Golder Associates launches foundation to further knowledge, learning

Alberta, Canada — Golder Associates announced that it created the not-for-profit Golder Foundation to preserve and strengthen its commitment to technical excellence and broad employee ownership, and to further its purpose of engineering earth's development and preserving earth's integrity.

The Foundation (www.golderfoundation.org) has three key areas of focus:

• Technical archives to enable current and future generations to explore the technical knowledge developed by Golder professionals
• An annual awards program to recognise students who have undertaken research on important topics in Golder's core service areas
• Golder's business legacy story, in particular to share the story of our broad employee ownership structure that distinguishes us in the consulting industry and marketplace.

"The origin of our Foundation stems from our desire to preserve, enrich, and impart our technical expertise," said John Westland, Principal at Golder who serves on the board of directors for the Foundation. "We are excited to expand our archives in the ground engineering, environmental, and other sciences, salute bright students who are performing key research in our fields of endeavor, and tell the ownership story that has helped build our success over 50-plus years.”

The archives act as a technical resource for Golder employees, as well as academics and professionals who are interested in the history and best practices within the disciplines of ground engineering, environmental, and other sciences linked to the services provided by Golder.

The archives have been seeded with collections of reference material, presentations, speeches, and the bibliographies of published papers from six retired and semi-retired Golder professionals, including Golder founders Dr. H.Q. Golder and Victor Milligan. We also welcome potential additions from external sources.

The annual awards will encourage technical excellence among graduate students who have completed or are nearing the end of their studies. The initial awards cycle will be announced in September 2014, and entries will be solicited from students globally.

The first two awards topics are Ground Engineering and Contaminated Site Assessment and Remediation — two of Golder's main areas of consulting practice.

The business legacy component of the Foundation will focus on assisting other organizations considering employee ownership, by making available knowledge and lessons from our ownership and development history.