Mike Chapin was Geocon’s second President and Chief Executive Officer, after our founder Jim Likins retired in 2001. Mike is a San Diego County native, growing up in the Lakeside area. After completing high school and a year at San Diego State College, Mike enlisted in the Marines where he spent a year in electronics school. After completing his enlistment, he attended San Diego State University, completing his degree in Engineering Geology. While at San Diego State, he worked at Southern California Testing Laboratories  as a draftsman and was later recruited by Geocon as a laboratory technician and draftsman.

After graduating from SDSU, Mike became a Staff Geologist at Geocon where he further excelled, earning professional registrations as a Professional Geologist and Certified Engineering Geologist.  By working with Geocon’s engineers, he later successfully passed the examinations to become a Registered Civil Engineer and Registered Geotechnical Engineer.

While he was in the first group to be offered equity in Geocon , Mike made the difficult decision to expand his horizons and joined another San Diego firm as their Engineering Manager, and subsequently moving to the role of Chief Engineering Geologist. When Jim Likins began looking for his replacement, Mike’s name came up as a candidate for the role.  Mike ultimately returned to Geocon and after two years became the second President and CEO of the company.  Under Mike’s guidance, and with abundant help from Geocon’s senior partners, Geocon opened offices in Portland, Reno, Las Vegas, Bakersfield, Fresno and Livermore.  Mike also instilled the service oriented, employee centric culture that Jim Likins began. He is very grateful for the mentorship and friendship of Jim Likins, Tom Langpap and Mike Hart who made his career possible. Mike retired at the end of 2009 and now spends his time doing nature photography and playing bass guitar in bands.