ListenAll Interviews
The Importance of Training in the Subsurface Locating Industry with Dan Bigman of Bigman Geophysical
Enhanced Scanning owner Forrest Sim interviews Dan Bigman, an expert in subsurface modeling using non-destructive technologies.
Executive Summary
- Parlaying Door-to-Door Chops into a PhD: Dan began his career with a five-year stint in financial sales, memorably knocking on doors to sell encyclopedias. Motivated to go back to school to impress his future wife—a neuroscientist—he spent a decade in higher education. He discovered a love for archaeology, anthropology, and near-surface geophysics at the University of Georgia under advisors like Dr. Robert Hammond and Steve Kovaleski. After his teaching contract wrapped up at Georgia State University in 2015, he parlayed his combined scientific and sales backgrounds to launch his own firm.
- The Academic “Gate” & The Ph.D. Blueprint for Business: Coming from academia, Dan was shocked by how little actionable, real-world instruction existed for active field operators using electromagnetics, magnetics, and ground-penetrating radar. To bridge this “university gate,” he began recording simple five-minute technical YouTube videos, breaking dense journal papers and heavy textbook equations down into accessible layman concepts. When former academic colleagues asked how he learned to scale a business with zero corporate training, Dan replied that a business is no different than a PhD: You read a mountain of books, test a theory, map the feedback loop of what failed, read more books, and iterate forward.
- The Reinforcement of Teaching: Dan credits his deep mastery of GPR physics to the act of content creation. To script an effective five-minute tutorial or design a training course, he was forced to systematically relearn core foundational physics to a level of absolute clarity. Today, his companies provide robust private and public technical training workshops, equipment calibration, rentals, and third-party data processing solutions for contractors, engineers, and government entities.
- Experiential Education & The 2% Rule: While Bigman Geophysical has transitioned into a training and business-support pipeline, 98% of their fieldwork is strictly collaborative, stepping onto job sites alongside their existing client base to hold their hands through complex environments. The remaining 2% is reserved for highly complex, logistically difficult specialty projects across the globe (such as deep desert surveys). Dan keeps his boots in the dirt because it is impossible to credibly coach active practitioners if you are removed from the field; he wants his team to intimately understand what it feels like when field electronics overheat in the Georgia summer sun.
- The 2027 Public Training Initiative: Recognizing that high private coaching fees can lock out small, independent operators, Dan is rolling out an expansive network of affordable, local public training workshops across the country. His explicit goal is to eliminate any structural excuse for poor field execution.
- Integrating Family into the Entrepreneurial Grind: To survive the brutal five-year business survival statistics, Dan relies on intense hard work and strict personal guardrails. To protect his family life while traveling globally, he limits the consecutive duration of his road trips, routinely brings his wife along to international training sessions (such as integrating a five-day vacation in Rome and Venice ahead of a three-day course), and directly invites his high school-aged entrepreneur son to attend corporate networking events as a bonding experience.
- The Looming Impacts of Robotics & AI: While Dan views Artificial Intelligence and advanced robotics as inevitable tools that will actively enhance subsurface workflows rather than displace human technicians, he remains heavily focused on solving the industry’s massive workforce turnover and talent acquisition bottlenecks.
- Education vs. Minimum Standard Certification: Addressing Forrest’s concerns over the unregulated nature of the US utility-locating market, Dan clarifies that while voluntary certifications matching NULCA minimum standards exist, education and certification are entirely different concepts. A technician can hold a standard certification stamp and still be completely incompetent in a fluid field environment. To build actual field competence, an operator requires a continuous, hands-on support desk they can call from the side of the road to help troubleshoot weird waveforms and processing glitches in real time.
- The Antarctic Extraplanetary Link: In a humorous nod to sci-fi television (such as the “documentary” Stargate SG-1), Dan shares that his youngest child wants to join him on an upcoming GPR research expedition to Antarctica to utilize ultra-low frequency radar arrays to measure deep ice sheet thickness. Forrest jokes that they are actively scanning the glaciers to pinpoint the location of lost Atlanteans underneath the ice caps.
About Enhanced Scanning
Enhanced Scanning provides subsurface locating services for customers who need reliable information about what exists beneath a project site. The company serves the construction, engineering, and scientific communities and is committed to improving safety through better locating practices. That commitment includes investing in advanced locating technology and ensuring that technicians receive appropriate training to use that technology effectively. Forrest Sim, the owner of Enhanced Scanning, is a respected voice within the industry and regularly speaks at events throughout the country about utility locating, concrete scanning, and other subsurface-related subjects.
The company employs multiple non-destructive technologies as part of its subsurface investigations. Its capabilities include ground penetrating radar (GPR), electromagnetic (EM) and electromagnetic induction (EMI) locators, magnetometers, push cameras, pulse wave generators, and others. These technologies can be used to investigate different types of conditions and can provide valuable information without requiring the area to be disturbed simply to determine what is present. By selecting the appropriate equipment for each situation, Enhanced Scanning can conduct detailed investigations tailored to the needs of the project.
The information gathered during these investigations can reveal underground utility lines, post-tensioned cables and other features within concrete slabs, and changes in soil structure. Having a better understanding of these conditions before work begins can help customers identify hazards that might otherwise remain hidden until a project is underway. Enhanced Scanning’s findings allow customers to incorporate subsurface conditions into their planning, helping them protect workers and infrastructure while reducing the risk of accidental damage, delays, and other costly complications.