David Wood was thinking about retirement.
The longtime engineering geologist has had his hand in many projects around the province and even abroad. With more than 30 years in rock mechanics experience, his depth of experience is keeping him in demand at home and abroad.
But even with projects on the go, he is considering his legacy.
“There are so few people that do what I do in Ontario, I think there's three of us registered to do what is called rock-slope hazard complexity,” he said. “I was thinking about retirement, but that would leave two and there are a lot of important projects, as well as mentoring and thinking about a legacy project, so I feel I can do this for a couple of more years.”
Among his wishes is to see a UNESCO geopark in the basin. He is on a committee to petition to have it done sometime in the next few years. There are currently two in Canada: Stonehammer Geopark in St. John, New Brunswick, and Tumbler Ridge Global Geopark in Tumbler Ridge, B.C.
“For a geopark to happen there needs to be significant geological heritage and I think we have that because we are the home of two major meteroite impacts over two billion years,” he said. “We have one two billion years ago, which is a long, long time, and one 37 million years ago, which geologically speaking is like last week. I asked where on Earth do you have two major impacts still visible side-by-side and the answer is few.”
The lasting effects of those impacts have given the area many distinctions, he said, from being one of the biggest nickel deposits in the world, to the place where NASA sent astronauts and geologists working on the Apollo moon landings to study rock formations.
There is some financial reasons to keep working, he added. With house renovations underway he said he could use the money, as well as keeping his private business, David F. Wood Consulting, running for the time being.
Wood explained this wasn't a job he strived for, it was something he worked his way into. Growing up in England, he said he was always intrigued by how the land was formed the way it was.
He earned an undergrad degree in physical geology - studying hard rock geology and applied geophysics - at Exeter University and later went back to obtain his masters engineering degree in rock mechanics at the University of London.
When he came to Canada to work for Golder Associates in the mid-1970s, rock engineering was such a specialized field, he created a new immigration category for himself to gain entry.
At Golder, he worked his way from a junior engineer to an associate position, working in Argentina before getting the consulting bug in the early 1990s.
One of his proudest moments was his involvement in the Niagara Tunnel, where 10 kilometres of tunnel were drilled underneath the falls as part of an electrical project. The design/build contractor was from Austria, Strabag as well as the designer, ILF. He explained in order for a company from Austria to procure professional engineering services in Ontario, under the Ontario Engineering Act all companies that have engineers working on a project be temporarily licensed in the provinces and have a collaborator to review all aspects of the design before proceeding to meet Canadian and Ontario code. He collaborated with ILF. He had to review all of the design drawings, design analyses and prepared reports.
“That all had to go through me, all accounts were signed and sealed,” he said. “All designs that came through Austria had to go through this office, be signed and sealed separately for conformance to code. I spent about half my time down in Niagara Falls.”
The bulk of his work has been in assessing rock fall hazards. Much has changed in how mines and construction firms minimize the risk of falls and cave-ins. Not long ago, he explained, mines would have a wooden entrance with timber holding up the walls, to shockcrete, to strategic bolting to a solid mass, then evolving into a pattern of bolts to reinforce the rock mass to distribute the load uniformly.
“Bolting has become standard procedure, as shockcrete used to be, everybody does it now.”
One of the more interesting aspects of his chosen field is it crosses so many professions, including civil engineering, mine engineering, surface and underground. For a long period mining had been the focus for him. Much of his work focuses on surface engineering. For example, the Niagara project was civil underground, as it was about power generation. His work focuses much on rock fall hazards on highways and railways and power station construction, all on the surface.
He explained the change of demand from work is mostly because as industries evolve, machinery and safety standards evolve with it, become more efficient.
“There are fewer people and companies involved in mining, but there are more minerals being taken out of the ground, we are getting better at it,” he said. “We now spend more effort in highway construction and designing rock cuts than we used to.”
Not long ago companies went out and simply blasted to see what was under there. He explained how rock faces along the highway perfectly demonstrate how drilling and blasting has changed as engineers have acquired more knowledge.
“You can look at what they are doing now, 2017, on Highway 69 as they four-lane the highway, how they are blasting the rock cuts, then hop across to see how railway companies blasted rocks for their tracks and they look very different. That's due to engineers learning how to blast rock more effectively, cut down on costs and keeping rock fall hazards to a minimum.”
What interest him is the continued need for his services even as engineering progresses. He has a wide range of clients, but the demand has changed from mining to longer-term projects like highway construction and renewing small-scale hydro needs.
As the profession progresses, so does the tools he uses. Drones are being used more to assess rock faces and he has acquired his own.
“They are great because in the past it meant getting in a five-point harness and repelling down to look at a small section and making an educated guess. With these drones we can get a wide picture without risking our safety,” he said.
Even with retirement on his mind, he said he feels a responsibility to keep going. If he retired, there would be a lot less flexibility for the province to undertake projects needing expertise like his.
“Sudbury has always been a great place to set up a business like mine,” he said.”I've lived here since 1988 and enjoyed it. I'm working on paying the region back for all they have done for me.”
