PT Sarana Data Persada (formerly, CV Data Persada) was established in 1981 by 3 lecturers of the Department of Civil Engineering Petra Christian University, i.e. Sugie Prawono, Johanes Suwono, and Subianto Tjandrawibawa (†). During the late 70s, all the founders went to Bangkok, Thailand to acquire a master degree in Soil Engineering from Asian Institute of Technology (AIT).
CV Data Persada was started from a small soil mechanics laboratory located on the second floor of a blacksmith warehouse at Jalan Pandegiling 240, Surabaya. It specialized in soil investigation and geotechnical design.
The first big project handled by this company was Surabaya – Malang Toll Highway Project. This project was constructed by a Taiwanese contractor, Ret-Ser Engineering Agency (RSEA). During the early stage of the project, the soil tests were jointly carried out by a Taiwanese consultant, Moh & Associates (MAA) and CV Data Persada. Nevertheless, because of the quality of our works, the remaining stages were totally handled by us. In this project, we were also responsible for installing and monitoring of the geotechnical instruments, e.g. pneumatic piezometers and inclinometers.
The second big project was Surabaya Port Harbor Project in 1983. Surabaya Port Harbor is a wharf construction where the wharf is supported by around 550 octagonal piles of ϕ600 mm diameter. All piles were driven using piling barge with an air steam hammer of 15 tons. In this project, CV Data Persada helped a British consultant, Rendel, Palmer, & Tritton (RPT) in designing and supervising the project. This project was constructed by a Japanese contractor, Toa Harbor Works.
Due to the development of the company, CV Data Persada moved its office to a new building at Jalan Margorejo Indah D-507, Surabaya. In April 2014, CV Data Persada changed from a limited partnership to a limited company, PT Sarana Data Persada.