President’s Message


Bryan Watts, P.Eng.
Dear Colleagues,

The beginning of 2012 finds the Canadian Geotechnical Society in good health. Our Executive Committee enters its second year with two new members, Dr. Baolin Wang, who will represent the Sections and, Dr. Lukas Arenson, who will represent the Divisions. Dr. John C. Sobkowicz is the VP, Technical, Dr. Jean Marie Konrad is the VP, Communications, and Mr. Peter Gaffran is the VP, Finance. We thank Ms. Marcia MacLellan who represented the Sections in 2011 and, Dr. Chris Hawkes, represented the Divisions. Ably assisting the Executive Committee are our Secretary-General, Dr. Victor Sowa and our Administrator, Mr. Wayne Gibson. Ms. Lisa McJunkin, Administrator Assistant, handles all of our member inquiries and is really the voice of the CGS.

This year is the 125th Anniversary of the Engineering Institute of Canada which is the umbrella organization for technical societies in Canada. “Canada’s well-known iron-ring, The Canadian Academy of Engineering and a model for the incorporation of Canada’s Provincial Engineering Associations were all originated in the EIC”. The EIC will celebrate with two award ceremonies this year; the first will be at the Westin Hotel on February 25, 2012 in Ottawa and the second in Edmonton on June 7 at the Shaw Convention Centre as part of the Canadian Society of Civil Engineering who were the founding society of the EIC so are also celebrating their 125th year anniversary.

The CGS will be particularly well represented at these award evenings. Our Dr. R. Kerry Rowe of Queen’s University will receive the Sir John Kennedy Award, the senior award of the EIC. This follows his Casagrande Lecture at the PanAm conference in Toronto last year, distinction conferred by the International Society of Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering. Our Mr. Fred Matich will receive the Julian C. Smith Medal for achievements in the development of Canada. Our Dr. Derek Martin of the University of Alberta will receive the John B. Stirling Medal. Also, our Dr. Doug Stead of Simon Fraser University and Dr. Hesham El Naggar of the University of Western Ontario have been made Fellows of the EIC. Congratulations to all recipients and thanks to all nominators for taking the time to honour your colleagues.

I just finished registering on our new CGS website for 2012. It went especially smoothly. If you have any issues with the website please contact the CGS Administrator. The Executive Committee just concluded a three year agreement with BiTech for Geotechnical News and distribution of CGS publications. We are printing another 1,000 copies of the English version of the 4th Edition, Canadian Foundation Engineering Manual and the French version of the 4th Edition, Canadian Foundation Engineering Manual is well advanced.

The next CGS sponsored conference is the 11th International Symposium on Landslides / 2nd North American Symposium on Landslides from June 3 to 8th in Banff, Alberta. The 65th Canadian Geotechnical Conference will be held at the Fairmont Hotel in downtown Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada from September 30 to October 3, 2012. The geotechnical group at the University of Alberta will be hosting the David C. Sego Symposium to celebrate his retirement from 33 years of teaching and research from 1977-2010. In 1977 I took the permafrost engineering course at the University of Alberta taught by Dr. N.R. Morgenstern where Dr. Sego gave occasional guest lectures. I remember those first graduate school years fondly as I shared an office with Drs. Oldrich Hungr, John Sobkowicz, and Jean-Marie Konrad!

Recently, the CGS received an enquiry from the President of a geotechnical society in a Mediterranean European country. That note was to enquire about job prospects in Canada because there was such high unemployment among geotechnical engineers in that country. This reminded me how fortunate we are to live in such a prosperous country with hard-working people. Remember that we need more members in our society; most geotechnical engineers in the world would consider themselves fortunate to belong to such an accomplished technical society.

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