INNOVATION November-December 2014

Dr. John J. Clague is, by his own admission, a very lucky man. “I pinch myself all the time,” he says. “I love what I do. I have an avocation, not a job. I love the interactions with people and the fact that, as a scientist, I have been able to pursue a very broad range of interests.” But John’s life might easily have taken another less interesting route. When he started at Occidental College, a small liberal arts col- lege in California, in the 1960s, he was a math major, but not wild about it. Then he took an elective geology course “and was totally inspired.” He had found his future. “Geology has worked well with what I think is my natural tendency to be a generalist,” John says. “I love the arts as well as science, and believe they are arguably as, or perhaps even more, important than the sciences. We need to sup- port and nurture the fabric of society, and that means supporting culture and history as well as science.” John also believes in supporting the work of APEGBC. A mem- ber since 1992, he has served three terms on Council and was inau- gurated as this year’s president on October 25, 2014. Here he talks about his work, his passions and his priorities for APEGBC over the next year. The focus of your academic life is natural hazards. What can you tell us about that? My research is largely grounded in the science of natural hazards, the processes that operate on the surface of the Earth or at shal- low depths in the crust of the Earth, such as earthquakes, tsunamis, landslides and floods. British Columbia is subject to all of them. I think it is inevitable that we will have a big quake here, and it could cause billions of dollars in damage. My main mission is to train my students in how to understand and handle geologic hazards and risks. My work involves physical and social sciences, questions about human behaviour—how people respond to disasters—and the economic ramifications of disasters. Is it possible to reduce the risk of earthquakes and other natural hazards? We know a lot more about earthquakes than we did even 10 years ago. It’s amazing the technologies—GIS, high-precision

GPS, satellite-based technologies—that have been developed so that now we can more or less take the pulse of the Earth. We are a generation at least away from being able to forecast earth- quakes like we do the weather, but I do believe we will be able to at some point. In the meantime, I am passionate about elevating public aware- ness so we can potentially reduce the impact of an earthquake and other hazards, and about helping produce better guidelines for our engineers to follow when they build public structures or infrastructure. What are your priorities during your term as president? I have four. The first sounds a bit mundane but it is important: Council governance. We have 17 councillors, all of them very bright and talented. We need to ensure that we exploit our pool of talent to its maximum, through meetings that stay on track, and projects that stay focused. My second priority is the role of women in engineering and geoscience. Women are underrepresented. That’s improving—there are signs of hope, particularly in geoscience where more than half of graduate students are female now—but at UBC, for example, women still make up less than 30% of engineering students, and there are still barriers to women assuming a full role in the work- place. It’s a problem that can’t be solved overnight, and it’s certainly not restricted to engineering. I’d like to look at other professions and see what they are doing. I also want to make sure the APEGBC taskforce recommendations on this issue are implemented. My third priority is working on national licensure. Engineers and geoscientists are disadvantaged because, although they are quali- fied to practice anywhere, they must spend hundreds to thousands of dollars if they want to practice in more than one province. Our members wish the right to practice nationally, so we must do what we can to bring this about. Finally, I am also interested in starting a dialogue with engi- neering and geoscience companies and the public about the pos- sible benefits for public safety of APEGBC regulating companies as well as individuals. v

More About the New President Professional Profile

John has published more than 200 papers in a range of earth science disci- plines, including glacial geology, geomor- phology, stratigraphy, sedimentology and natural hazards. He has also consulted with government agencies and with private firms; gives frequent talks to schools and commu- nity groups to improve public awareness of earth science; is regularly called on by the media to explain a range of earth science issues; and has written two popular books on the geology and geologic hazards of southwest British Columbia, as well as a sec- ondary school textbook on natural hazards. John received APEGBC’s C.J. Westerman Memorial Award in 1999.

Personally Speaking John and his wife Alexis married in Arizona, when she was 21 but he was still underage, only 20 at the time—which meant he needed the written consent of his parents before they could wed. “I love it,” he says, “that they had to approve.” It seems to have worked: in two years, the Clagues will celebrate their 50 th wedding anniversary. Together, John and Alexis enjoy travelling and bird watching, walking and hiking. John also actively pursues an interest in philanthropy. ”I am in the very fortunate position of being financially secure and of being able to give and to get others involved in giving,” he says.

After completing a BA at Occidental College and an MA at Berkeley, John Clague came to British Columbia for the first time—and never left. With a newly-minted PhD in Geology from UBC in hand, John joined the Geological Survey of Canada, where he worked as a geoscientist for 24 years. In 1998, he accepted a faculty position in the Department of Earth Sciences at Simon Fraser University. He is cur- rently the Gordon Shrum Professor of Science at SFU, the Director of SFU’s Centre for Natural Hazard Research, and the Canada Research Chair in Natural Hazard Research.

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