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Geotechnical News • June 2019
CANADIAN GEOTECHNICAL SOCIETY NEWS
high quality submissions highlighting
the contributions of well-deserving
members. Please keep this in mind and
work in coming months to nominate
your colleagues as EIC Fellows and
Award candidates. Consult the EIC
website (
eic-ici.ca
) for more details.
You must make your submissions to
the CGS before July 15, 2019.
Our young professionals
As we focus more interest toward the
new generation, I want to highlight the
importance of the CGS Colloquium,
created for young members in 1977. In
2016, the Colloquium Speakers were
offered by the CGS and Canadian
Foundation for Geotechnique (CFG)
the possibility of doing a “Lecture
Series” to deliver their presentation
across Canada with focus on engaging
students in Universities. This was an
idea coming from the CGS Executive
Committee. As Kevin Biggar, CFG
President, put it to me when met at
the EIC Gala, “Getting our best and
brightest [young geotechs] in front
of university students, I think, was a
stroke of brilliance”.
The 2018 Colloquium speaker, Matt
Lato, accepted the mandate and got
organized to deliver great presenta-
tions in Universities across the country
in 2019. So far, the response to these
events has been very good. Such
dynamic interactions with both gradu-
ate and undergraduate students really
arouse their interest. This initiative
contributes greatly to attracting high-
quality talent to our business. Thank
you, Matt, for accepting the challenge!
The CGS also thanks the Canadian
Foundation for Geotechnique for
contributing to the funding of the
Colloquium Lecture Series. We are
still looking at ways of improving this
program to make it even more popular
than ever.
On a similar front, I was happy to act
as one of the judges for the Branko
Ladanyi Contest in Montreal in early
March. This annual event, organized
since 2009 by the local CGS Section,
saw six graduate students present
their research projects. We saw very
dynamic demonstrations by smart
students eager to apply their find-
ings in practice. Jonathan Mole from
Université de Sherbrooke
won the
competition and will receive support
to attend the CGS Conference, GeoSt.
John’s 2019. Well done Jonathan and
thanks to all others!
To further enhance our contact with
students, Maraika De Groot, our
Young Professional representative to
the executive committee, is working
on developing University Student
Chapters as a pilot project this fall.
This will be in addition to the CGS’s
strong support for the next cYGEGC
2019, which will be held a few days
before GeoSt.John’s 2019. The CGS
VP Finance, Kent Bannister and
myself are proud to have been invited
to present keynote addresses by the
organizing committee led by Vincent
Castonguay.
In upcoming messages, I will share
more ideas and initiatives taken by the
CGS toward our young geoprofession-
als.
Cross Canada Lecture Tour
(CCLT)
The CCLT Spring 2019 speaker, Prof.
Charles Shackelford (Colorado State
University), should have completed
most of his tour by the time this
magazine is published. I also am really
looking forward to seeing next fall our
CCLT speaker, Ian Moore (Queen’s
University).
The Canadian Foundation
Engineering Manual CFEM
The CGS Executive Committee made
a firm commitment to show tan-
gible progress on the CFEM. Let me
provide you a brief update. The CGS
VP Technical, Rob Kenyon, informs
me that the Manual update is well
underway. The CGS has retained Ken
Skaftfeld as the Manual Coordina-
tor. Ken had been responsible for the
Errata compilation for the CFEM
4th Edition. The goal is to release
online the next edition of the Manual.
This will allow the CGS to gradually
deliver the manual, chapter by chapter,
and will facilitate later updating. Ken,
Rob and the Technical Advisory Com-
mittee have completed a review of the
proposed manual contents. Chapter
lead authors have been and will be
approached. Please do not hesitate to
contact Ken Skaftfeld (
kskaftfeld@
trekgeotechnical.ca
) or Rob Kenyon
(
if you are
able to help.
GeoSt.John’s 2019
We invite you to register for the 72nd
CGS Annual Conference (GeoSt.
John’s 2019) that will be held in St.
John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador,
from September 29 to October 2nd!
Why should you attend?
• This is one of the best opportuni-
ties to learn from the leaders and
rising young stars - and have fun
doing it!
• You get exposed to the best stan-
dard of practice in the industry
from the best practitioners who
share both their success case his-
tories and what they have learned
from some mistakes.
• You also get to see the latest “state
of the art” development through
research from academia.
• Best of all, this is a very pleasant
way to network with colleagues
and top guns from across the
country and around the world who
share the same passion as you.
• By visiting exhibitors, you are up to
date on the latest tools, techniques,
specialized expertise and recent
software developments.
• You earn professional development
hours required to maintain your
provincial or territorial engineer-
ing registration.
How to get permission to
attend?
As a young engineer, I often used the
above arguments to convince my boss
to allow me to go to the CGS confer-
ence. This is an investment in the
