One of SRK Consulting’s three founding members, Dr. Oskar Steffen, passed away on Wednesday, June 27, in Johannesburg. He was 77 years old.
Engineers outside of the mining sector may not be familiar with Dr. Steffen or SRK, but he was incredibly influential in geotechnical consulting in mining and pioneered methods of pit optimization among other things. He was the recipient of numerous awards over his career for his contributions to geotechnical engineering in African as well as international mining practice. According to SRK:
“His innovation and discovery activities included developing frameworks for pit optimisation, strategic mine planning and the application of probability techniques in geotechnical engineering, particularly regarding risk analysis of slope failure in openpit stability investigations…”
Source: SRK, industry loses leading light Image: SRK