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Name
Education
MSCE Civil Engineering (1976, Syracuse University)
BSCE Civil Engineering (1973, Syracuse)
Engineering Career
42 years (and still counting) as a geotechnical engineering consultant. I selected civil engineering as a college major on the advice of my older brother. I found the undergraduate engineering curriculum at Syracuse uninspiring until I took a Soil Mechanics course with Dr. Fred Kulhawy. The uncertainty and judgment involved with soil and rock mechanics engineering were immediately interesting to me, and Fred had a different, but engaging personality that worked well for me during that interesting time in the US (the counter-culture revolution). Fred became my mentor, encouraged me to come back to Syracuse for my master’s degree, and we stayed in touch throughout my career (he passed in 2015).
I have worked as a geotechnical engineer for privately owned consulting firms for my entire career. The early part of my career was spent in New York and Washington State, and the last 33 years have been in Maine. Practice areas have been broad including: deep foundations; deep excavation support systems; ports and harbors; soft ground stabilization; dams; papermill landfills; commercial development; rock slope stabilization; landslide mitigation; and bridge foundations for highway and rail. The path has included the following:
Golder Associates – Freeport, Maine: 2002 – current. Principal
Peterson-Rabasca GeoEngineers – Yarmouth, Maine: 1994-2002. Partner
GZA GeoEnvironmental – Portland, Maine: 1990-1994. Vice-President
E.C. Jordan Company – Portland, Maine: 1983-1990. Department Manager – Geotechnical Engineering
Converse-Consultants – Seattle, Washington: 1980-1983. Senior Engineer
Roger Lowe Associates – Bellevue, Washington: 1976-1980. Geotechnical Engineer
Raamot Associates – Syracuse, New York: 1973-1975. Geotechnical Engineer
Significant projects have been many, a select few include: Replacement of I-91 Bridges 8 & 9, Brattleboro, VT; Rt 191 Landslide Remediation, Newport, VT; Barge Unloading Pier for Mirant Corporation, Morgantown, MD; Paper Mill Sludge Lagoon Closure, Pulaski, NY; Retaining Wall Failure Investigation, Utica, NY; Ellsworth Dam Stability Analysis, Ellsworth, ME; I-90 cut and cover tunnel on Mercer Island, WA; and, Terminal 5 Rehabilitation, West Seattle, WA.
A memorable experience was the celebrity I experienced as the guy that predicted the partial collapse of an abandoned limestone mine beneath a paper mill facility in South Glens Falls, New York. I had performed an analysis of the room and pillar mine about 5 years earlier during design work we (E.C. Jordan) completed as part of a major modernization project for the paper mill. The modernization project was scrapped when the mill was sold, and the analysis of the mine stability was forgotten. The analysis concluded that a significant portion of the mine area underlying mill property was marginally stable and needed to be reinforced or filled in as soon as possible. Five years later a portion of the mine collapsed in a gravel parking lot adjacent to mill buildings. The collapse included an immediate vertical ground subsidence of about 20 ft over about a 5,000 square foot area. No one was injured, but some trucks parked in this area were damaged and everyone at the mill was in a panic concerned about the rest of the mill facility. The mill called E.C. Jordan and was looking for the author of the mine stability report. I flew to the site the next day, looked at the site conditions and had a meeting with the mill and the local press explaining the nature of the collapse and the risk to other mill facilities. It’s the only time I can recall in my career when I was treated with celebrity status as the “all-knowing” technical guru and everything I said was treated as unquestioned “truth”. The mill owner asked us to develop a stabilization plan for the mine and we proceeded to do that and move into construction (hydraulic filling).
The colleagues and friends I have made in the engineering profession over my career have been remarkable, and I am happy to say I have generally maintained contact with most of them. They range from my graduate school geotechnical buddies, the close crew of folks I worked with in Seattle, the large group of engineers and scientists at E.C. Jordan who seem to be present in most of the firms in the Portland area, Golder colleagues across North America, fellow members of the local geotechnical community, and a number of special clients.
Professional Activities
Memberships in: ASCE, Geo-Institute, ACEC-Maine, MBTA, Deep Foundation Institute, ASDSO. Member of: Organizing Committee for 2nd Symposium on the Presumpscot Formation, 2015; Review Panel, Maine Bureau of General Services Alternative Delivery Review, 2010-2016; Host Committee, ACEC-Maine for ACEC National Fall Conference, Portland, ME, 2004. I have authored or co-authored about half a dozen technical papers published in conference proceedings, primarily focused on technical aspects of completed projects.
Most Rewarding Career Moment
Appointment as Principal by my colleagues at Golder.
Hobbies
Boats & boating on the Maine coast, golf, skiing, landscaping, and woodworking.