Chris Gräpel, M.Eng, P.Eng.

Chris is a Civil/Geotechnical Engineer with 32 years of experience in dam engineering and geohazard engineering and in western and northern Canada, South America, and South Africa.

Key Projects

Chris’s key current projects include Designer of Record for the New East Chin Dam near Taber Alberta; Engineer of Record assignments for various cooling ponds and ash tailings dams throughout central Alberta; Project Director for KCB’s work on highway geohazard assignments for Alberta Transportation’s Geohazard Risk Management Program (GRMP) in the Grand Prairie South, Central, and Southern Regions of Alberta (which includes annual instrumentation readings and monitoring, inspection, and repair/mitigation design and construction for highway sites with large natural landslides, embankment failures, rockfall, coal-mine voids, dispersive soils and subsurface voids, and riverbank erosion sites); Designer of Record for dam decommissioning design and associated construction work; and leading/facilitating and participating in risk assessments, dam safety reviews, and tailings storage facility audits for water supply, power generation, and mining dams throughout western and northern Canada, South America, and South Africa.

Chris has also worked on various railway engineering projects for bridge reconstruction, sidings, and geohazard repair. Through his work on the GRMP and railway work, Chris has lead or worked on projects that have received four Minister’s Awards for Transportation Innovation, three Consulting Engineers of Alberta awards, and one Association of Consulting Engineers of Canada award.

Chris is an Adjunct Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Alberta and co-leads a research project on Change Detection for Highway Geohazards with the University of Alberta and Alberta Transportation.

Education

Chris holds a B.Eng. in Civil Engineering (with Distinction) from the Technical University of Nova Scotia and an M.Eng. in Civil (Geotechnical) Engineering from the University of Alberta. He is also a Registered Professional under the Association of Professional Engineers, Geologists, and Geophysicists of Alberta and the Northwest Territories Association of Professional Engineers, Geologists and Geophysicists.

Fun Fact

Chris is an upright and electric bass player for blues, rockabilly, western swing, and swing manouche groups in the Edmonton area and has played on three records and at several festivals.