Ron Wallace CPG-8153
Georgia Section
The Ben H. Parker Memorial Distinguished Service Medal is the Institute’s most distinguished award. It was established by the Executive Committee in 1969 in posthumous honor of a truly great leader, who devoted much of his life to improve the qual- ity of geology and geologists and the services they provide. The medal is awarded to individuals who have long records of distin- guished and outstanding service to the profession.
I would like to thank the Honors and Award Committee for nominating me and the Executive Committee for this honor. I first found out in Feb- ruary when I read the Executive Committee meet- ing reports. The first thing I did was to tell my wife how surprised I was. Since February I’ve had a lot of time to think about it and to see the list of past recipients, many of which I know. I pulled my copy of “A History of AIPG 1963 - 2003” to read about Dr. Parker. In his 1961 AAPG Presidential Address he talks about the need for a professional organization and within two-years he was one of the original organizers of AIPG.
Now that I’m retired it’s a good time to look back and reflect on my career, but more importantly on how rewarding it has been to work on behalf of AIPG in their mission and all the friendships I have gained throughout the years. I was probably at an AAPG annual convention where I visited AIPG’s booth and first met Susan Landon and sat in the booth going through the membership direc- tory looking for members that I knew that I could ask to recommend me for membership. It was 1991 when I finally became a CPG. Soon after I moved to Georgia I was active in Georgia’s Ground Water Association and the Atlanta Geological Society. It wasn’t until 1997 I was elected to the AIPG Georgia Section Executive Committee and vice-president in 2001. When I became section president in 2002 the section had very little money. Dr. Yo Sumatojo and I started teaching a fate and transport groundwa- ter modeling class using Bioscreen to raise money for the section. It wasn’t until 2008 that we had our first Innovative Remediation Conference. Our sec- tion vice-president Eric Lowe and treasurer Glen Faulkner, our charter member, were instrumental in getting it organized and making it the success it has been to date. With money raised we have been able to currently give a total of $4,000.00 each year in scholarships to students.
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Some of the activities I’ve been proud of include speaking to students on career opportunities, do- ing direct push demonstrations and showing how to screen and collect soil samples, develop- ing a monitoring well and collecting groundwater samples. I would like to thank Jim Fineis, whose company installed most of the wells drilled with no cost to our section. Over the years we visited numerous remediation sites and landfills, and the last five years teaching in the classroom the proper way to contour potentiometric surfaces maps and benzene iso-concentration maps.
Each year AIPG has a booth at the regional and National GSA meetings. I have been fortunate to have co-chaired with a few special people where we had a session at GSA on geology careers for re- cent graduates. Starting in 2007 in Savannah, I co- chaired with Eric Lowe, in 2012 in Charlotte with John Stewart, in 2015 in Chattanooga with Todd McFarland, and in 2017 in Richmond with Mike Lawless; Mike and I had also planned a session in 2020 in Reston that was canceled.
When I was National President in 2013, the Executive Committee approved the Student Chap- ter of the Year Award and the Section Leadership Award. I was on a field trip with the Illinois/In- diana Section and spoke to Jeff Groncki and he said we needed to recognize individuals at the section level that may never attend an AIPG an- nual conference but kept the section going. It was that conversation that led to the award. I would like to thank the staff at AIPG headquarters for many years of working together when I was on the Executive Committee, Education Committee, and section activities and for their friendship.
I thank you all for this award and it is truly an honor to receive it. Finally, I would like to espe- cially thank my wife for her support. Thank you.
Some of the activities I’ve been proud of include speaking to students on career opportunities, doing direct push demonstrations and showing how to screen and collect soil samples, developing a monitoring well and collecting groundwater samples.
16 TPG •
Oct.Nov.Dec 2021
www.aipg.org
BEN H. PARKER BEN H. PARKER MEMORIAL DISTINGUISHED SERVICE MEDAL MEMORIAL DISTINGUISHED SERVICE MEDAL
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