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Geo-Technology Associates opened its Waldorf office on Monday, September 25, 2006, and it started with a challenge right away when two technicians called out before the day even got started. The man in charge was Matt Brown, a project manager who had moved down from Laurel to lead construction observation and testing for the new location. He spent his first morning reworking the schedule until every project was covered and every client was happy. Later that day he and his wife, Beverly, signed the papers selling their house in Baltimore and officially marked the move to relocate to Southern Maryland.
That week set the tone for the next twenty years. GTA had committed to Southern Maryland, the Browns had committed with a mortgage, and the Waldorf office had shown early that it could absorb whatever the morning brought without a client feeling it. Two decades later, Matt is still running the office, which has grown from two managers and a handful of transferred technicians into a fourteen-person team serving construction projects across the Tri-County region and southern Prince George’s County.
Why Waldorf
By 2005, a growing share of the work coming through GTA’s Laurel office was in Southern Maryland, an hour (on a good day) down the road. Technicians were driving south for assignments and back again, and Matt Brown, the project manager carrying much of that territory, was spending nearly as much of his week in the truck as on a job site. With the workload climbing and competitors opening offices in the region, the firm’s leadership reached a practical conclusion: clients in the Tri-County area would be better served by a team based among them rather than by one dispatched to them.
In spring 2006, GTA hired Texas-based Associate Scot Gordon to lead the new office’s geotechnical services, while Matt directed construction observation and testing (COT). Several Laurel employees also transferred to the new office, including engineering technician Eric Black, whom Matt recruited for the move.
Today the office serves St. Mary’s, Charles and Calvert counties and southern Prince George’s County, and 75 to 85 percent of its work supports residential development. When Southern Maryland builds houses, GTA is usually on site before the first one goes up.
A Recession and a Change in Leadership
The office had barely settled into its current home at Waldorf Technology Park in August 2008 when the housing market collapsed and construction slowed nationwide. Even through the downturn, the Waldorf office avoided layoffs due to lack of work, a point the team still cites as evidence of its resilience.
The recession years also brought a change in leadership. In August 2010, Scot left GTA for personal reasons and returned home to Texas. Matt was promoted to senior project manager and took over the office, which closed its geotechnical engineering operation to concentrate on the COT services that had kept growing even as the housing market fell apart. Eric, who had been splitting his time between geotechnical and COT, moved to full-time COT work, and he later became the first employee based in a GTA Maryland office to earn certification as a Residential Engineering Consultant under Prince George’s County’s Third-Party Inspection Program.
Three Projects That Trained a Staff
Ask anyone in the Waldorf office where they learned the job and the answer is usually a place rather than a class. Three developments in particular have shaped the team, partly because each has run for years at a time and partly because all three are still under construction today.
National Harbor
GTA began work at National Harbor in 2012, taking over townhouse site development at Potomac Overlook Phases 3 and 4 after the previous firm fell short of client expectations. Fourteen years later, the team is working in Phase 11. Services have included building pads and roadway fill, utilities, soil cement, asphalt, caissons, and several retaining wall systems. Heavy clay and uncontrolled dredge spoils have repeatedly required the team to adapt.
As National Harbor grew, so did GTA’s role. The team has since supported roads around MGM, a public-transit Kiss & Ride, an emergency police helipad and equipment shelter, Tanger Outlets, Starbucks, the Spirit Park amphitheater, several condominium sites, and an event space for seasonal festivals and circuses.
St. Charles
The 9,100-acre St. Charles Planned Unit Development has been under construction for more than 50 years and is planned for nearly 25,000 homes. GTA’s role expanded after Lennar purchased the remaining 2,400 acres in 2017, with the Waldorf team providing COT services for grading, utilities, stormwater facilities, retaining walls, slopes, and culvert crossings.
What makes St. Charles unusual is that many neighborhoods are mined for native sand and gravel before construction. GTA classifies the materials and develops plans to reclaim the mined portions of the site, giving technicians experience rarely found elsewhere in the region.
Pinegrove
Pinegrove, also known as Heritage Green, is a mixed-use community in Charles County that GTA pursued for years. After discussions with prospective buyers began in 2007, D.R. Horton
acquired the property in 2018 and construction started in 2021, with another 15 to 20 years of build-out expected. GTA’s services include grading and fills, utilities, pavement, stormwater facilities, retaining walls, and culvert crossings on a site complicated by steep slopes, waterways, and undocumented fills requiring remediation.
Because the site is far from the client’s offices, GTA’s field staff serve as its eyes and ears on the ground, a trusted role that has grown throughout the project.
The People Behind Waldorf
Matt Brown joined GTA in 1995 as an engineering technician and worked his way through project management to become an Associate, COT department director and manager of the Waldorf office. Along the way, principals in charge Pat Klima, Amin Rahman, Ravi Malviya and, today, Ben Dinsmore helped shape Matt’s approach to leadership. Their example is reflected in the direct, open door style he brings to the office, where people are trusted to do their jobs, encouraged to speak up and supported when they need help.
Beverly Brown supported GTA informally for years before joining the company as a part time administrative assistant in 2014. She brings a personal touch to an office whose employees spend much of their time on separate jobsites, gathering everyone for monthly staff dinners and organizing fishing trips, celebrations and other chances to reconnect.
That close knit culture is also built on people teaching one another and growing into new roles. Senior Project Manager Eric Black rose from technician and helped open the Waldorf office. Project Manager Justin Reed now runs its accredited concrete laboratory, while Assistant Field Manager Clarence “CJ” Joe trains new technicians and leads safety audits and PPE oversight. Their paths reflect an office where experience is shared and employees are given room to grow.
The office’s eight technicians, Chris Parker, Dana Birman, Bobby Branham, Tyrin DuPriest, Steve Adams, Aaron Goar, Collin Johnson and Merrilynn Clements, all hold WACEL certifications, with additional MARTCP and ICC credentials across the team. College intern Wes Boyers returns during school breaks, continuing the office’s tradition of welcoming people back and developing talent from within. That culture proved itself during Matt’s recent six month medical leave, when Eric led the office with support from Justin and the rest of the team, allowing Matt and Beverly to focus on his recovery. Matt has since returned, and the experience showed that the team has the strength and support to face any challenge that arises.
The Next Twenty
The work ahead is already on the calendar. National Harbor is in its eleventh phase, Pinegrove has fifteen to twenty years of build-out left, and St. Charles still has thousands of homesites to go. Residential development will remain the office’s foundation as the team pursues more commercial work, supported by the resources and expertise of Geo-Technology Associates, Inc. across its growing network of offices.
Twenty years after GTA committed to Southern Maryland, the Waldorf office reflects the GTA Experience: local people empowered to serve clients, backed by the strength of the entire company. Its story brings GTA’s values to life through character, successful people, client focus and an entrepreneurial spirit. By living those values, the Waldorf office will help GTA continue delivering practical, effective geotechnical, environmental, construction and drilling solutions through responsive local service and companywide expertise.
Happy 20th anniversary, GTA Waldorf!
