MEMBER PROFILE Brian Isherwood: A Deep Thinker With a Love of the Arts from the headmaster and a bit of laziness when it came to researching other careers. Isherwood attended the University of Birmingham, which had a good engineering department, particularly structural engineering. While in school he also performed in plays, choirs and musicals. He was part of the university Air Squadron, which trained young men to fly, and became an Officer Cadet. As a civil engineering student, Isherwood was recruited to design landing strips for planes. Professional Career and Military Service Brian Isherwood, MICE, P.Eng, was born in England in 1934, and recently celebrated his 80th birthday. One of Isherwood’s clients, David Marsland, P.Eng, chief engineer at Technicore Underground Inc., said, “I have used Brian’s expertise for almost 40 years. I know of no other geostructural consultant with the same ability to analyse a problem and devise an innovative approach. He has made a significant contribution to subsurface engineering.” Isherwood grew up in the country town of Barnett, which at the time was the furthest tube stop north of London. Isherwood was a boy during World War II, and turned 11 when the war ended in 1945. At that time children attended “grammar school” from age 11 to 16 (Grades 1-5) and only a small number, likely 5 to 10 percent, went on to university. Isherwood says he got into engineering by accident, based on a confluence of events including his love of math, a suggestion In 1956, Isherwood graduated with a B.S. in Civil Engineering and began a graduate apprenticeship with GKN Foundations — the largest foundation contractor in England at the time. He worked in the soil mechanics department and was assigned to the M6 motorway project — a main northern England route. At 22 years old he oversaw 6 drill rigs, collected all the soil samples and ran the field laboratory. Isherwood worked grueling hours from 6 am to 10 pm and stayed in a country hotel for 6 months for the duration of the subsurface investigation. However, it was an excellent learning experience and got him further interested in soil mechanics and foundation design. Following his two-year apprenticeship, Isherwood fulfilled his national military service commitment to England. The typical commitment requirement was two years, but Isherwood opted for a three year commission in the RAF Airf ield Construction Branch to specialize in ground engineering. He spent one year in England and two years in Arabia, where he led a detachment of 25 young Englishmen and helped build air strips and an army camp for local militia. It was hard work, but also had its rewards. During his service commitment, Isherwood kept in touch with Diana, a young woman who had first seen him in a play. They were married after his second year and she returned with him to the southern tip of Arabia for his final year of service. The work schedule was 7 am to 1 pm, 6 days a week, which allowed day trips and excursions as well as afternoons spent at the officers’ beach club. Isherwood recalls “hitch hiking” on Air Force planes to Nairobi, Kenya, Libya, Cyprus, Beirut, Lebanon, Jordan, and even experiencing Christmas Eve midnight mass in Bethlehem. Isherwood finished “I know of no other geostructural consultant with the same ability to analyse a problem and devise an innovative approach.” his service commitment in 1962, and they planned to move to Vienna where Diana had studied music, but ended up staying in England. I she rwood took a position with Bryant Group, a prominent and pioneering building cont r a c tor in Bi r- mingham. They built custom homes, com- mercial buildings, and a lot of precast concrete high-rise and low- rise housing, as well as heavy civil projects including roads, highways and bridges. Isherwood began work in the soil mechanics department and went on to become piling manager and run that department for the next three years. During that time Bryant Group expanded its driven piling capabilities to include bored piles and rotary displacement piles. DEEP FOUNDATIONS • SEPT/OCT 2014 • 65
