16
Geotechnical News • September 2019
COMPUTING IN GEOTECHNICAL ENGINEERING
From the GS Board
sented with 25 delegates, followed by
Quebec with 4 delegates. The United
States was represented by two gradu-
ate students from Harvard University:
one Canadian, and one from the UK.
L.F. Cooling and G.G. Meyerhof, the
visitors from the UK, were included in
the 40 attendees.
Government and government agen-
cies were most represented with 25
delegates, including representatives
from the federal departments respon-
sible for public works, transportation,
agriculture, harbours and national
defence; Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec
and Prince Edward Island departments
of public works and highways; and the
Hydro Electric Power Corporation of
Ontario, among others. Seven academ-
ics attended representing University
of Alberta, University of Toronto,
Queen’s University, McGill Univer-
sity, École Polytechnique, University
of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia
Technical College. Five delegates rep-
resented various industries, including
Canada Cement Company, Imperial
Oil (Asphalt Division) and Foundation
Company of Canada. The two gradu-
ate students referred to above and one
engineering consultant rounded out the
delegates.
Robert Legget, then 42 years old, was
the conference chair. Later in 1947, he
joined the National Research Council
of Canada as the first Director of the
new Division of Building Research,
a position he held until he retired in
1969. Another notable conference
delegate was R.M. (Bob) Hardy, also
42 years old, the Dean of Engineering
at the University of Alberta. In 1951
Bob Hardy established a commercial
soil and concrete testing lab called
Materials Testing Laboratories, which
in 1954 morphed into R.M. Hardy and
Associates, a precursor to the present-
day Wood Group. Another notable
delegate was 25-year old C.F. (Char-
lie) Ripley, a “Hydraulic Engineer”
with the Prairie Farm Rehabilita-
tion Administration in Regina. In
1951 Charlie Ripley established the
geotechnical consulting firm Ripley
and Associates, a precursor to the
present-day Klohn Crippen Berger.
The Canadian graduate student from
Harvard University was 26-year old
F.L. (Lionel) Peckover, who went on
to become the Senior Soils Engineer
with the St. Lawrence Seaway Project
and then the Engineer of Geotechni-
cal Services with CN Rail. Lionel
Peckover is considered the “Father of
Railway Geotechnical Engineering in
Canada” (Mario Ruel, personal com-
munication).
G.C. (Gordon) McRostie also
attended. In 1947 he was a 24-year
old engineering consultant with N.B.
MacRostie Consulting Engineers in
Ottawa
5
. In 1950 he established the
first geotechnical consulting firm in
Ottawa, one of the first such firms in
Canada. In 2015 Gordon McRostie
was awarded a CGS Honorary Life
Membership for, among other things,
attending 66 of the 68 annual confer-
ences up to 2015. He also attended the
69
th
annual conference in 2016 and
was on the Local Organizing Com-
mittee of the 70
th
annual conference.
4
Newfoundland and Labrador was not represented, but it didn’t become a Canadian province unitl 1949.
5
N.B. MacRostie Consulting Engineers was a surveying and municipal engineering consultancy. In spite of the different spellings of their
last names, Norman MacRostie, the owner of the company, was Gordon McRostie’s uncle. Between 1949 and before Gordon McRostie
formed his own firm in 1950, he was a junior partner with the partnership MacRostie & McRostie (Michael W. St-Louis, Personal Com-
munication).
6
The proceedings of almost all of the annual conferences are available to download from the ‘Members Section’ of the CGS website www.
cgs.ca.
7
In 1947, there were no Canadian consulting firms specifically related to the soil mechanics-geotechnical field, although Foundation Com-
pany of Canada had formed a “Soil Engineering Department” in 1940 (Fred Matich, Personal Communication).
Photo 2: NRC Building, 100 Sussex Drive, in 1945 (photo from NRC
Archives). Édifice du CNRC, 100, promenade Sussex, en 1945.
