• Civil Engineering
• Coastal Engineering
• Structural Engineering
• Port & Harbor Engineering
• Estuarine & Riverine Engineering
• Hydrology & Hydraulic Engineering
• Oceanographic Engineering
• Hydrographic Surveying

• Site Investigations / Feasibility Studies
• Surveying / Field Monitoring
• Planning / Regulatory Permitting
• Engineering Analysis
• Final Engineering Design
• Preparation of Contract Documents
• Construction Engineering & Management

Staff

Ronald M. Noble, P.E. – President/CEO

Mr. Noble is a registered civil engineer with over 38 years of experience specializing in coastal-ocean engineering, navigational/dredging projects, waterfront structures, hydrologic analysis and computer modeling. He has worked on a broad cross section of coastal/oceanographic and hydrologic engineering projects involved with riverine, estuarine, and coastal processes, dredging operations, navigational surveys, flood studies and the design of port facilities, small craft harbors and waterfront structures. Projects have included beach nourishment and stabilization, coastal flooding, navigational improvements, wetlands restoration, piers, floating berths, breakwaters, bulkheads, seawalls, groins, and channel stabilization structures. He has been equally involved in overseeing engineering analyses, permit processing, engineering design, construction contract documents and bidding, and construction management for these projects.

Mr. Noble’s professional recognitions include the following: he has been a member of the Coastal Engineering Research Council since his appointment in July of 1980, he is a director and charter member of the Association of Coastal Engineers; he is a past director of both the American Shore and Beach Preservation Association and the California Shore and Beach Preservation Association, he is a past president of the Marin Chapter of the Consulting Engineers and Land Surveyors of California, and he was a Director of the World Marina Conference, Inc. which sponsored the World Marina Conference, Long Beach, California, April 29 – May 2, 1991. Mr. Noble was Chairman for the ICCE 2006 (30th International Conference on Coastal Engineering) held in San Diego, CA during September 2006 and was the General Chairman for the National Shoreline symposium, "Shoreline Forum '79", held in Los Angeles, California. He is also Chairman of an American Nuclear Society Committee that developed an American National Standard on Design Basis Flooding at Power Reactor Sites, is a member of the ANS Committee on Site Evaluation of Power Reactor Sites, and is the U.S. Expert Representative on the International Atomic Energy Agency Committee (IAEA) for Development of the International Standard on Design Basis Floods for Nuclear Power Plants on Coastal Sites.

Scott M. Noble, P.E. – Sr. Vice President/CFO

Mr. Noble is a registered civil engineer with over 31 years of experience specializing in the engineering analysis, design, cost estimating and permitting of coastal, waterfront, marina, lake and wetland projects. This work has included coastal processes analysis, development of oceanographic design criteria, detailed design of marinas, shoreline protection, waterfront structures and wetland restoration projects, and the dredging of channels and lakes. He has specialized in the design of waterfront piers and structures; and in the planning, hydraulic analysis, design, preparation of construction contract drawings & documents, and construction engineering for the rehabilitation of numerous wetlands projects throughout California. He has overseen the final design and preparation of construction documents for three separate levee and berm projects for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Hamilton Field Wetlands Restoration Project for the acceptance of dredged material from the Oakland Estuary and other projects to be used for the creation of wetlands and the improvement of wildlife habitat.

Mr. Noble is a Staff Commodore of the San Francisco Yacht Club who while serving as Commodore in 1996 was responsible for joining with the American True Campaign to launch an America’s Cup Defense challenge. He is a past Chairman of the ASCE San Francisco Section of the Waterways, Port, Coastal and Ocean Engineering Technical Group and a past contributing member to the Waterways Group Task Force on Microcomputers in Coastal Engineering.

Jon T. Moore, P.E. – Vice President, Engineering

Mr. Moore is a registered civil engineer with specialized expertise in planning, design, and construction of coastal and marine projects. His 34 years of experience encompasses a broad range of studies and design work. This background includes analysis of physical processes, inspection and assessment of existing conditions, damage repair and preventive maintenance, siting of new facilities, and preparation of construction plans and specifications for all types of coastal structures and development. Specific scopes of work have included earthwork, rubble-mound and fixed breakwaters, jetties and groins, bulkheads and seawalls, small craft harbors and floating docks, fixed piers of timber, steel, and concrete, shoreline stabilization, dredging, beach nourishment, and civil engineering design. Mr. Moore obtained his undergraduate and graduate degrees in civil and coastal engineering from the University of California at Berkeley.

Mr. Moore has served as a Director of the American Shore & Beach Preservation Association and national chairman of the American Society of Civil Engineers’ Waterways, Port, Coastal and Ocean Division. He was also the founding Co-Chairman of the Coastal Zone specialty conference in 1978 that has since evolved into an important forum for coastal zone management issues and discussion. He has published numerous technical papers and articles and has been an invited speaker to many groups including the California Coastal Commission where he has discussed innovative strategies for shoreline erosion management.

Chia-Chi Lu, Ph.D., P.E. – Manager, Coastal Engineering

Dr. Lu, a registered civil engineer who specializes in the fields of coastal and hydraulic engineering, and has over 21 years of extensive experience in the development and application of numerical simulations on related engineering problems by using various numerical techniques such as the finite difference method and the finite element method. He has been involved in numerous Corps of Engineers coastal projects including coastal planning analyses, development of oceanographic design criteria, storm damage reduction, and coastal processes assessment. His experience also includes the hydrodynamic studies of coastal estuaries, and tidal-influenced creeks and rivers as well as the EIS/EIR impact assessment for various coastal developments and ecosystem restorations such as the Bolsa Chica Wetlands Restoration project.

Recently, he has developed an innovated statistical approach to simulate the random bluff failures typically observed for the Encinitas/Solana Beach shoreline in Southern California. This Monte Carlo modeling methodology was certified by the Committee on Tidal Hydraulics of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Research and Development Center to better characterize the episodic nature of bluff erosion. The statistical form of model outputs lends itself to the incorporation of the Risk and Uncertainty analysis that is required for all Corps of Engineers coastal projects.

Thomas J. Fischetti, P.E. – Manager, Engineering Design

Mr. Fischetti has over 24 years experience in civil and structural engineering and project management. His professional experience encompasses strategic, operational and technical support roles, with major emphasis leading structural engineering and design services offered by NCI. His demonstrated ability to deliver quality service are the result of a broad range of experience in design, project management, controls and scheduling for large and small projects - like buildings, offshore platforms, tanks, equipment and pipe supports, process plants, pipelines, piers, wharfs and levees. He has prepared construction documents for numerous public works and private projects.

Mr. Fischetti’s engineering expertise encompasses onsite investigations and finite element modeling and analysis of indeterminate structures. The renovation of the Tracy Pump Plant Fish Bypass Facility is a recent example where his expertise was put to work. A three-dimensional structural model of the access pier allowed for a sophisticated analysis – and simple solution – to support temporary construction loads that would be encountered during the renovation. The attentive and comprehensive analysis was sufficient to address initial concerns to safely implement the work and ultimately was proven to be an effective and efficient means to renovate the facility.

Wenkai Qin, Ph.D., P.E. – Coastal/Water Resource Modeling

Dr. Qin specializes in the fields of coastal and hydraulic engineering and has conducted numerous modeling studies of hydrodynamics, sediment transport and water quality in coastal zones, estuaries and rivers. During his Ph.D. study at the University of Delaware, Dr. Qin developed a numerical model for coastal processes including wave transformation, wave-driven circulation, sediment transport and beach evolution. He developed a numerical model for hydraulics and sediment transport in a complex river-lake system while studying at Tsinghua University of China. Dr. Qin has extensive experience in performing numerical model simulations using commercial models and software packages such as RMA2, RMA4, SED2D, HEC-RAS, STWAVE, REFDIF, ADCIRC, SHORECIRC, GENESIS, SBEACH and CEDAS. He has also frequently developed models for coastal/water resource engineering analyses and applications using FORTRAN, Matlab and C++.

Rick Hollar –Hydrographic Surveying/Oceanographic Monitoring

Mr. Hollar is a coastal engineer with over 25 years of experience in local, domestic, and international arenas. Throughout his career, he has been responsible for the formation and management of field survey programs. His specialty is the collection, processing, and analysis of oceanographic, hydrographic, beach profile, and wetland survey data, including mapping, sediment sampling, current, tidal, and water quality studies. In 1996, he participated in the formation of the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) Beach Monitoring Program and managed that program until 2005. The data and analysis from that program were used in the planning, designing, and execution of the SANDAG Regional Beach Sand Project, which was selected by the American Shore and Beach Preservation Association (ASBPA) as the premier beach nourishment program in America in 2001.

Mr. Hollar obtained his BS degree from the University of Michigan and MS degree from the University of California, Berkeley. He is a member of both the American and California Shore and Beach Preservation Associations.

Glenn E. Gibson – Construction Cost Estimating

Mr. Gibson has over 40 years of construction analysis, construction management, supervision, cost estimating, and field inspection involving marine and offshore projects. In addition to his consulting background, he has been responsible for the construction of numerous civil works projects including marine terminals, breakwaters, dredging, deep foundations, bridges, and piers. Mr. Gibson has provided constructability analysis and cost estimating on numerous projects during the past ten years for Noble Consultants, Inc. This includes the evaluation of performance characteristics for various dredging and disposal equipment, and the costs associated with these various dredging and disposal options, as well as the costs to process and remove dredged material from a non-aquatic disposal site. This has also included the constructability analysis and cost estimates for shore protection, breakwaters, piers, wharfs and dock structures.

Prior to becoming a consultant, Mr. Gibson worked for various marine contractors on the West Coast, in varying positions of increasing responsibility. He has acted as a shift engineer, project engineer, project manager, area manager and general manager for major California-based marine construction companies. He has estimated construction costs, established and monitored detailed cost and production tracking systems, and has built and modified dredges and dump barges.

Claudio Fassardi– Coastal/Ocean Engineering and Naval Architecture

Mr. Fassardi has 20 years of experience in project management and engineering of ocean/coastal engineering and naval architecture projects. This experience includes the application of physical and numerical models to study the marine environment and its interaction with facilities such as ports, marinas, small craft harbors and terminals; and to analyze the performance of marine vessels such as ships and oil platforms. His expertise includes wave hindcasting and transformation, hydrodynamic circulation, sediment transport, harbor agitation, definition of design conditions and design of protectives structures. His naval architecture and ocean engineering expertise includes performance prediction, seakeeping, ship maneuvering, mooring analysis and computational fluid dynamics (CFD). Mr. Fassardi’s experience also includes the development and management of field and prototype instrumentation programs for the assessment of metocean conditions, and ship and marine structures performance; the use of wave buoys, ultrasonic wave gages, pressure sensors, strain gages, accelerometers and Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers (ADCPs). In addition, he has performed and managed several bathymetric and beach surveys.

© Noble Consultants, Inc.