INTRODUCTION OF 2003 LEGGET MEDAL WINNER
By Dr. Richard J. Bathurst at the Legget Award Ceremony held 29 September 2003 during the 56th Canadian Geotechncal Society Conference in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Dr. Lacasse, Ladies and Gentlemen it is a singular honour to be asked to introduce this year’s winner of the Canadian Geotechnical Society’s LEGGET MEDAL – Dr. R KERRY ROWE. Dr. Rowe is certainly deserving of the most senior and prestigious award of our society. I doubt that there is any member of the society from our most senior members to the youngest students of our profession who have not heard of Professor Rowe. I should like to take a few minutes, however, to highlight some of his professional accomplishments and to demonstrate why Dr. Rowe has received this award. Kerry is Australian by birth and completed his post-graduate education at the University of Sydney with a Ph.D in 1979. Fortunately for us, he immediately immigrated to Canada to take a teaching position at the University of Western Ontario and rapidly achieved full professor rank in 1986. He served two years as Associate Dean of Graduate Affairs in the Faculty of Engineering and shortly thereafter becoming Chair of the Department of Civil Engineering from 1992 to 2000. Much to the delight of the Kingston geotechincal community, he moved to Queen’s University in 2000 to join the Civil Engineering Department and to become Vice President of Research for the university. Kerry has made outstanding contributions with respect to technical achievements, academia and service to the geotechnical profession. A challenge to anyone trying to introduce Kerry on such an occasion as this is to give a synopsis of his career that can fairly capture his many successes. His CV alone runs 85 pages. For example he has published more that 300 technical papers (of which more than 150 are in peer-reviewed journals), 2 books, 13 book chapters, 175 conference papers and the list goes on. He has supervised more than 50 graduate students. His breadth of expertise spans many disciplines of geotechnical and geoenvironmental engineering. For example he has done seminal work in the area of diffusion characteristics of waste containment materials specifically related to diffusion as a critical mechanism for clay barriers, geomembranes and geosynthetic clay liners. This work led to the Geosynthetics Award of the Canadian Geotechnical Society (CGS) in 2000, the Keefer Medal of the Canadian Society of Civil Engineers in 2001 and the K.Y. Lo Medal of the Engineering Institute of Canada in 2003. Dr Rowe has developed modelling techniques for landfill leachate migration and his computer software programs POLLUTE and MIGRATE are used widely throughout the world. His landfill work has also focused on the clogging of leachate collection systems and has been recognised by a Ontario Ministry of Environment award and the Geoenviromental Award of the CGS in 1999 and 2000, respectively. He has also carried out work on geosynthetic reinforcement of embankments over soft ground and for retaining walls. In 2002 he was recognised for this work by winning the prestigious Giroud Lecture of the International Geosynthetics Society. In addition he has made important contributions to tunnelling in rock and soft soil. He is the current recipient of the largest operating grant awarded by the Natural Sciences and Research Council of Canada for civil engineering and was the first civil engineer to win the NSERC Steacie Fellowship. He has been an invited keynote speaker on more than 30 occasions and has acted as a consultant on more that 100 projects. Simultaneously, he has demonstrated leadership of learned societies as President of the Canadian Geotechnical Society 2000 to 2002 and President of the International Geosynthetics Society from 1990 to 1994. He is an elected fellow of six learned societies including the Canadian Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society of Canada. Meanwhile he finds time to be editor of the journal Geotextiles and Geomembranes, Associate Editor of the Canadian Geotechnical Journal and co-editor or associate editor of two journals and is on the editorial board of 13 other journals. Time permits that I can only mention some of the highlights of Kerry’s career. However, in summary, he has been a mentor to many, a valued research collaborator and educator, an outstanding technical contributor to the advancement of geotechnique as a researcher and consultant, a leader and, an outstanding international ambassador to our profession and Canada. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in congratulating this year’s CGS Legget Medal winner, Dr. R. KERRY ROWE.
By Dr. R. Kerry Rowe
Ladies and Gentlemen: It is such a wonderful bonus to be honoured for doing what one enjoys doing, and it is a very special honour to be awarded the highest form of recognition in the Canadian Geotechnical Society, the Legget Medal. Dr. Legget made an amazing contribution to both the technical and professional aspects of geotechnique in his adopted country. When I think of those contributions, and of the outstanding contributions of those who have received this medal before me, I am truly humbled.
At a time like this there are so many people to thank. Reflecting on the people who have made a major contribution to my presence here on the podium today, I must start with my first boss after I graduated from engineering, Bruce Rodway. When I went to work with Bruce I had no plans for graduate studies. But after 3 months he persuaded me that I really should go back to the University of Sydney and undertake a PhD (I suspect with some behind the scenes encouragement from Professor Ted Davis) and he arranged for me to receive 3 years leave to work full time on a PhD and then come back and work with him – which I did. Bruce mentored me in my early professional years and taught me many things that you don’t learn at school – especially about management of people – which have served me so well to the present day.
A number of people at the University of Sydney were also an enormous influence. Both as a PhD student and subsequently when I was back in industry liaising on contract research we were funding at the University, I had an opportunity to work with a truly outstanding group of individuals who each, in different ways, shaped my approach to many things but most especially research. In particular Ted Davis (my supervisor), John Booker, Harry Poulos, Philip Pells, John Carter and John Small were all wonderful sources of knowledge, help and inspiration. I also benefited enormously from a very long and fruitful friendship and collaboration with John Booker which continued up to his untimely death in 1998.
When Kath and I arrived at London (Ontario) airport on a cold and snowy day in December 1978, we were met at the airport by Bob Quigley and Barry Vickery. Barry was sporting a broken arm from a slip on an icy path a week before and we were wondering what we had let ourselves in for! It turned out to be the start of a wonderful life in Canada.
When I joined the faculty at the University of Western Ontario (Western), my geotechnical colleagues Bob Quigley, Kwan Lo and Milos Novak were all middle aged, full professors with international reputations. I had just turned 27, was starting an academic career and had a lot to learn. They went out of their way to be welcoming and supportive. It is something of a shock to realize that I am now older than they were then – oh how one’s perception of age changes with time! One of the things this experience taught me was the value and importance of mentoring, because this mentoring was also a major factor in bringing me to this podium today. At a time when there is a whole new generation of
young faculty members in our geotechnical community, the clear lesson I learned from these colleagues and friends is how important it is for those of us in senior positions today to devote our energies to mentoring the next generation. I hope all of our senior geotechnical faculty in the universities will take it as a special responsibility (and pleasure) to ensure the professional development of the many young professors who have recently entered the universities.
When I accepted the job at Western I was hoping to work with Kwan Yee Lo since his field was closest to mine. And that I did. My first papers with a Canadian collaborator were with Kwan and we are still collaborating today. Kwan also introduced me to industry and my first consulting projects in Canada were in association with Kwan.
While I had expected there to be a natural fit with Kwan, Bob Quigley was working in a very different area and the fit was not obvious. However it wasn’t long before Bob was persuading me to help him on work he was doing related to diffusion of contaminants at a landfill site in Sarnia. This was the start of another very long and productive collaboration that continued until his untimely death in 1995. Bob introduced me to the field of geoenvironmental engineering long before the term was ever coined and today it represents about 70% of my research and consulting activity.
The Geotechnical Research Centre (GRC) that we formed at Western in the 1980s was a great model for university-industry interaction and gave me the opportunity to be involved in numerous applied research projects. This in turn set the stage for the many consulting projects with which I have been involved over the years. The GRC has a wonderful group of people and it was very tough leaving Kwan Lo, Ernest Yanful, Julie Shang and Hesham El-Naggar to take up my current position as VP(Research) at Queen’s University. However on the plus side, at Queen’s I also have the opportunity to work with another outstanding group in the GeoEngineering Centre at Queen’s-RMC. This is a new and exciting aspect of my career in Canada working closely with colleagues such as Ian Moore, Richard Bathurst, Richard Brachman, Graeme Skinner, Heather Jamieson, Gerry Raymond, Bernie Kueper, Kent Novakowski, Mark Diederichs, Jean Hutchinson, Vicky Remenda and Steve McKinnon.
If the work with which I have been involved has had an impact, it is in very large part because of the opportunity to collaborate with outstanding colleagues, such as those I have mentioned, graduate students too numerous to mention, collaborators at universities in 12 different countries, and numerous individuals from industry who have drawn my attention to some of the most interesting problems on which I have worked. In fact there are more than 130 paper co-authors – definitely too many to list – who have each made a significant contribution to the work for which I am being recognised.
I have been fortunate to have been involved in many projects, be they related to tunnelling, embankments, foundations, landfills or remediation. These have not only provided the satisfaction of allowing me to directly apply research findings in practice, but have permitted me to identify those practical problems that still require more research, and hence have generated the next set of thesis topics. This work, and the related interaction with the outstanding individuals working for the geotechnical consulting firms and geosynthetics manufacturers, has been remarkably rewarding.
I have had the privilege of working with and mentoring a large number of outstanding graduate students. Some have moved on to become professors themselves, others to positions with Canada’s leading consulting firms, and some are running their own consulting companies. Probably the greatest pleasure I have had as a professional is in working closely with those students, seeing them develop over the period of their studies and then watching proudly as their careers flourish. I am indebted to them – not only did they do so much of the hard work, they challenged me and prompted ideas that would have never surfaced without that interaction.
As I draw to a conclusion, I would like to say a few words about the geotechnical community in Canada. When I attended my first CGS Conference I was struck by how welcoming and friendly the Society was to a brand new young professor from Australia. I was also struck by the strong partnership between industry and academe both at the conference itself and in all other aspects of the Society. Through the dedication of several generations of outstanding individuals in both academe and industry, Canadians have made an amazing contribution to geotechnique around the world – far more in proportion to the size of the land mass than the size of the population. The Canadian Geotechnical Society is, I would suggest, the most vibrant geotechnical society in the world – probably in large part because it is so effective in bringing industry and academe together; and because of its breadth – encompassing the full range of geosciences and geoengineering. This has provided the springboard from which so many Canadians, including many previous recipients of the Legget Medal, some of whom are here today, have been able to make a tremendous impact on both research and practice around the world. It truly is a privilege to be a member of such a wonderful society.
We have representatives from 17 countries at this conference. This is quite amazing for a national conference and highlights the important role that international outreach should take as the CGS evolves in future years. The world is shrinking, and Canada’s need to compete in international markets is only going to increase. We have done well in the past, but we can not rest on our laurels. Both as individuals and as a Society we must increase our international outreach and in so doing realize the benefits of learning from others and making others aware of what we have done, and can do, in Canada.
Lastly, but most importantly, I must thank the other four “K’s” in my family – my children Katrina, Kieron and Kendall, and especially my wife Kathy- for their understanding, patience and support- without which I would not be here today.
Thank you.
