The British Dam Society
The BDS provides technical subjects relating to the planning, design, construction, maintenance, operation, safety, social and environmental aspects of dams and reservoirs.
- Date
- 22 April 2024
- Time
This event has now ended
Overview
Please note: the BDS annual general meeting (AGM) will precede the lecture.
Starting his career as a young cooperative education student at Harza Engineering Company in Chicago, Illinois (USA), Mike navigated a complex and challenging career stream dedicated to dam safety and service to the industry. He worked through professional and personal highs and lows with the backdrop of some of the largest (and smallest) worldwide dams, including Guri, Bath County (pumped-storage hydro), Aswan, Three Gorges, Oroville (spillway recovery), San Vicente (dam raise), Diamer Basha, and others.
This featured presentation follows Mike through his career with reflections on many professional and personal lessons learned from successes and failures. These career experiences include growing up through the early days of roller-compacted concrete (RCC) applications for dams from developing small 2000 cubic meter earthen dam overtopping protection schemes to chairing the international joint venture assigned as construction manager of the largest RCC dam in the world – the 272-meter-high, 17 million cubic meter Diamer Basha Hydroelectric Development (Pakistan).
Nowadays as a senior consultant approaching retirement (slowly), Mike shares his grand experiences and lessons as part of his capacity-building dialog with the young professionals and commiseration of like-experiences with his fellow seasoned colleagues.
Speaker
Michael F. Rogers
Stantec Consulting Services Inc.
vice president and senior consulting civil engineer
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Michael F. Rogers
Mike is vice president and senior consulting civil engineer at Stantec. He has more than 40 years of experience in the dams and hydropower industry. He is a recognized technical expert in dam engineering, with a focus on safety, design, and construction. He has a specialisation in roller-compacted concrete (RCC) projects and a strong commitment to participation in professional societies for the practice of dam and hydropower engineering.
He graduated with a Bachelor of Science Degree (with Honors) from the Illinois Institute of Technology and proceeded to receive a Master of Science Degree (specialty in hydraulics engineering) from the University of Minnesota with graduate work at the renowned St. Anthony Falls Hydraulics Laboratory. He carries a professional engineering registration in eight states in the USA, plus the Province of British Columbia in Canada.
Mike has had a long and distinguished career in the dam profession starting work at Harza Engineering Company in 1989 as a student intern. He quickly became captivated with dams working on several of the largest dam and hydropower projects in the world. Mike has worked on more than 150 projects around the world, including planning, design, and construction assignments. His recent assignments include risk assessment, senior technical review, and Board of Consultant assignments.
Throughout his career, Mike has served in a variety of leadership roles within industry-related organisations, including the American Society of Civil Engineers, American Association of State Dam Safety Officials, United States Society on Dams (USSD) and International Commission on Large Dams (ICOLD).
His contributions included seven years on the USSD Board of Directors with 3 years as President; and seven years on the ICOLD Board with three years as Vice President (Americas) and four years as president. He also served as chair of the USSD and ICOLD technical committees on concrete dams. While as chair of the ICOLD Concrete Dams Committee, he championed the new Bulletin 177 on RCC Dams.
