April 16, 2019, Denver, CO, USA – Knight Piésold is pleased to announce that Richard (Rick) Sisson, Ph.D., P.E., P.Eng., has joined the Denver office as senior geotechnical engineer in support of the company’s expanding services to the mining industry. Dr. Sisson brings an impressive 30-year portfolio, much of it on challenging projects in mining, transportation, and heavy civil infrastructure.

Dr. Sisson specializes in dam and levee safety review, tailings and water management, expert witness testimony and failure analyses, slope stability analyses and assessment, and foundation design. He has a wide range of geotechnical design experience ranging from planning studies, due diligence, risk assessments, and feasibility assessments to detailed design and construction engineering. He holds a master’s degree and doctorate degree in geotechnical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, and a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Michigan State University.

Prior to joining Knight Piésold, Dr. Sisson has had diverse experience working in oil sands mining operations, at geotechnical consultancies specializing in tailings and water dams in the United States and Canada, and on design-build projects in the transportation sector in the United States. He has had technical responsibility for the geotechnical design of commercial and residential developments, and transportation, mining, and oil and gas projects in a wide variety of geologic environments across the Western United States and Canada. In recent years, he has performed forensic engineering and expert witness services and has served on a number of technical review boards around the world. He has authored or co-authored 15 technical papers describing this work.

“I am very excited to welcome Rick to our team,” said Paul Ridlen, president of Knight Piésold USA. “Rick has a very strong technical background that supplements our existing group of geotechnical, water resources, and environmental experts. This is a challenging time in the mining industry—a time when specialty companies like ours will be stretched to solve some very complicated problems in designing, upgrading, and closing tailings dams around the world. Rick’s background and extensive involvement in the oil sands industry, and his experience providing leadership to multidisciplinary engineering, scientific, and technical teams and review boards fits well with our current staff profile. His commitment to excellence and client service matches our global commitment to being one of the very best tailings and water dam engineering companies in the world.”