From: Vishnu Diyaljee [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Wednesday, October 29, 2008 3:14 PM
Subject: RE: Prof. Peck's Legacy Website: Invitation to contribute
Hello Dimitros:
Saw your news letter and thought I would share some information - photo and letter -
that may be considered for Prof. Peck's Legacy Website. These are attached.
I had the opportunity along with a few others to sit around, speak and listen to Dr. Peck
at the ASCE Conference on Design and Performance of Earth Retaining Structures, June
18-21, 1990 Ithaca, N.Y. However, the dates do not appear to jive as I remember that I
had the report with me (see files in my hand in photo) and provided it to Dr. Peck at that
time. Hence, it might have been some other ASCE Conference. All I remember is that I
received his review a short time after I gave him the report and thought that he may
have read it during his flight back to his home. This was a report on a site which was
designated for a major bridge which underwent complex slide movements during the
construction of the approach fills resulting in elimination of the proposed bridge. I took
the bold opportunity at the time to have Dr. Peck review my report and his response no
was no doubt a confidence booster to me in my sphere of activity in geotechnical
engineering at the time. In my conversation with Dr. Peck, I asked if he would like to
undertake a visit but he declined the invitation as he was otherwise occupied or was not
up to making site visits at that time for health reasons. Can't fully remember the exact
reason provided. He, however, pointed me to Dr. Elmer Brooker with whom he had
collaborated on work on clay shales in Western Canada which he found fascinating. I
believe that the residual shear strength information he sent me was from some of that
collaborative work.
The group of us who had a converstaion with Dr. Peck during an interval period outside of
the conference meeting room enquired of him about his association with Dr. Karl Terzaghi
to which he said that Terzaghi was a hard and demanding task master, but he learned a
lot from him. The next time I saw Dr. Peck in person was in 1994 when the Shallow
Foundation Prediction Symposium on Spread Footings on Sand was hosted in connection
with ASCE Conference on Vertical and Horizontal Deformations of Foundations and
Embankments and after a few years ago when he was in Edmonton, Alberta, giving a
lecture to the local Canadian Geotechnical Society. I did not get a chance to speak with
him in Edmonton as he was, of course, crowded by other geotechnical enthusiasts who
were eager to meet him personally and to have a word with him.
I hope that I can retrieve the other photos which he signed and his original letter. I have
them somewhere in my files but having moved my residence within the last year much of
my information is still unsorted. The photo sent was kept in a frame, and I notice that it is
becoming faded. This call for information has given me the opportunity to store the photo
and letter electronically.
Hope the documentation will be of interest. Keep up the good work you have embarked
on. We met, if you can remember, at the initiation meeting for Case Studies at the Geo-
Congress in Atlanta in 2006 ( I believe).
Best Regards
Vishnu Diyaljee, Ph.D., P.Eng, F.ASCE
