Saskatchewan professional engineers win national recognition.

Every year, the Canadian Council of Professional Engineers (CCPE) presents Canadian Engineers' Awards to honour engineering excellence, outstanding community and professional involvement, contributions by engineers and engineering students to Canadian society and more.

This year, the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Saskatchewan (APEGS) is delighted to announce that three APEGS members and a U of S College of Engineering student have claimed four of the eight awards at the recent Canadian Engineers' Awards Gala, which was held in Regina on May 14. This remarkable achievement is a testament to the international reputation of Saskatchewan's professional engineering community, as well as a fitting highlight to APEGS 75th anniversary year.

Ben Voss, P.Eng. is the recipient of the Young Engineer Achievement Award, given for outstanding contribution in a field of engineering by an engineer 35 years of age or younger. The award recognizes the outstanding entrepreneurial and engineering skills of 28-year-old Voss. While in his final year of Agricultural and Bioresource Engineering at the U of S, Voss established Ben-Don Innovations, which designs equipment for the farm industry. In 2000 he founded Clear-Green Biotechnologies, which processes food and agricultural industry wastes into useable fertilizer, energy and water.

Pieter Van Vliet, P.Eng. has been named the recipient of the Meritorious Service Award for Professional Service for outstanding contribution to a professional, consulting or technical engineering association or society in Canada. In a career spanning more than four decades, Van Vliet's service to his profession has eminently qualified him for this award. He is known for his telecommunications work on the Channel Tunnel linking England and France and his term as head of the Canadian Institute for Broadband and Information Network Technologies.

Dr. Delwyn Fredlund, P.Eng., O.C. is the recipient of the Meritorious Service Award For Community Service for exemplary voluntary contribution to a community organization or humanitarian endeavour. Dr. Fredlund's pre-eminence in the geotechnical field, his pioneering work in the area of unsaturated soil mechanics, his distinguished 35-year career as an engineer and educator--all have earned him international recognition and professional honours, including his induction as an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2004. But it is Fredlund's exemplary humanitarian contributions that have earned him this award, specifically his 12 years of leadership with Canadian Food for the Hungry International (CFHI). Today, five years after his retirement, Fredlund remains personally involved in a number of CFHI projects in Vietnam.

U of S Mechanical Engineering student Chad Hamre is being honoured with the Gold Medal Student Award for outstanding leadership, contributions to society, and volunteerism by an undergraduate engineering student. Hamre was nominated for this award by his peers in Engineers without Borders (EWB) and by the Dean of the U of S College of Engineering. The U of S EWB chapter is the standard to which every other Canadian chapter aspires; as such, Hamre has been a coach and role model to hundreds of engineering students across the country, spreading a vision for a better world and inspiring action.