CANADIAN GEOTECHNICAL SOCIETY NEWS
Message from the President
Before I tell you what’s coming up
and what’s been going on in the CGS,
I would like to talk about “history”;
specifically, Canadian geotechnical
history and the history of the Canadian
Geotechnical Society. My bachelor’s
degree was in Geological Engineer-
ing, where I learned that the first
principle of geology is “the processes
of the past are the key to the future”.
Therefore I believe it’s important for
all of us to know something about our
geotechnical history.
In the early 1980s, I served on a
forerunner of the CGS Heritage
Committee with
Jack Clark
(CGS
President 1979-1980),
Dave Devenny
(CGS President 1985-1986) and
Dave
Townsend
. At that time I was the
“young guy” on the committee. We
started to document, both in written
form and by recorded interviews,
the early geotechnical history of this
country and the contributions of the
early Canadian geotechnical pioneers.
The work of the Heritage Commit-
tee has continued and the scope has
expanded under the Chairs
Jim Gra-
ham
(CGS President 1997-1998 and
CGS Secretary General 1999-2007),
Mustapha Zergoun
,
Suzanne Powell
and currently
Dave Cruden
.
One of the more active CGS com-
mittees, the Heritage Committee has
collected a great deal of Canadian
geotechnical history that is housed
“virtually” on the CGS web page at
Currently the sub-pages
include “Heritage Lectures”, “Pho-
tographic Collections”, “Information
and Location for Archived Records”,
“Lives Lived” and “Recommended
Reading”. These headings certainly
Doug VanDine, President of
Canadian Geotechnical Society
