Eldon Gath

Anoka High School

Class of 1972

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Eldon Gath - Class of 1972 - Anoka High School

First Name	Eldon
Last Name	Gath
Graduation Year	Class of 1972
Gender	Male
Current Location	Santa Ana, CA
Relationship Status	Married
About Me	After graduation, attended U of MN getting a BS in geology, moved to California (landslides, earthquakes, floods, oh my) in 1979, and started working as an Engineering Geologist, mostly on huge residential land development projects. Became a partner in Leighton & Assoc. in 1988, Chief Geologist for their LA County office, and was a member of the Board of Directors when we decided to split the company in four separate business units in 1996. I was offered the Presidency of the largest group, but declined in favor of starting a totally separate company built on a different paradigm of operations, and especially looking for projects well outside of southern California. Now in our 17th year, Earth Consultants International has completed projects in 16 different countries with our motto being Ã¢ÂÂhelping our clients to solve their complex earth science problems around the world.Ã¢ÂÂ I have been to Turkey for projects dozens of times, Panama as well doing earthquake hazard investigations for the Panama Canal, plus Costa Rica, Mexico, and even Papua New Guinea. Over the years I have served as President of the Association of Environmental and Engineering Geologists (AEG), President of the South Coast Geological Society, won two outstanding paper awards and an outstanding presentation award, am a Fellow of the Geological Society of America (GSA), received the Outstanding Service Award from AEG, and served on a National Academy of Sciences Ã¢ÂÂ National Research Council panel to develop the research priorities and agenda for earthquake engineering. I have given well over 100 technical and non-technical talks on a multitude of geological subjects in the US and internationally, and have just been selected as the 2014-2015 Jahns Distinguished Lecturer by the GSA and the AEG, meaning more air miles as I travel the country (and world?) giving a series of talks, mainly to college students, about aspects of Engineering Geology, Earthquake Hazards, Hazard Mitigation, and how much fun such a career can be. So far, I have been invited and given talks in Turkey, Portugal, France, Germany, Austria, Spain, Costa Rica, and Panama. I have been told that I Google well. In 2015 I was selected as the US National Group Leader for the International Association of Engineering Geology and the Environment, and in 2018 was elected as the North American Vice President. This has resulted in meetings and presentations in Delhi India, CapeTown South Africa, London England, Kathmandu Nepal, and Paris France. How can you beat that? Outside of work, I still play competitive volleyball, going to Nationals every year since 1983, where we now play in the age divisions (55+ and now 60+ OMG), finishing in the medals most of the time, but never yet first, though I did get selected to the All-Tournament team once despite losing in the finals. I am an avid wine geek with a pretty nice cellar and diverse collection of wines from around the world. I enjoy gardening as after-work therapy, including 12 coffee plants, 10 olive trees, 10 various citrus trees, dozens of tomatoes and hot pepper plants, plus nearly every herb and lettuce there are. Married for 33 years, my wife Clara enjoys travelling to my many professional geo-meetings where she and other Ã¢ÂÂwives of geologistsÃ¢ÂÂ swap tales. We both love traveling and between geology, wines, and volleyball we have friends all over the world who expect us to visit at least annually. We have hosted many visitors at our home over the decades, and received excellent reciprocity when we visit them. While retirement is still a ways off (geology is still fun), it is clear that we will be even m...(read more)