Dr. R.S. (Rod) Read, the firm’s President and Principal Consultant, holds a B.A.Sc. in Geological Engineering (University of British Columbia 1984) and a Ph.D. in Civil/Geological Engineering (University of Manitoba 1994). He has over 35 years of experience in civil and geological engineering projects. Dr. Read is a member of the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta (P. Eng., P. Geol.), British Columbia (P. Eng., P. Geo.), Saskatchewan (P. Eng., P. Geo.), and Manitoba (P. Eng.), and several other professional societies and associations. He has been engaged as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Calgary, and as co-chair of several international conferences.
Dr. Rod Read, P.Eng., P.Geo., P.Geol.
Dr. Read’s career experience includes projects related to railway construction in rugged terrain, field characterization for mine and dam development, rock mechanics research for underground nuclear waste disposal concepts, pipeline geohazard assessment in diverse settings, supervision for rock slope stabilization, petroleum geomechanics evaluations, tunnel site investigation and instrumentation, planning for a world-class rock avalanche monitoring system, and geotechnical engineering analysis for pipeline development and integrity management. He is experienced in the application of FLAC and other numerical codes to conduct complex analyses and has managed diverse field characterization and laboratory testing programs.
Turtle Mountain Monitoring Project, Crowsnest Pass, Alberta, Canada
Highlights of his career and related projects include the following:
- Construction inspection of Canadian Pacific Railway mainline double-tracking west of Rogers Pass, British Columbia
- Geotechnical field characterization and test diversion tunnel supervision for the Oldman River Dam in southern Alberta
- Principal Investigator for several large multi-disciplinary in-situ investigations at AECL’s Underground Research Laboratory studying rock mass response to excavation and heating, tunnel instability and excavation damage zone (EDZ) development
- Engineering consulting to international agencies on rock mechanics issues related to nuclear waste disposal concepts, including monitoring technologies
- Geohazard assessment, geotechnical monitoring system design, and project engineering for the Turtle Mountain Monitoring Project in Crowsnest Pass, Alberta – the site of the 1903 Frank Slide
- Pipeline geohazard assessment in South and North America in tropical, temperate and Arctic settings with diverse terrain
- Northern pipeline geotechnical engineering including analysis of northern trenching trials, geomechanical tests of frozen soil, right-of-way preparation, and karst collapse
- Petroleum geomechanics projects involving numerical analysis of pipeline deformation caused by slope movement, gas storage feasibility and applications of microseismic monitoring, water disposal issues for oil sands development, and borehole stability of wells and horizontal directional drillholes
Since 1987, Dr. Read has authored or co-authored numerous published articles and reports on various technical aspects of his work and has received awards from the Tunnelling Association of Canada and the Association of Professional Engineers of Manitoba.