular activities, leadership capabilities, long term plans and goals, and any special financial need.
  2. One-page resume, including work experience, honors, activities and organizations.
  3. One official transcript.
  4. Two letters of recommendation, one of which must be completed by a faculty member at the applicant’s school.

Submission Requirements

  1. All items on the scholarship application must be completed.
  2. The application and all supporting documentation must be submitted no later than May 15, 2025 Applications missing any of the required items will not be considered.
  3. The DFI Educational Trust will notify all applicants of the result of their applications on or about July 18, 2025.
  4. Applicants, as a condition of eligibility for being considered for a scholarship, must consent to their resume being posted on the DFI website for review by DFI members as potential employers.
  5. Applicants may be required to participate in a personal telephone interview with a Trust Board member.
  6. If selected as a recipient, as a condition of funding, applicant agrees to participate in a follow-up career survey that will be sent by the Trust at some point after the applicant’s graduation.

GRL / PDI Founders

The fund honors George G. Goble, Frank Rausche and Garland E. Likins, the founders of GRL and PDI.

three elderly men posing in suits

George G. Goble, Ph.D., P.E., M.ASCE (1929 - 2017)

George Gordon Goble was the founder of GRL Engineers and Pile Dynamics, which emerged from a research program he directed on dynamic pile testing in the 1960s-1970s. He received his bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from the University of Idaho and Ph.D. from the University of Washington, spending a year on a Fulbright scholarship at the Technische Hochschule of Stuttgart (Germany). He became professor and chairman of the departments of civil engineering at both Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) and University of Colorado (Boulder). He remained in academia and consulting until his retirement, authoring 125+ technical papers where he tirelessly promoted QA for the deep foundations industry. Dr. Goble passed away in September 2017.

Frank Rausche, Ph.D., P.E., D.GE

Frank Rausche was president of GRL Engineers from 1977 to 2011 and a director of Pile Dynamics, where he still is active as a senior consultant. He began his engineering education at the Technische Hochschule in Stuttgart, Germany, and received his Ph.D. in geotechnical engineering from Case Institute of Technology in Cleveland, Ohio, where he had been a part of the pioneering research team developing dynamic pile testing methods. He is the author and developer of the CAPWAP® and GRLWEAP programs, holds several patents and has more than 100 papers published in journals and conference proceedings. His work has helped dynamic pile testing analysis become a standard method for deep foundations quality assurance throughout the world.

Garland E. Likins, P.E.

Garland Likins is a principal at Pile Dynamics, serving as its president from 1977-2014. He was a long-time partner in GRL Engineers until 2016 and conducted dynamic pile testing, proving its reliability on numerous projects. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in civil engineering from Case Western Reserve University, where he helped develop dynamic pile testing. He directed the research and development at PDI for deep foundation quality assurance instrumentation for driven piles and eventually for drilled and augured piles. Likins promoted testing of deep foundations throughout the world, traveling extensively and turning PDI into a global company. He is a frequent lecturer and has more than 100 published papers. He was the recipient of DFI’s Distinguished Service Award in 2019.

Founding Donors

Main Founders

  • GRL Engineers, Inc.
  • Pile Dynamics, Inc.
  • Mohamad Hussein
  • Garland Likins
  • Frank Rausche
  • George Piscsalko
  • Patrick J Hannigan
  • Carmelo M. Morgano
  • Scott D.Webster

Donors

  • Camilo Alvarez
  • Travis Coleman
  • Alex Ryberg
  • Brent Robinson
  • Paul T. Brinkerhoff
  • Susan Roppel
  • Ryan Allin
  • Robert Sprenger
  • Stephen J. Petras
  • Wayne Dalton
  • Marty Bixler
  • Michael Ference
  • Dean A Cotton
  • E. Anna Sellontou-Rausche
  • Brandon Phetteplace
  • Adrian Rausche
  • Benjamin White
  • Mark Rawlings
  • Liqun Liang
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