About Me

This post serves as a basic introduction to who I am Professionally and Personally.

I am the current President of the Association of Environmental & Engineering Geologists (AEG). I am Senior Geologist with AMEC Environment & Infrastructure, Inc. (AMEC) in Phoenix, Arizona, though I reside in Flagstaff, Arizona and a registered professional geologist in Arizona.. I have been with AMEC since November 2000. Since that time, I have been utilized as a project manager, technical lead, project geologist, task manager, and field geologist performing geologic, geotechnical and geologic hazard investigations for dams, levees, channels, basins, buildings, roadways, bridges, power plants, transmission lines, mining projects, pipelines, and other structures. In addition, I have been extensively involved in the characterization of land subsidence and subsidence-related hazards such as earth fissures and associated impacts for planning, design and remediation. I have also been involved in projects that utilize remote sensing technologies such as interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) as they apply to geologic and geotechnical characterization, including ground subsidence and earth fissuring and slope stability issues. Involvement in this wide-range of projects has included field investigation, logging and sampling of soils and rock, seismic and resistivity surveys, quality inspection, gravity surveys and analysis, geologic mapping, aerial photographic and remote sensing interpretation, background research, data analysis, report preparation, supervision of drill and other field crews, and overall task management. I have also utilized mountaineering techniques obtained in a specialized training course to map the geology, fracture patterns, and other concerns on canyon walls specifically applied to geotechnical characterization for bridge foundations and slope stability. I have experience investigating geologic hazards such as land subsidence, earth fissuring, landslides and seismic hazards and has received specialized training in the use of LiDAR and high resolution DEMs for landslides and slope stability. I have worked internationally in Canada, Mexico, Germany, Romania, the Czech Republic, and have supported other projects worldwide.

My experience with AEG: Vice Chair, Phoenix Chapter (2003 – 2007); Chair, Arizona Section (2007 – 2010); Website Committee (2008 – 2011); Website Committee Co-Chairperson (2010 – 2011); Governance Committee (2010 – 2011); AEG Secretary (2011 – 2012); AEG Treasurer (2012 – 2013); AEG Vice President/President-Elect (2013 – 2014). I also served on the planning committee for the 2011 Shlemon Conference in Tempe, Arizona and the planning committee for the 2014 Annual Meeting in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Education: 1998: BS, Engineering Geology, Texas A&M University, 2001: MS, Geology, Arizona State University.

I am also active with the Arizona Hydrological Society (AHS), The Arizona Land Subsidence Group, The Arizona Geological Survey Earth Fissure Advisory Group, the Geotechnical Extreme Events Reconnaissance (GEER), and the International Association of Engineering Geology and the Environment (IAEG).

I am a proud husband and a father of 2. My son is 7 and my daughter is 4. My wife is a planetary geophysicist with the USGS and my children love all things fun - sports, dancing, music, and the outdoors. We spend as much time outdoors as possible - mostly hiking the mountains outside of Flagstaff, and enjoying the trip down to Sedona when there's too much snow on the ground. I'm also typical of many geologists I know in that I enjoy a good drink - fine craft beer, scotch, wine, etc.

Back From The Dead

I figure it's about time to resurrect this blog and develop a new purpose. At the moment I (Ken Fergason) am the Vice President/President-Elect of the Association of Environmental & Engineering Geologists (AEG) and I will become President at our Annual Meeting in September (It's in Scottsdale, AZ and it's going to be an awesome meeting). I am going to utilize this blog to document my experience as President. I don't know yet how active it will be and what exactly the content will be, but I'm envisioning discussions on my travels, meetings I attend, presentations I give, people I interact with and such. I also imagine there will doomsday travel stories and gratuitous photos from a conference I'll be attending in Italy. Anyway, I'm hoping it'll a lot of fun. So stay tuned as content ramps up over the next couple of months.

-Ken

PS: Current info on the Arizona Section of AEG can be found here.