24
Geotechnical News • June 2019
COMPUTING IN GEOTECHNICAL ENGINEERING
From the GS Board
Closing remarks
All twelve women profiled in the
‘Women in Canadian Geotechnique’
initiative are known for their technical
competency, involvement with their
professional communities, and their
mentorship of younger geotechnical
professionals. This trend continues
with the growing number of women in
our geotechnical profession. As stated
in Part 1 of this series, the future of
women in Canadian geotechnique
looks very bright.
Acknowledgements
Several individuals have worked on
the ‘Women in Canadian Geotech-
nique’ initiative by interviewing the
profiled women, creating the posters
and assisting with French translations.
These individuals were acknowledged
in Part 1 of the series published in the
September 2018 issue of Geotechnical
News.
Andrea Lougheed, M.Sc., P.Eng.
(BC)
BGC Engineering Inc.
Suite 500-980 Howe Street
Vancouver, BC, V6Z 0C8
Book Review
Doug VanDine
How We Saw It: Interpreting
Earth from Air and Space;
The First 60 Years at J.D. Mol-
lard and Associates. 2018. By
Edward Willett
Published by J.D. Mollard and
Associates (2010) Limited, Re-
gina, SK. 118 p.
ISBN 978-0-9681002-3-3.
On February 5, 1956, at the age of
31, J.D. (Jack) Mollard started his
namesake consulting company in
Regina, SK. Jack passed away on
September 13, 2017. Almost every day
of the intervening 61 years, Jack put
his heart and soul into his company,
which has now grown into one of the
foremost geological engineering and
environmental consulting firms in
Canada
To celebrate 60 successful years in
business, the company started prepar-
ing How We Saw It in 2016. Unfor-
tunately, Jack did not see the project
completed or the book published. Had
he, I am sure he would have been
very pleased with the result. From the
Foreword, the purpose of the book is
threefold: a tribute to Jack, a descrip-
tion of the many areas in which J.D
Mollard and Associates (JDMA)
practices, and the story of how the
company has continually changed and
embraced new technologies.
The first two chapters are about the
Jack and the early years of JDMA.
They are about his growing up during
the depression on a farm near Watrous,
SK; his school years; his graduate
work at Purdue and Cornell univer-
sities; and his early work with the
Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Admin-
istration. During the first decade of
JDMA, Jack was the sole professional
and his wife, Mary Jean, was the
secretary. As a graduate student in the
late 1940s and early 1950s, Jack had
developed the skill of stereoscopic
air photo interpretation, which was
relatively new at the time, and through
JDMA he introduced that skill to
Canada and to a wide variety of engi-
neering and geological projects across
the country.
The next four chapters demonstrate
how Jack and his colleagues at JDMA
have applied their experience and
knowledge to “Terrain Analysis”,
“Water Resources”, “Linear Routing
Studies” and “Aggregate Exploration”;
initially using air photo interpretation,
and then with a host of expanded skill
sets. The chapters briefly describe
representative projects and use them
as examples of how air photo interpre-
tation and more advance technologies
have been applied to meet the needs
and requirements of JDMA’s clients.
And there were many projects to
choose from – JDMA having com-
pleted more than 5000 projects over
the past six decades. I was surprised to
find that three of the projects described
were ones with which I had been
involved.
The last chapter further describes the
new technologies adopted by JDMA
over the decades including satellite
imagery, geophysical surveys, ground-
penetrating radar, GIS, 3-D modelling,
LiDAR, and UAVs (drones).
The author, Edward Willett, is neither
an engineer nor a geoscientist; he’s a
Jack Mollard, mid-1980’s.
