TDI AWARDS 2024

THE DEWATERING INSTITUTE AWARDS 2024

The TDI Awards bring together industry professionals on a global scale to acknowledge and honour the outstanding work and achievements of our network. The phenomenal growth of our network has proven how together we can build and develop the industry from all corners of the globe.

A hearty congratulations to all this year’s winners!

A massive thank you to our outstanding panel of judges for their time and expertise in evaluating all the submissions received for this year’s awards. We know it must have been a challenge to single out just one winner in each category.

Award Winners 2024

TDI live award ceremony

AWARD CATEGORIES

HEALTH AND SAFETY EXCELLENCE COMPANY OF THE YEAR

Showcasing an award worthy safety contribution, method, action, procedure implemented, compliance to standards, training, technical improvements or a completed project with excellent safety records in our industry.

SUSTAINABILITY EXCELLENCE COMPANY OF THE YEAR

Showcasing an award worthy sustainability contribution, method, action, procedure implemented, compliance to standards, training, technical improvements or a completed project where substantial sustainability aspects played a role.

DEWATERING CONSULTANT PROJECT OF THE YEAR

Showcasing an award worthy groundwater control project undertaken by a specialist dewatering consultant.

DEWATERING CONTRACTOR PROJECT OF THE YEAR

Showcasing an award worthy groundwater control project undertaken by a specialist dewatering contractor.

WELL/S DRILLING PROJECT OF THE YEAR

Showcasing an award worthy project, with focus on a well or wells which were constructed for this project. Wells do not only have to be dewatering abstraction wells, but other wells key to our industry.

GROUNDWATER TREATMENT PROJECT OF THE YEAR

Showcasing an award worthy project, with focus on a temporary groundwater treatment required during the dewatering works or remediation works on a project. This does not need to be a stand-alone groundwater treatment project and can be part of other.

EQUIPMENT OR MATERIAL INNOVATION OF THE YEAR

An exciting category where innovation related to equipment or materials, we use in our industry are showcased. The innovation can be incremental, disruptive, architectural or radical innovation.

YOUNG PROFESSIONAL OF THE YEAR

An award for a young professional in the dewatering industry. The following criteria applies: *Under 35 years *Degree qualified *One or two references/sponsor letter

JUDGE PANEL

Dr. Joseph Sopko
Director at Keller North America

Dr. Sopko has 40 years of experience in Artificial Ground Freezing, twenty of which were combined with the design and construction with construction dewatering systems.  He is currently the Director of Ground Freezing for Keller and oversees ground freezing for civil and mining projects world-wide.  He is also an adjunct professor at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan where he teaches a ground improvement course concentrating on ground freezing and dewatering.  Major ground freezing projects that he and the team of Keller engineers and craftsmen include the No. 7 Line Subway in New York City, Northgate Link Subway in Seattle and currently two deep shafts for Water Tunnel No. 3 in New York City.  He is the chairman of the ASTM subcommittee on the testing of frozen rock and soils.

Dr. Kym Morton
PhD MBA C Geol FGS FSAIMM FGSSA DIC Pr Sci - Water Strategist and Consulting Mining Hydrologist

Dr Kym Morton is an international expert on mine dewatering design with over 40 years’ experience on over 300 mines. Her qualifications include BSc Hons Kings College, London, MSc Hydrogeology University College London, PhD in mining hydrology Imperial College London and an MBA in innovation from Imperial College London. She is a  Chartered Geologist (UK) , Fellow of the South African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, Fellow of the Geological Society (UK), Founder member of the groundwater division of the South African Geological Society and a member of MENSA. Dr Morton is well known for her pragmatic approach to mine dewatering design and implementation which combines international hands-on experience with impeccable qualifications.

Mark Claassen
Regional Director, Tunnel Construction Management - East USA at Hatch

Mark is an experienced manager and technical leader with 36 years of experience, with over a decade as an executive. His 26 years in the tunnel industry are complemented by 11 years of military experience. He has a strong reputation for his constructability expertise and a hands-on tunnel background ranging from investigations to design management. Mark has served as project manager for tunnel design, geotechnical investigations and construction supervision projects. He has also served as a project director or manager on over 20 projects, which included mentoring the project managers. His background includes work for owners, designers and contractors in soft-ground, rock, and mixed-face conditions. He has worked on projects involving tunnel boring machines (TBM), micro tunneling, drill-and-blast, NATM, hand-mined tunnels, and HDD. Mark has worked on all phases of heavy civil projects, from alignment studies, permitting, preliminary investigations and feasibility studies to final design, and from the initial geotechnical investigation to the construction of the final lining. His experience includes large, high-risk multidiscipline projects and alternative delivery methods such as design-build, engineer-procure-construct and public-private partnerships (P3).

Peter Brooke
Regional Director Strategic Sales & Marketing Europe & Africa at Fugro

Peter brings over 30 years of ground engineering experience to the advisory board.  His career has covered a broad range of disciplines including geotechnics, groundwater abstraction, dewatering and geothermal ground source energy.  Starting in project management roles, Peter has experience in contracts management, operations, country directorship and senior sales director roles that have taken him across Africa, Middle East and Europe during his varied career.  He has been with Fugro since 2010 and currently holds the role of Regional Director for Strategic sales & Marketing for their Europe & Africa region.  Peter specializes in drilling, specifically water well; geotechnical and geothermal sub surface investigations, as well as practical experience installing dewatering systems, geothermal ground source energy and undertaking large scale site characterization projects.

Timothy D. Lynch
Advisor at Roscoe Moss Company

Tim has been employed by Roscoe Moss Company since 1979 and currently serves as its President.  Over the last 42 years he has been involved with production wells for municipal supply, irrigation wells for large commercial growers, water supply wells for mineral processing, aquifer storage and recovery wells, along with dewatering wells used for controlling water levels in mines  and construction related ground control.  He is a committee member of AWWA A-100, responsible for development of water well standards and member of the ASTM D18 subcommittee responsible for standards related to design and construction of monitoring wells.  Business related activities have provided Tim the opportunity to travel and work in over 50 countries throughout the Americas, Asia, Europe, Africa, and Australia.

Francois Gous
Dewatering Specialist / Technical Engineer at Project Dewatering Limited

Francois a Technical Engineer for Project Dewatering Limited (PDL). PDL is a specialised dewatering contractor based in the UK and part of the Hoelscher International Group. Francois is also  enrolled as a master’s student at NWU Potchefstroom in South Africa. His duty as a Technical Engineer involves all aspects related to dewatering, from documenting tenders and client communications to dewatering designs and quotation preparations. Francois role as Graduate Advisory Council Member would be to provide input from a recently graduated Geohydrologist point of view. He would also be linking TDI more closely with students and his other peers to ensure TDI servers the specialist of the future as well.

Andres Pinto
MSc. Civil Engineer - Engineering Division Manager at Terratest Qatar LLC

Andres’s work history starts back 21 years ago when, as a freshly graduated civil engineer, he joined a geotechnical consultancy firm in Colombia. It was one of the most amazing experiences, he had the opportunity to be mentored by experienced ground engineering professionals to solve problems arising from complex geotechnical conditions in a mountainous and seismically active country. He travelled all around the country to participate in projects covering various challenges, from earth dams geotechnical and seismic risk assessment to seismic microzonation and site-specific seismic response studies. From the experience gained during his initial professional years he reaffirmed his interest in ground engineering. In 2007, he moved to Europe to pursue Master studies in Geotechnical and Earthquake Engineering and to gain professional experience working for design consultancy firms and contractors in the management, design, procurement, and construction of geotechnical and tunnelling large-scale underground projects. In 2012, he relocated to the Middle East  to be part of the construction of the Doha Metro Underground Project, from tender design to handing over. Most recently in 2019, he joined Stantec as the Middle East Regional Technical Lead for Ground Engineering, where he have participated in various projects covering the design and construction supervision of underground pumping stations, tunnels, earthworks, and outfalls.

Owen Gilbert
Chief Executive Officer at NCS Fluid Handling Systems Inc. and NCS Environmental Solutions Ltd

Owen serve as the President and CEO of NCS Fluid Handling Systems Inc. The inception of NCS Fluid Handling Systems stemmed from a recognition of a pertinent opportunity and a personal interest in the service industry. He was keenly aware of the growing importance of responsible water management, prompting his decision to establish this enterprise. NCS Fluid Handling Systems is committed to providing the highest standard of care and custody related to all water handling services, catering to the Energy, Mining, Industrial, and Municipal Construction sectors. Experienced Leader with a demonstrated history of working with and developing strong teams. Skilled in Negotiation, Strategic Planning, Operations Management, Analytical Skills, and Coaching. Strong business professional with a Master of Business Administration (M.B.A.) focused in Business Administration, Management and Operations from Royal Roads University.
Focusing on partnership and overall success by raising up the entire teams level of personal knowledge, corporate collaboration with a keen focus of internal and external customer care.

Niel Kriel
Operations Hydrogeologist at Rio Tinto, Perth, Western Australia

Niel Kriel, Operations Hydrogeologist at Rio Tinto, Perth, Western Australia, Australia. Hydrogeologist with a keen interest in dewatering and associated groundwater management.
Niel has been fortunate enough to have worked in dewatering across multiple industries in a short amount of time. He was exposed to groundwater and to a larger extent mine dewatering when he started off as a geology vacation student in the Copper Belt of Zambia. After finishing his undergrad in geology, he went on to complete a post-graduate honours and masters in hydrogeology whilst working part-time conducting hydro and geophysical investigations and consulting. A year into his master’s he found himself moving to Qatar where he worked as a dewatering design engineer for a couple of years, during this early stage of his career where he was exposed to a lot of dewatering related work with the rapid expansion of Qatar and assisting our European branches with dewatering design. After Qatar, Niel and his wife moved to Australia where he worked as a consulting hydrogeologist supporting our dewatering consulting network in Perth and surrounds. Fast forward to the present day where he currently sits as the operations hydrogeologist responsible for in-pit dewatering and groundwater management in the Pilbara Region of Western Australia. Across his journey he has been exposed to several different dewatering strategies within different aquifer systems, each with its own set of challenges whether its drawdown related or regulatory restricted.

Clément Lerevenu
Deputy Project Manager to Qatar Hydrogeological Assessment Project Sr. Hydrogeologist at Egis

Clément is hydrogeologist with a polytechnical education and over 10 years of experience in the industry gained from projects across Qatar, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates. Member of the international association of hydrogeologist and of the UNESCO Groundwater Youth Network, he specializes in aquifer characterization, aquifer recharge, drilling management, and digitalization processes. Starting in technical roles, Clément has served in various roles from commercial lead to project manager and served in multiple pilot and multidisciplinary projects such as emergency aquifer storage and recovery, water well field rehabilitation, isotope tracer in urban environment, and soil-gas detection in industrial environment.

Robin Lomulder 
Senior Hydrological Consultant at Fugro

In 2006 he made the switch to Fugro, there he have been predominately involved in dewatering building pits in all shapes and sizes. This is closely related to his Civil Engineering background, in addition to dewatering I do a lot of projects regarding water safety (dike enhancements). The latter years he is performing effect studies of drought (both natural and man-made) on buildings and infrastructure. Fast High Volume Infiltration can be part of the solutions to mitigate droughts.

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