Canadian Society for Civil Engineering
The CSCE is a learned society created to develop and maintain high standards of civil engineering practice in Canada.
- Date
- 26 March 2026
- Time
- 17:00 - 18:30 GMT
- Location
-
Online
This event has now ended
Overview
The Firth of Forth had forever impeded safe and efficient travel from the capital of Edinburgh in the south to the Highlands of the north. The two-mile-wide Firth would require record-setting foundations, and superstructure design and construction. Construction in this harsh environment required extraordinary men, machines, and methods.
In 1882 Sir Benjamin Baker, Sir John Fowler, and Sir William Arrol boldly accepted the challenge. They would have to leverage civil engineering’s collective bridge building body of knowledge and successes of the past such as the newly completed Eads Bridge (1874). And, they would have to innovate new methods and overcome the doubts and the failures of the past such as the Firth of Tay disaster (1879). After starting construction in 1882, the bridge opened to traffic in 1890.
This presentation will bring the story of the Forth Bridge to life, providing a unique learning opportunity.
Speaker
Raymond “Paul” Giroux Dist.M.ASCE, NAC
Purdue University
Professor of Engineering Practice
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Raymond “Paul” Giroux Dist.M.ASCE, NAC
Professor of engineering practice, Lyles School of Civil Engineering, Purdue University.
Paul received his BS in Construction Engineering from Iowa State University in 1979 and then worked for Kiewit for 45 years on a wide variety of heavy civil engineering mega projects including the Fort McHenry Tunnel in Baltimore, several projects on the Big Dig in Boston, and the new San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge East Span.
He had leadership and speaking roles at numerous anniversary events including the Brooklyn Bridge 125th, the Hoover Dam 75th, the Golden Gate Bridge 75th, the Panama Canal 100th, the Grand Coulee Dam 75th, and the Transcontinental Railroad 150th.
Paul is the author of several bridge design and civil engineering history papers and an active public speaker having presented over 350 lectures and seminars at over 90 engineering schools and over 150 other speeches at professional and public venues. He has been a contributor on the Fox Business News show ‘American Built.’
His ASCE awards include the History and Heritage Award (2013), G. Brooks Earnest Technical Literature Award (2015), Distinguished Member (2016), and the Construction Institute’s Roebling Award (2017). In 2018, he was inducted into the Iowa State University Construction Hall of Fame and, in 2022, to the National Academy of Construction.
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