Environmental engineering

Doug VanDine answers the question "What are you doing to keep out of trouble these days"? He describes his transition from being a geotechnical design engineer to a researcher and writer of geotechnical engineering history. His first publication gave a history of the Drynoch Landslide in BC, which has been moving for over 6,000 years. He has also researched and published biographiesy of Robert Leggett, " a father of geotechnical engineering in Canada" and Major Leslie Charles, who located much of the Hudson Bay Railway from The Pas to Churchill Manitoba a century ago.

Geotechnical engineer Doug VanDine describes his experiences as an employee of a consulting engineering firm, a professor at Queen's University in Kingston, and as a sole practitioner engineering consultant. Drawn to geotechnical engineering by his love of math, science, and the outdoors, he worked in the western Arctic on three projects after completing his undergraduate degree at Queen's University in 1972. He returned to Queen's to earn a Master's degree that included a thesis based on the Drynoch Landslide in British Columbia, and notes that his subsequent career as a sole practitioner engineering consultant "kept coming back to landslides". He taught geotechnical engineering at Queen's for four years, developing two-week summer fieldwork projects that engaged students in the hands-on practice of the discipline. After purchasing the contents of his office at Thurber Engineering for $500, he founded VanDine Geological Engineering. His many projects include pioneering studies on debris flows that led to assessing and developing mitigation strategies for debris flows on the Squamish and Coquihalla Highways in British Columbia. He also served on the Oil and Gas Appeals Tribunal, the Forestry Appeals Commission and the Environmental Appeals Board in British Columbia, and conducted practice reviews and wrote guidelines for the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of BC. He describes his transition from being a geotechnical design engineer to a researcher and writer of geotechnical engineering history. His first publication gave a history of the Drynoch Landslide in BC, which has been moving for over 6,000 years. He has also researched and published biographies of Robert Leggett, " a father of geotechnical engineering in Canada" and Major Leslie Charles, who located much of the Hudson Bay Railway from The Pas to Churchill Manitoba a century ago.

Friends of Sarah Devereaux's family were civil engineers, so she knew from an early age that this would likely be her calling. While an undergraduate student at the Technical University of Nova Scotia, her interests transitioned from structural to environmental engineering, and she stayed to earn a Master's degree in Water Resources. She then joined Halifax office of Dillon Consulting, initially conducting construction reviews, and then transitioning into project management, starting with small projects and graduating t multimillion dollar assignments. She designed storm water systems, storm water ponds, and landfills and became the business unit manager for community infrastructures. She describes several projects, including: work for the Municipality of Guysborough, Nova Scotia; review of waste management systems for remote coastal communities in British Columbia; and resolving the "Million Dollar Hole" left at the US naval base in Argentia Newfoundland. She also volunteered with Engineers Nova Scotia, the Consulting Engineers of Nova Scotia, and eventually Engineers Canada. She has served on committees dedicated to increasing the participation of women in the engineering profession.

Dr. Suzelle Barrington was the first Canadian woman to receive a doctorate in agricultural engineering from Macdonald Campus at McGill University. She grew up on a farm near Moose Creek, a half hour east of Ottawa, and, after a year of science at Carleton University, switched to agricultural engineering at McGill. She was turned down for her first job with the Government of Ontario because she was a woman, but got a job as an agronomist in Howick Quebec. She got a job as an agricultural engineer in 1978 in Huntington, and worked hard to improve the productivity of her team. She returned to Macdonald Campus to do graduate studies, receiving a PhD in 1985, and continued there as a professor. Her doctoral research was on means to seal wastewater in soils. She continued on with odor control, building an Olfactometer to expose individuals to odors in a controlled manner, and so developing standards to quantify acceptable concentrations of odor in waste or factory discharges to the atmosphere. She developed a system for anaerobic digestion of wastewater, sludge, or livestock manure that did not require an expensive digestor. She has also worked extensively to promote engineering to women and generally increase the diversity of engineers, serving as President of the Women in Engineering Committee of the Quebec Order of Engineers. In "retirement", she has just finished writhing the history of subsurface drainage in Quebec, which dates from approximately 1920. She expresses her concerns about the amount of waste, including food waste, generated annually in Canada, and about environmental degradation and its impact on climate change. She closes with advice to a high-school student considering a career in engineering, and to a newly graduated Engineer-in-Training.