About

Johann Degen bought the Johann Keller Company in Germany in 1900 and managed its rise from a local well drilling company to a regional market leader, largely expanding into the surrounding countries. After his early death in 1903, his wife, old Mr. Keller and Johann Degen’s brother Wilhelm managed the company through hard times until its transition to sons Johannes and Wilhelm in 1920.

Wilhelm L. Degen, son of Johann Degen, co-owner of Johann Keller since 1920 and Managing Director and Chief Engineer of Keller until his death in 1970. He owned numerous patents, including the depth vibrator (vibroflot) for Vibro Compaction (together with Sergej Steuermann), and various pioneering Stone Column related patents.

Mr. Sergey Steuermann, co-inventor of the Vibroflot, left Germany and set up later the Vibroflotation Foundation Company, Pittsburgh, PA, pioneering Vibro Compaction in the USA

Wilhelm L. Degen invented the Stone Column method.

Johannes Degen and the children of Wilhelm L. Degen sold their shares in the Keller Group of companies after continuous years of expansion. Wilhelm. F. Degen (son of Wilhelm L. Degen) bought the Vibroflotation Foundation Company, Pittsburgh, PA, from Sergey Steuermann.

Wilhelm F. Degen and Franz Elchkorn developed the first range of high performance electrical Vibroflots, utilizing revolutionary internal design, facilitating a unique penetration capacity, which will enable this generation of machines to reach numerous world-depths record in the future. Expansion of the Vibroflotation companies  into Germany and Far East .

World record on deep vibro compaction by Vibroflotation at Jebba Dam, Nigeria.

A depth of 35 m was reached in natural sand deposits. Reaching such depth in natural deposits is harder than in reclaimed land.

Alexander M. Degen and Wilhelm S. Degen set up Vibroflotation AG, an equipment manufacturing company in Switzerland. They also developed the Gravel Pump, the Vibro Stitcher and the Marine Gravel Pump together with designers Franz Eichkorn and Beda Kälin.

License agreements between Soletanche S.A. of France and Vibroflotation AG were set up. A joint venture between Vibroflotation AG and Bachy-Soletanche was established in Hong Kong.

43 m depth are reached as a new world record on a trial compaction in Uhyst, Germany. Vibroflotation equipment won a competition with other equipment and was selected as the preferred equipment supplier for huge lignite mine slope stabilizations by vibro compaction.

Vibroflotation equipment dominated the Vibro Compaction market in Germany for lignite mining slope stability projects of over 70m in depth, with a total volume of over 1 billion cubic meters.

Soletanche Bachy took a 70% share in The Vibroflotation Group and in 2006 took over the company entirely. The relationship ended in a three year non competition undertaking by Wilhelm and Alexander Degen during which both brothers were consulting  “The Vibroflotation Group” on numerous international key projects.

Betterground Ltd. (Switzerland) was  founded in early 2009 and was immediately joined by the most experienced technical experts in the world.

Betterground supports China Harbour Engineering Co. with low headroom offshore stone column equipment, site supervision and engineering support on the Hong Kong Boundary Crossing Facility project, which included over one million linear meters of marine Stone Columns. It is the largest project of its kind in history.

First projects in Russia. Betterground Bottom Feed equipment compacts the soil near the new football stadium in St. Petersburg. A modified version of the same equipment was able to install the first vibroflot compacted bottom feed sand columns on the Highway St. Petersburg to Moscow.

Betterground has license and JV agreements in place with geotechnical specialty contractors over 20 countries. Partnerships through performance-based equipment rental or joint ventures now form an important part of Betterground’s business. For this purpose, the selling of equipment has been split off into a separate firm called Betterground Equipment, while the project business remains under the name Betterground.