Richard holds an Honours and Master’s of Science in Geology and has over 20 years of experience as an engineering geologist and geotechnical consultant. He has executed and managed a wide range of site investigations across Africa and the United Kingdom. During his career he also served as a council member, treasurer and president of the South African Institute for Engineering and Environmental Geologists (SAIEG).
After completing his studies, Richard joined McKnight Geotechnical Consulting in 2000, where he progressed to Technical Director. In 2006 Richard joined Jones & Wagener at their Head Office in Johannesburg as an Associate. Due to family reasons he re-located to the UK in 2015 and gained 5 years of experience carrying out geotechnical and geo-environmental site investigations across the UK for Opus International and WSP while also working closely with the Highways Design and Maintenance team in the Hertfordshire County Council and the Mining Team of Safety, Technical & Engineering (STE) within Network Rail.
In 2019 he pursed an opportunity to start a new in-house geotechnical division at a large civils and building contractor, Buckingham Group Contracting. In 2021 Richard was invited to re-join Jones & Wagener as the UK Regional Manager for Jones & Wagener International.
Richard’s areas of expertise include the planning, management and delivery of geotechnical site investigations, understanding complex ground conditions and developing ground models. He is adept at writing reports including desk studies and interpretive ground investigation reports.
Richard authored and published 6 publications ranging from conference papers, presentations and lectures in his areas of expertise. He was honoured to have won best presentation at a Young Geotechnical Engineers Conference in 2008.
Richard is a Professionally Registered Engineering Geologist as a Fellow of the Geological Society and is a member of the IAEG (International Association for Engineering Geology and the Environment).