Tunnels & Caverns: Looking Back at Forty Years in Underground Construction & Estimating

Harry was born and raised in Dublin, Ireland. On finishing high school, he went to England and was hired as a Trainee Engineer by a large Civil Engineering & Building contractor.

Training initially was at the home office and included drafting, quantity "take-off", and surveying basics. Following a year at the home office, he was assigned to a construction project as an Instrument Man, assisting the Project Engineer. In less than two years he was appointed Field Engineer and a year later was moved to rank of Superintendent. His first assignment in that capacity involved supervision of a large sewer installation in a suburb of London. That project included about three thousand feet of small diameter hand-minded tunnel. A succeeding project also included some tunnel work.

In 1960 Harry immigrated, with his family, to Canada. His fi rst job interview was with a Civil Engineering company. Th is company, McNamara Corporation, happened to have a tunneling division and from that point on, it became a "life of tunneling" for Harry, with a number of contractors, and then as a consultant.

Harry took a position in the U.S. in 1976 as Chief Estimator, with a tunneling specialty company - S & M Constructors, Solon, Ohio. In 1986 he moved back into field-work and supervised a variety of tunnel projects, both in rock and soft ground over the next ten years.

Now retired, Harry lives with wife Beverley in Kansas. They spend time visiting their five children and eight grandchildren throughout the U.S. and Canada.