From March of 1979 to June of 1984, Dr. Marachi worked for Converse Consultants (the same 1969 firm of Converse Davis and Associates). Initially he was the manager of engineering in the San Francisco office. In February of 1982, he became the manager of the office, and in late 1983 he was also elected to serve on the Board of Directors.

During this period he investigated a large number of levees and developed a method to assess the probability of levee failure and the corresponding cost of exposure to such a potential event. He utilized this method to investigate the annualized exposure costs associated with East Bay MUD’s aqueducts through the San Joaquin Delta region. He also developed alternative mitigation plans and calculated annualized cost of each. He later published this methodology in various international proceedings.

As part of levee stability studies, he performed a series of laboratory tests on peats and peaty clays of the San Joaquin delta region and overconsolidated fissured clays of the Colusa Basin. His findings, utilized to elucidate the cause of repeated levee breaks at Colusa, earned him commendation letters from the Sacramento District and San Francisco Division of the US Army Corps of Engineers. He also became very interested in investigation and safety analysis of existing dams, especially concrete arch and multiple arch dams. He performed 3-D dynamic finite element analysis of Milliken, Vail, Hume Lake, and Salmon Creek arch dams, and Whale Rock, Lake Herman, and Summit embankment dams. For a five week period he served as a special consultant to Parsons/Engineering Science in Bombay, India on a project for the World Bank to develop geotechnical investigation requirements and plans and specifications for the proposed comprehensive sewer collection, conveyance and treatment facilities of Bombay. He also served on the Board of Consultants to review the seismic design criteria and dynamic analysis of the Karun II arch dam by Acres International.

He co-founded “The MARK Group, Inc.” on Memorial Day of 1984. By 1991 the firm had 98 employees and 3 main offices. In this period Dr. Marachi managed a large number of environmental cleanup and restoration projects at various industrial facilities and landfills. He developed a vacuum extraction method to remove volatile organic compounds from the vadose zone, and designed the system for the cleanup of a site for Motorola, the first such site in California receiving EPA approval. He also taught a condensed course on the environmental aspects of soils engineering, and contaminant transport (by convection or diffusion) at Cal State Long Beach.

He also managed many projects in the water market, i.e. safety investigations of Webber, Los Verjeles, Goodwin, Combie, Concow, Matilija, and Santa Felicia dams, to name a few. He also served on a CalFed subcommittee assessing seismic fragility of the levees in the Sacramento/San Joaquin delta.

On February of 1999 The MARK Group sold its assets to Harza Engineering Company. Dr. Marachi served as Senior Partner and manager of the Concord office at Harza from 2/99 to 4/01. During this period he spearheaded the acquisition of a number of large projects, e.g. Relicensing of Orville Dam Facilities, Safety Investigation of Santa Anita and Hosler arch dams, Design of Safety Mitigations for Big Tujunga arch dam, ID/IQ engineering services contract with the San Francisco PUC, ID/IQ engineering services contract with USBR /MW for the California water plan, to name a few.

As an avocation, he also developed a “quick” method to compute seismic stresses in an arch dam. The method abates the costly analyses.

In April of 2001, Dr. Marachi resigned from Harza, and presently works as a consultant. In addition to engagements on a number of projects and cases, he is in the process of developing a method to assess seismic stability of a “generic” arch dam. •••