By the time homes rose, roads were paved, and commercial centers opened across Greater Palm Springs, Alan Pace’s work was already buried beneath the surface.
As vice president of the Desert Region for Costa Mesa-based Petra Geosciences, Inc., Pace plays a quiet yet essential role in shaping the Greater Palm Springs region’s growth. His specialty, geologic, geotechnical, and environmental engineering, sits at the front end of nearly every successful development project, long before architects draw plans or contractors move dirt.
“If a developer does it right, geotechnical work is part of the earliest due diligence,” Pace said in a recent interview. “You have to know where you can and can’t build before you plan anything else.”
Alan Pace, Vice President of the Desert Region at Petra Geosciences, Inc.
Mapping Constraints Before They Become Problems
Pace’s job begins with understanding the ground itself. In the Coachella Valley, that means navigating active fault systems, variable soils, shallow groundwater in some areas, and deep sands in others. Each project starts with a combination of desk work and field investigation: reviewing historic maps and aerial photos, studying previous reports, and then walking the land.
From there, Pace and his team create what’s known as a constraints map. It identifies areas suitable for development and areas that are not, particularly where active faults may require setbacks under California law.
One of the most striking examples came in 2004, when Pace led early investigations on a 2,200-acre site in the City of Coachella, now known as La Entrada. Initial state mapping suggested nearly three-quarters of the land was constrained by potential faulting. After Petra conducted roughly ten miles of trenching and detailed analysis, the numbers flipped. About 75 percent of the site was deemed buildable.
“That’s the value we bring,” Pace said. “Before land planning starts, we help identify both the constraints and the opportunities.”
Similar work followed on another 2,800 acres north of Interstate 10, where Petra completed miles of additional trenching. Both projects illustrate how early geotechnical expertise can turn uncertainty into clarity for developers and public agencies alike.
Why the Desert Is Different
The Coachella Valley is often thought of as flat and simple, but Pace says that assumption can lead to costly mistakes.
East of Monroe Street, much of the land lies atop ancient Lake Cahuilla deposits, where expansive and corrosive soils are common. In places like Thermal, groundwater can be as shallow as 12 feet, affecting everything from grading to sewer design. On the west side of the valley, groundwater may be hundreds of feet down, but sandy soils pose different challenges.
“These aren’t things you guess at,” Pace said. “You have to prove what’s there.”
That proof matters not only to developers, but also to cities, counties, and state regulators. Active faults, defined as having moved within the last 11,000 years, cannot be built across. The only mitigation is avoidance. Missing one can derail a project late in the process, when redesigns are most expensive.
Saving Time, Saving Money
While Pace is known for identifying risk, he is equally focused on efficiency. In one project review for a private club development, county officials flagged a linear feature on aerial photographs as a possible fault. Rather than immediately trenching at high cost, Pace proposed additional mapping and field review. The feature turned out to be an old stream bank, not a fault, saving the client tens of thousands of dollars.
“That’s part of experience,” he said. “Sometimes the hard way is actually the smarter way.”
Grading recommendations are another area where Pace’s work directly affects project budgets. Understanding how much unsuitable soil must be removed and recompacted can mean the difference between balancing material on site or paying to import fill at significant cost.
On a 500-acre site, Pace calculated that every additional foot of soil removal could add roughly $800,000 in grading costs alone.
A Long View of the Valley
Pace began working in the desert in the early 2000s and moved permanently to the region in 2006, just ahead of the housing crash. Petra, a privately held firm now marking more than 50 years in business, supported maintaining a local presence even during lean years. That long-term commitment has paid off.
Today, Pace works with public homebuilders, water districts, school districts, and cities exploring annexations and master planning. His role often extends beyond engineering, acting as a connector among planners, civil engineers, land-use attorneys, and government staff.
“Any time you build something, a house, a road, a pipeline, a school, someone has to figure out how the ground will behave,” Pace said. “There’s no project where this work doesn’t matter.”
An Expert Developers Rely On
In Southern California’s desert, growth increasingly pushes into land that was once considered too complex or too risky. That makes geotechnical expertise not optional, but foundational.
Pace’s decades of local experience, combined with Petra Geosciences’ broad scope of services, from fault investigations to environmental due diligence, have made him one of the region’s most trusted voices beneath the surface.
“We’re not here just to point out problems,” he said. “We’re partners in the process. The goal is to find issues early, minimize surprises, and help projects move forward the right way.”
For the communities of Greater Palm Springs, that unseen work is what allows development to stand on solid ground.
