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Marquis Who’s Who, publisher of biographical profiles, recently presented L. David Suits, MSCE, with the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award. An accomplished listee, Suits celebrates many years’ experience in his professional network, and has been noted for achievements, leadership qualities, and the credentials and successes he has accrued in his field.
Suits is an independent consultant and the owner of LDS Geosynthetic Consultant Services. Based in Albany, N.Y., his firm specializes in geosynthetics and soils, offering a myriad of services, including expertise in such areas of soil and geosynthetic training, testing setup, test standards, specification development, and end-user geosynthetic quality assurance program setup. He established his consultancy in late 2016.
A career that began in 1968, Suits was acquired by the Geotechnical Engineer Bureau, New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT), in Albany as a soil engineering laboratory supervisor. Serving in this capacity for more than 35 years, he oversaw the soil foundation testing for various NYSDOT projects and all the testing and approval of the geosynthetics used on these projects. He also spent several of his later years with the organization as the chairperson of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials/National Transportation Product Evaluation Program geotextile panel, managing the testing of all geotextiles submitted to the program. He subsequently spent the next decade as the executive director of the North American Geosynthetics Society between 2005 and 2016.
Besides his fieldwork, Suits twice served as an adjunct professor at Rensselaer Polytechnical Institute. As a renowned expert in his field and scholar, he also authored over 30 scholarly articles and papers on geosynthetics and geotechnical engineering and has contributed several chapters to textbooks on geosynthetics, including the fourth edition of “Kirk-Othmer Concise Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology.” Adding to his credibility, Suits has been an associate editor for the Transportation Research Record since 2019 and is a former co-editor of the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) International Geotechnical Testing Journal.
Grateful to his former employer, Suits has always strived to be a good listener, open to others’ thoughts and opinions. Looking toward the future, he aims to continue providing his expertise as a consultant in science and engineering for several more years.
A graduate of Clarkson University, Suits received an undergraduate degree in 1967 and a master of engineering in civil engineering in 1969. He also received certification as a PDH provider through the Registered Continued Education Provider Program.
Remaining ahead in the industry through various professional organizations, Suits has been recognized as a founding member of ASTM International’s Committee D35 on Geosynthetics since 1983. He has also served on various committees of the Transportation Research Board, including chairperson of its subsurface drainage committee and the geosynthetics committee. Moreover, he has been active on the board of the Geosynthetic Institute and also serves on the editorial advisory committee of Geosynthetics magazine. Honoring his accomplishments, Suits has received an award of merit from ASTM International, and was named as the Engineer of the Year by the NYSDOT.
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