Victor
Romero

Most infrastructure is invisible. Victor Romero made a career out of that fact.

In 1991, fresh from a master's program in geotechnical engineering at UC Berkeley, Romero joined a firm called McMillen Jacobs Associates. He never left. Over the next three decades, he moved through nearly every role the organization offered - design, construction management, business development, regional management - before being elected President of the Underground Division in 2020. In 2023, he led the firm's full rebranding as Delve Underground, a name that does exactly what it says on the tin.

Today, Delve Underground employs more than 350 engineers across 21 offices spanning North America and Australasia, with annual revenue around $55 million. The company bores through rock, digs under cities, repairs tunnels that have been carrying water since before most of its engineers were born, and designs the shafts and trenches that keep urban life from collapsing inward on itself. Victor Romero runs it all from San Francisco.

There is a particular type of engineer who sees underground work as a calling rather than a specialization. The problems are harder, the margins for error are smaller, the soil is unpredictable, and the stakes are high in ways that are invisible to everyone above ground. Romero is that type. His technical signature - the Sequential Excavation Method (SEM) - is not a brand. It is an approach to tunneling that requires constant reading of ground conditions and immediate response to what the rock or soil actually does, not what the model predicted it would do. He is considered one of the method's foremost practitioners in North America.

That project, which Romero cites as his favorite sustainability example, captures something essential about how he approaches the field. Underground engineering tends to leave a mark. The question is what kind. Romero has spent the last several years pushing Delve Underground to make sustainability not a line item on a project checklist, but a core operating principle. "Sustainability is front and center with nearly all local and central government projects in Australia and New Zealand," he noted in a company interview - and he wants North America to follow.

His five-year vision for Delve Underground is measurable: demonstrate sustainability improvements across all business operations and projects, help clients understand both the "why" and the "how." Not a vague commitment to doing better. A technical roadmap for doing it differently.

Romero's path from geological engineering student to CEO follows the logic of the field itself: slow, methodical, shaped by what you find at each layer. He started with the technical fundamentals at the Colorado School of Mines - one of the few programs in the country where underground work is taken seriously as a discipline in its own right. Then came UC Berkeley for the geotechnical master's, finished in 1990-91, and then directly into McMillen Jacobs.

His ascent was not vertical. It spread laterally. He took on work in design, moved into construction management, picked up business development, led regional operations. When the firm's international ambitions pointed toward Australia and New Zealand, Romero led the expansion. He spent time understanding how infrastructure procurement works in those markets, how design-build contracting differs from the US model, and how to earn trust from clients who had their own established firms they could have chosen instead. He succeeded. The Australasian offices became a durable part of the business.

Projects from that era illustrate the range. The WestConnex M4 East Highway Tunnel in Australia, where he served as Design Director. The Waterview Connection in New Zealand, managing procurement and design review. The Central Interceptor Project in New Zealand as tunnel design lead. Each project different in ground conditions, procurement model, and client expectations. Each one adding another layer to his technical and organizational vocabulary.

Back in North America, the portfolio is equally dense. The MetroWest Water Supply Tunnel in Boston - a major rock tunnel design. The Inland Feeder Arrowhead Tunnels in Southern California. The Tren Urbano Subway in Puerto Rico, where he led the contractor's design team. The San Francisco MTA Central Subway Project, where he served as Design Oversight Manager. These are not small projects. They are the kind that take years, involve dozens of agencies, and determine whether a city's water supply or transit network actually functions for the next generation.

When the company decided to rebrand from McMillen Jacobs Associates to Delve Underground in 2023, Romero was the one making the case internally and externally. Seventy years of institutional history is not a light thing to rename. The rebrand signaled something deliberate: the firm wanted an identity that matched what it actually does, that would be legible to clients who weren't already in the know, and that could carry the company's next chapter - one with an explicit sustainability mandate embedded in its name and direction.

Romero moved the firm's headquarters to Seattle, Washington, while maintaining his own base in San Francisco - a practical arrangement for a company whose projects span two continents. The company phone line still rings through to the Pacific Northwest. The work runs wherever the ground needs digging.

The credentials are extensive. Professional Engineer licensed in California and 14 other US states. Certified Engineering Geologist in California. Chartered Professional Engineer in New Zealand. These are not honorary designations. Each requires demonstrated competence, continuing education, and jurisdiction-specific examinations. The New Zealand CPEng in particular reflects the international scope of his practice - it was not a credential he could borrow from his US work; he had to earn it on its own terms.

His technical depth covers the full stack of underground work. Deep shaft design. Pipe jacking and trenchless methods. Tunnel ground support and lining design. Tunnel grouting and excavation methods. Hard-rock and soft-ground tunnel boring machines. Tunnel rehabilitation. Temporary excavation support design. Building protection - meaning the systems that prevent the buildings above from settling or cracking while you bore through the ground beneath them, which is its own significant engineering discipline.

The expertise in Sequential Excavation Method deserves specific mention because it represents a philosophy as much as a technique. SEM is fundamentally about reading - observing actual ground behavior during excavation and adjusting support measures in real time rather than relying purely on pre-excavation models. It requires engineers who are comfortable operating in uncertainty and making consequential decisions with incomplete information. It is the opposite of a paint-by-numbers approach. Romero has applied it across multiple continents and ground types, which is a narrower group of people than most would assume.

In January 2023, McMillen Jacobs Associates became Delve Underground. The timing was deliberate - the firm had been operating for roughly seven decades and had built a strong reputation within infrastructure circles. But "McMillen Jacobs Associates" communicates nothing to someone encountering it for the first time. "Delve Underground" communicates exactly what the company does, which is increasingly valuable in a market where clients are making faster decisions and need to understand at a glance who they're talking to.

The rebrand also aligned with Romero's broader vision for the company. He wants Delve Underground to be identifiable as a leader not just in underground engineering technique, but in sustainable underground engineering - a narrower and more defensible position. Infrastructure clients in the public sector, particularly in transportation and water, are under increasing pressure to demonstrate environmental responsibility. An engineering firm that has already integrated sustainability into its operating model, rather than treating it as an add-on, is a different kind of partner.

Delve Underground also joined the International Hydropower Association in this period - a move that signals the firm's interest in the energy and utilities sector and its alignment with organizations focused on long-term infrastructure sustainability. Seven decades of tunneling experience applied to hydropower infrastructure is a compelling offer, and Romero is making it.

What Romero is building is not just a larger firm. It is a firm with a clearer identity, a more explicit set of values, and a business strategy anchored to the long-term direction of the infrastructure industry. Underground work is not going to get less important as cities grow denser and climate pressures demand more resilient systems. If anything, the demand is accelerating. Delve Underground is positioned to be the firm that answers that call.