Geotechnical News • December 2016
7
CANADIAN GEOTECHNICAL SOCIETY NEWS
Message from the President
It’s been a tradition that the last Presi-
dent’s Message for Geotechnical News
in a President’s mandate is to briefly
describe what has been accomplished
over the past two years of his or her
mandate. It should not be a surprise to
anyone who knows me that I am going
to deviate from that tradition.
I have briefly summarized the 2015
and 2016 accomplishments that have
been made by the CGS Executive
Committee, Board of Directors, more
than 100 Society volunteers and CGS
Headquarters staff in my 2016 Presi-
dent’s Report. You can find this report
either on the CGS website home page
in the area called “News Updates” or
“Latest CGS News” (depending on
whether the new website is up and
running by the time this article is pub-
lished), or in the 2016 Annual Report
which is also on the CGS website.
I guess what I’m saying is, visit the
CGS website
. A printed
copy can be obtained from CGS Head-
quarters.
So what else is there to report since
I wrote my President’s Report? The
CGS held the very successful
5th
Canadian Young Geotechnical
Engineer and Geoscientists Confer-
ence
in Whistler, BC, thanks to
Julian
McGreevy
,
Maraika De Groot
and
their Organizing Committee. The
CGS also held the very well attended
and equally successful 69th Annual
CGS Conference, aka
GeoVancouver
2016
, thanks to
Mustapha Zergoun
,
Andrea Lougheed
and their Local
Organizing Committee.
This fall,
Dr. Ross Boulanger
of the
University of California – Davis Cam-
pus presented the 98th Cross Canada
Lecture Tour (CCLT). Many thanks to
Ross.
Dr. Vaughan Griffiths
of the
Colorado School of Mines will be pre-
senting the 99th CCLT in the spring of
2017, and
Dr. Jean-Marie Konrad
of
the Univérsité Laval will be presenting
the 100th CCLT in the fall of 2017.
Also this fall, the 2015 Colloquium
speaker
Dr. Greg Siemens
of the
Royal Military College will embark on
a Colloquium mini-tour, in which he
will take his Colloquium presentation
across Canada – a “new tradition”,
that was recently accepted by the CGS
Board of Directors.
In October, the CGS St John’s New-
foundland Section’s proposal to host
the 72nd CGS Annual Conference in
the fall of 2019, was accepted by the
Board of Directors. The CGS Annual
Conference hasn’t been held there
since 1996, so start looking for your
gumboots and sou-westers!
Before we get to the 72nd Annual
Conference we have the 70th CGS
Annual Conference in Ottawa next
fall.
GeoOttawa 2017
will be chaired by
Mamadou Fall
. The
7th GeoHazards
Conference
will be held in Canmore,
Alberta in the spring of 2018 and will
be chaired by
Mike Porter.
Finally,
the 71st CGS conference,
GeoEdmon-
ton 2018
, will be held in Edmonton in
the fall of 2018 and co-chaired by
Don
Lewycky
and
Seán MacEoin
. Both
GeoOttawa 2017 and GeoEdmon-
ton 2018 will be held in conjunction
with the International Association of
Hydrogeologists – Canadian National
Chapter. Abstracts for GeoOttawa
2017 are due J
anuary 15, 2017
.
Other important dates to keep in mind
are that
membership and corporate
sponsorship renewals
are due
Janu-
ary 1, 2017
; nominations for the
2018
CGS Colloquium
are due
January
31, 2017
; nominations for the
2017
Shuster Medal
are due
January 15,
2017
; and finally, submissions for the
Canadian Geotechnical Achieve-
ments Project
are due
March 1,
2017
. You will find more informa-
tion on all of these elsewhere in this
issue of Geotechnical News, on the
CGS Website or by contacting Lisa at
In closing, I would like to quote sev-
eral sentences from my 2016 Presi-
dent’s Report
“I would like to extend my sincerest
appreciation to all CGS members who
participate and who have helped move
the CGS forward both last year and
this year. I would specifically like to
single out the CGS Headquarters staff,
Michel Aubertin
,
Wayne Gibson
and
Lisa McJunkin
. Without them,
the CGS would not be able to func-
tion. And I know that for all the work
that goes on, contributions are made
“in-kind” by companies, universities,
spouses, partners, etc. Thanks to them
as well.”
“At the beginning of 2017,
Dr.
Dharma Wijewickreme
will assume
the duties as CGS President, and he
and his administration will take over
Doug VanDine, President of
Canadian Geotechnical Society
