CANADIAN GEOTECHNICAL SOCIETY NEWS
Message from the President
As we enter the spring of 2018, it is
my pleasure to write this message and
share some thoughts for your consid-
eration, along with a number of Cana-
dian Geotechnical Society updates.
As the learned Society for geotechni-
cal engineering and related geosci-
ences in Canada, our key focus has
been, and is, to serve our membership
through various avenues such as:
advancing knowledge via research and
innovation, dissemination of technical
and scientific knowledge, and foster-
ing opportunities for exchange of
information amongst academia, indus-
try, and government. We continually
perform very well along these lines of
focus and contribute to the recognition
of well qualified geo-professionals,
which enables us to provide high qual-
ity professional services and geotech-
nical products to the society-at-large.
The assurance of quality is one of the
keys to the sustainability and reli-
ability of what we do as professionals.
With ever-increasing competition in
the market place, balancing the quality
a key challenge and it is becoming
a dominant driver. In this regard, I
believe that it is timely and important
for us to ask the question: “How can
we help provide incentives and sup-
port to geo-professionals to deliver
high quality products and services
in geotechnique and justify fair and
appropriate compensation in a highly
competitive business environment?”
It is sometimes considered that the
latter “non-technical” issues should
be addressed by professional licens-
ing bodies and other similar entities,
and they need not be in the purview
of learned societies like the CGS. I
personally believe that our Society can
also contribute to this key aspect of
our professional endeavours.
Our geo-profession has inherently
unique attributes as we deal with
earth-based materials that are highly
complex, variable, and compounded
with uncertainties. For example, our
Dharma Wijewickreme, President of
Canadian Geotechnical Society
