Employee spotlight: August 2021

Structural Soils Success at this Year’s AGS Awards

This year’s Association of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Specialists (AGS) Awards brought triple success for Structural Soils, an RSK group company. At the AGS general meeting, held on 11 May 2021, three members of the data management team were presented with awards to “thank them for their contribution and dedication to the AGS over the past year”.

Mark Bevan, Associate Director and Data Management Team Leader, and Principal Ground Investigation Data Managers Jackie Bland and Paul Chaplin were presented with their Data Management Working Group Award during the virtual meeting.

Mark, Jackie and Paul are members of AGS’s Data Management Working Group that worked on the development of a new version of the AGS Data Format. The data format “allows for seamless sharing of data between different software used within the geotechnical/geoenvironmental industry”. The new data format, version 4.1, was launched in December 2020 to follow updated industry standards.

For over 20 years, Mark has headed Structural Soils’ industry-leading data management services. More recently, Jackie and Paul joined Mark’s team, bringing with them their own industry experience and specialisms to further grow the business’s capabilities in the sector.

Congratulations to Mark, Jackie and Paul on their industry recognition!

Lucky’s lucky day

Congratulations to Malakiya (Lucky) Nkhumeleni from RGM in Johannesburg, South Africa, who has recently become a Certificated Natural Scientist in the field of water resources science. The registered scientist status, equivalent to chartership, has been awarded through the South African Council for Natural Scientific Professions (SACNASP), the legislated regulatory body for natural science practitioners in South Africa.

Lucky, who currently works as a junior consultant, had to demonstrate skills in hydrogeology to achieve SACNASP registered scientist status.

SACNASP has a mission “to establish, direct, sustain and ensure a high level of professionalism and ethical conscience amongst [its] scientists”, and the rigorous application process involved an evaluation of documentation and referee reports by the organisation’s Professional Advisory Committee before the application could be approved by the Registrations Committee.

Roseanna Bloxham, Acting Country Manager for South Africa, says, “Congratulations for a well-deserved success! I am so pleased to see Lucky formally registered and am looking forward to seeing his future accomplishments.”

Well done, Lucky!