Geosynthetica congratulates Kent von Maubeuge for 30 years in geosynthetics with NAUE! Kent joined the international company in April 1991, not long after the International Geosynthetics Society (IGS) had honored it with an IGS Award for NAUE’s innovation of the needlepunch method for manufacturing geosynthetic clay liners (GCLs). Von Maubeuge quickly became not just an expert within the company about GCLs but a barrier systems expert for the global field.
VON MAUBEUGE IN THE FIELD
Across these decades, von Maubeuge has been a strong advocate for geosynthetics. He has served actively with various engineering professional associations and standards bodies, such as DIN, CEN, ISO, and ASTM International. He has also served on the IGS Council, helped establish the IGS Technical Committee on Barrier Systems, and contributed numerous papers and lectures to technical conferences and professional societies around the world. For more than 20 years, he has lectured on engineering at the University of Applied Sciences in Ostwestfalen-Lippe and for the past 8 years he has also lectured at the University of Applied Sciences in Bielefeld.
During Covid, he has also become a frequent instructor with geosynthetic engineering webinars.
That dedication and participation in the field has yielded numerous recognitions.
Notably, von Maubeuge’s work in testing, standardization, and consensus-building efforts with ASTM have earned him three Awards of Appreciation (1996, 2000, 2001) and the prestigious Award of Merit (2019). The latter award, which was presented in June 2019 during the Committee D35 on Geosynthetics meeting in Denver, is the highest society award granted to an individual ASTM member and includes the honorary title of Fellow.
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In 2018, he was selected to deliver the prestigious Koerner Lecture, which he built around the topic of “Geosynthetic barriers in regulations and recommendations in line with the ISO design guide.” It was delivered with high marks in Cairo in November of that year.
Safe to say, Kent von Maubeuge has had a wide-reaching and beneficial impact on the field of geosynthetics.
NAUE’S STRONG SUPPORT SYSTEM
Individual impact on this scale requires good support, of course, and the NAUE Group has certainly provided that, granting von Maubeuge the opportunity to be so internationally active—like the company itself. As his career has progressed, NAUE has grown considerably, such as through the establishment of a major manufacturing facility in Malaysia to serve Asian markets and the dynamic expansion and redevelopment of the international NAUE manufacturing and distribution center in Espelkamp-Fiestel, Germany. (Editor’s note: If you ever have an opportunity to visit the corporate headquarters, it’s recommended.) The company has continued to innovate in manufacturing (e.g., composite reinforcement materials like Combigrid® and the 100% biodegradable Secutex® Green), expand its network, develop design software tools, and much more.
To Kent von Maubeuge, we say CONGRATULATIONS. And to both Kent and NAUE, we say THANK YOU. We look forward to more.
