Meet The Team

Find out more about the Karn team below!

Cornwall, Swindon, geotechnics, geotechnical, environment, environmental, consultants, insitu testing, window sampling, rotary drilling, concrete coring, soil aerator, ground investigation, site investigation

Mike Austin

Business Development

Since starting his career around twenty five years ago at Soil Mechanics in Bristol, Mike has worked on a massively varied range of projects from single unit builds to major housing developments for national house builders, from road and railway infrastructure to some of the largest buildings constructed in London.

During a gap year in 2004 Mike also was lucky enough to work on the East coast of Australia for a site investigation company specialising in railway bridge construction in some very remote and dangerous parts of the desert.

He moved back to Cornwall in 2005 to manage a regional office of a local site investigation company and was responsible for developing the existing team, together with growing and diversifying the client base.

Mike and the team had established a successful geotechnical and geo-environmental structure specialising in the local problems of mining hazards, slope stability concerns and ubiquitous heavy metal issues associated with SW England.

Lucy Quick

Principal Geo-Environmental Engineer

On graduating from the Camborne School of Mines with a BSc(Hons) in Environmental Science and Technology, Lucy started her career with national site investigation company Ian Farmer Associates Ltd.

Lucy specialises in contaminated land issues with particular reference to the contaminative legacy of historic mining areas and the unique heavy metal problems. She has worked extensively across the whole of the UK.

Lucy has experience in providing technical reports for site investigations, from conception through to environmental remediation and subsequent validation. This includes remediation system design and determination of regulatory applicability, from small single unit builds and greenfield sites to major housing developments for national builders and redevelopment of brownfield sites such as petrol filling stations and former MoD bases.

Lucy is well versed in site-specific assessment criteria based on bioaccessibility data, site assessment reports for water pipe selection in line with UKWIR guidance, and many other aspects of contaminated land, gas and groundwater risk assessment.

Ollie Scott

Senior Geotechnical Engineer

After graduating from Camborne School of Mines with a BSc in Engineering Geology and Geotechnics and a MSc in Geotechnical Engineering Ollie worked briefly in the mining industry before joining a national ground investigation company.

Now a Chartered Geotechnical Engineer, Ollie has contributed to projects across the country, gaining extensive experience in managing ground investigations, foundation design, retaining wall design, and slope stability challenges.

Ollie’s has also undertaken a technical research project for Imerys Minerals Limited working across the UK Kaolin Platform. The project involved a geotechnical design review of excavated faces in highly decomposed granites within the St. Austell china clay mines.

Since leaving university, Ollie joined the team at a national ground investigation consultancy where he specialises in geotechnical engineering.

Ollie specialises in the use of remote data collection, slope stability, and 2D and 3D computer modelling. Most recently, Ollie has been setting up out aerial surveying capabilities.

Karl Cadwell

Driller / Site Technician

Karl has 8 years’ experience working in the ground investigation industry as a site technician on a variety of sites which include chemical works, printing works, former manufacturing sites, petrol stations and former MOD sites.

Karl manages all sizes of projects and is responsible for keeping jobs on target, including problem solving on site, ensuring health and safety measures are adhered to and client liaison.

Karl is experienced in all aspects of in-situ site testing, including Standard Penetration Tests, Dynamic Probing, Plate Bearing Tests, CBR testing for road and pavement design, Infiltration testing to BRE365, Sand Replacement Testing and Gas/Groundwater monitoring.