Did you know that Sunrise Engineering has a sister company that specializes in materials testing services? Utah Testing and Engineering performs and manages construction materials testing and special inspection services in the State of Utah and the Intermountain area. Their reporting provides clients, code agencies, and building officials with a high degree of confidence to determine compliance with applicable plans, specifications, codes, and other project requirements.
Utah Testing was created on September 26th, 2011, after it was determined that our Building Code Inspection group was performing a lot of DFCM work and we were subbing out all of the material testing. We decided that there was enough work to justify opening our own lab with that work alone and dared to expand into the material testing market. It was decided to create a separate company, instead of just another Sunrise service center, because it enabled us to do things differently in Utah Testing in order to be competitive in the materials testing market. By being separate, we could also do both inspections and testing as separate companies to avoid any conflicts of interest.
Don Kattelman helped start Utah Testing as its first manager and they started with concrete and soils inspection testing. Today, they have grown into also conducting asphalt and steel inspection and testing as well. Don managed the group for four years with Ryan Brown taking over as the manager in October 2015. He has managed the group since. They first operated out of our former Draper, Utah office and then moved to West Valley in 2018. Since then, they opened up the Ogden lab in 2020, and officially opened a lab in Logan in January 2023.
Utah Testing’s laboratory is accredited by the American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials (AASHTO) and are approved by the Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) in soils, aggregate, and concrete. Utah Testing has multiple special inspectors certified by the International Code Council (ICC) and the American Welding Society (AWS) that are also licensed by the Utah Division of Professional and Occupational Licensing (DOPL) as building inspectors. Special inspectors are also certified as American Concrete Institute (ACI) Level 1 Concrete Technicians and are nuclear gauge certified. They also have a number of engineering technicians certified as ACI Level 1 Concrete Technicians and nuclear gauge certified. Their laboratory technicians have either National Institute for Certification in Engineering Technologies (NICET) or Western Alliance for Quality Transportation Construction (WAQTC) certifications or are approved through their internal quality assurance program.
We are so lucky to have them as part of our team! Be sure to check them out on their newly renovated website at utahtesting.com.