A former member of the organization that regulates engineers in British Columbia has admitted to unprofessional conduct and had his registration cancelled.
A Feb. 4 consent order between Kenneth John Maddox and the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of BC (EGBC) said Maddox would pay $2,000 toward legal and investigative costs and would not reapply for membership.
Maddox resigned from EGBC in January 2023, almost seven years after he was hired to design a lock block retaining wall at a Prince George residential property. The address was not disclosed in the consent order.
Maddox did so without obtaining or reviewing any applicable geotechnical load data relevant to the design and without performing design calculations.
“He assured the City of Prince George that his structural design of the retaining wall substantially complied with the British Columbia Building Code 2012,” said the consent order.
Maddox also admitted to assuring the City of Prince George in April 2017 that he fulfilled obligations for a field review and claimed the wall’s structural components substantially complied with the design submitted to support the building permit application.
The lock block was not built according to Maddox’s specifications. It used unsuitable native fill which was not free-draining and did not include a clay seal.
Maddox originally registered in 1991 as a professional engineer, according to the EGBC website. He was suspended in October 2022 for failure to comply with reporting requirements. The suspension was lifted in December and he became a non-practising member, but did not renew his registration in January 2023.
Since the unprofessional conduct occurred before the Professional Governance Act replaced the Engineers and Geoscientists Act in February 2021, EGBC considered the matter under the old law.
