When a historic college campus in Northcentral Pennsylvania faced the need for major repairs to its underground infrastructure, university officials enlisted GPRS to help ensure the project stayed on schedule, within budget, and prioritized safety.
Over the course of a month, a dedicated team of GPRS Project Managers and support personnel thoroughly identified and mapped the subsurface utilities across the 174-acre Mansfield University Campus of Commonwealth University of Pennsylvania. Their work produced precise as-built documentation that played a key role in the safe and efficient restoration of the campus’s buried steam lines and other critical infrastructure.
(Left to right, top to bottom) Area Manager Sam Hart, Business Development Manager Isaiah Runkle, and Project Managers Ngoc Nguyen, Cole LaMacchia, Luis Castro, Michael Folkenroth, Stamatis Eleftheriou, and Tommy Tann.
The GPRS team involved in the project included Business Development Manager Isaiah Runkle, Area Manager Sam Hart, and Project Managers Tommy Tann, Michael Folkenroth, Cole LaMacchia, Luis Castro, Stamatis Eleftheriou, and Ngoc Nguyen.
“We were going seven days a week, non-stop,” Nguyen said. “…It started out with them asking us to do as much as we could, and then they eventually just wanted everything mapped…”
About Mansfield University
Since its founding as the Mansfield Classical Seminary in 1857, Mansfield University has undergone several name changes, officially becoming Mansfield University in 1983 when it joined Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education.
On July 1, 2022, Mansfield merged with Bloomsburg and Lock Haven universities to create the Commonwealth University of Pennsylvania—a unified institution with multiple campuses. According to its website, the university aims “to expand high-quality, affordable academic opportunities to support the needs of all learners.”
Nestled in the rugged terrain of north-central Pennsylvania, Mansfield’s campus presents unique challenges for locating underground utilities due to its mountainous landscape. Fortunately, GPRS’ national reach enabled the deployment of a sizable team of SIM-certified Project Managers to meet the demands of the project.
“We’re talking about close to eight miles a day, all on an incline,” Nguyen said.
When performing a utility locate, GPRS Project Managers primarily rely on two key technologies: ground penetrating radar (GPR) and electromagnetic (EM) locating.
GPR works by sending radio waves into the ground and detecting how those waves interact with subsurface materials such as utility lines or underground storage tanks (USTs). These interactions appear on the scanner as a series of hyperbolas, with their size and shape indicating the type of material detected.
GPRS Project Managers undergo rigorous training to accurately interpret GPR data, allowing them to identify what lies beneath the surface and estimate the depth of each object.
EM locating serves as an ideal complement to GPR during utility locating.
Instead of identifying physical objects underground, EM locators detect electromagnetic signals emitted by metallic pipes and cables. These signals can be generated by applying current through a transmitter, by the natural flow of electricity in live cables, or by conductive pipes acting as antennas that re-radiate signals from stray electrical fields (detected in Power Mode) or communication transmissions (Radio Mode).
The transmitter sends current along the conductor—whether a pipe, cable, or line—which returns to the transmitter via a ground connection, typically completed using a ground stake.
By combining the capabilities of GPR and EM locating with our industry-leading training program, GPRS delivers utility locating data with 99.8% accuracy, helping to prevent costly and hazardous subsurface strikes during excavation.
In addition to mapping Mansfield University’s underground infrastructure, GPRS also performed CCTV Video Pipe Inspections (VPI) of the campus’s storm and sanitary sewer systems to provide a more complete picture of these essential utilities.
When a historic college campus in Northcentral Pennsylvania required extensive repairs to its buried infrastructure, school officials turned to GPRS to help them keep the project on time, on budget, and safe.
VPI is a sewer inspection service that utilizes advanced remote-controlled video cameras to evaluate the condition of sanitary, storm, and lateral pipelines. Our NASSCO-certified Project Managers identify blockages, detect cross bores, locate structural issues and damage, and perform lateral inspections—helping you plan repairs, maintain system performance, and reduce risk.
“VPI was used to locate the storm and sanitary lines on site to provide a map of how the overall storm and sanitary systems runs through the site, what connects to them, and where they eventually leave the site and tie into the public sewer system,” said GPRS Project Manager Stamatis Eleftheriou.
When school officials saw how quickly GPRS was locating and mapping the campus’ buried infrastructure, they requested we extend our scope to include clearing the location of planned soil borings at the university’s football field.
Because soil boring can cause a drill rig to encounter a buried utility – or lead to the creation of cross bores if trenchless technology is used – it’s vital that all buried utilities in the project area are mapped before ground is broken to protect both the underground infrastructure and the workers who are breaking ground.
As GPRS located and mapped Mansfield University’s buried infrastructure, the data we collected was uploaded into SiteMap® (patent pending), our infrastructure mapping software application. Accessible 24/7 from any computer, tablet or smartphone, SiteMap serves as a single source of truth for the accurate, field-verified data you need to plan, design, manage, dig, and ultimately, build better.
GPRS and SiteMap helped Mansfield University Intelligently Visualize The Built World® while keeping their repairs on time, on budget, and safe.
Click below to schedule your live, personal and free SiteMap demo today!