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Announcements: GSA Award
 Bill
Cotton receives GSA Distinguished Practice Award
In 2001, William R. Cotton received the Distinguished
Practice Award, which recognizes outstanding individuals for their
continuing contributions to the technical and/or professional stature
of engineering geology. It is presented annually by the Engineering
Geology Division of the Geological Society of America.
The following excerpt is from Cotton’s award
nomination by Jerome V. DeGraff and Michael W. Hart:
“Over the last four decades, engineering
geologist William R. Cotton has provided technical excellence and
leadership as a consultant, a researcher, and as an academic. To
all of these endeavors, he brings his trademark enthusiasm for field
geology. This enthusiasm is nowhere more apparent than in his career-long
interest in unraveling the geologic details related to impacts of
landslides and seismic hazards. In the area of landslides, he has
either conducted or supervised hundreds of significant landslide
and slope-stability investigations throughout California and Hawaii.
His fascination with landslides extends to expanding his personal
knowledge through participating in field workshops on landslides
held in Japan, Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, Switzerland, Austria,
Italy, Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, the Czech and Slovak Republics,
Spain, and England. His companion interest in seismic hazards highlights
the value he places on field observations. He made post-earthquake
observations and conducted investigations following the 1971 San
Fernando, 1983 Coalinga, 1984 Morgan Hill, and 1989 Loma Prieta
earthquakes. This work and other projects in seismically active
areas have benefited from his numerous, detailed surface and subsurface
geologic investigations of active and potentially active faults.
There are few major fault systems in California that Bill has not
studied. He has fostered, in aspiring young professionals, the concept
that a good engineering geologist is-first and foremost-a good field
geologist. His interest in helping aspiring young engineering geologists
make the transition from academia to practitioner is evident by
his participation in GSA’s Roy J. Shlemon Mentor Program in
Applied Geology. It is no coincidence that Bill was chosen to lead
the first offering of this worthwhile endeavor to provide outstanding
students with practical insights into the private practice of geology.
The high ethical and scientific standards he has set in his professional
practice serve as a model for his colleagues and competitors, and
especially for those now only aspiring to practice the science and
art of engineering geology. He has taught us all by his example,
and that is the only way to lead.”
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