Geo-Congress 2026 preview #2: Teton Pass Embankment Failure

Geo-Congress is the annual meeting of the Geo-Institute - sort of a geotechnical family reunion. Every year in February or March, our community gathers for amazing keynotes, great technical talks, the biggest geotechnical exhibit hall in North America, and a lot of fun! To prepare for the 2026 conference in Salt Lake City, we bring you a series of live streams featuring case histories from the Intermountain West!

Our second in the series will be presented Thursday, December 11, at 3pm ET. The Wyoming Department of Transportation will present "Teton Pass (Big Fill) Embankment Failure and Mitigation."

Want to learn more about the Geo-Institute? We're a technical society with about 12,000 members - mostly geotechnical engineers and geologists. Visit geoinstitute.org to get to know us!

Ben Arndt has over 30 years of experience in the geological and geotechnical engineering field. This includes 23 years of working on transportation projects throughout the western U.S., 2 years of forensic engineering, and 5 years of underground mining experience. His areas of expertise include evaluation, analysis and mitigation of: debris flow channels, debris flow mitigation, unstable rock and soil slopes, landslide mitigation, and specialty foundation and retaining wall systems. He has over a 25 national publications through the FHWA, TRB, and ASCE on topics that include: rockfall protection, rockslope stabilization, retaining wall systems, lightweight geofoam fills, and multiple types of landslide mitigation/foundation systems.

Jeff Booher is the Assistant State Geotechnical Engineer for the Wyoming Department of Transportation (WYDOT) Geology Program. Jeff has 24 years of experience working with infrastructure design at WYDOT. Previous to joining the Geology Program, Jeff spent 23 years with the WYDOT Bridge Program, 9 years as the Assistant State Bridge Engineer, Design, and was involved with various geotechnical related design of bridges, retaining walls, buried structures and sign structures.

Check out Director's Cut with Ryan Maw, the Co-Chair of Geo-Congress 2026!