Obituary

In memory of leading engineers with Mott MacDonald

Mott MacDonald has reported that three leading engineers who worked for its international tunnel engineering practice have died.

Most recently John Hawley died on Tuesday 24 March after a brave battle with cancer. A memorial service will take place on Saturday 18 April at 1pm, at the Church of the Recessional, Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California, USA.

John moved for his work from the UK to the United States and was a Senior Vice President of Hatch Mott MacDonald in California, where he was part of the firm’s construction management team of the North Hollywood extension of the Los Angeles Metro in the 1990s. He also worked on design of the first tunnels under the Sacramento River, led the preliminary design of the San Jose section of the Silicon Valley Rapid Transit, and was Engineering Manager for the Palmdale to Los Angeles section of the California High-Speed Rail project.

In the UK he was involved in the construction of the Channel Tunnel for the UK side and worked on the Tyne & Wear Metro and the Heathrow Airport Express Rail Link project. Internationally he worked on the Greater Cairo Wastewater Project, the Hong Kong Shing Mun highway tunnels, the Pulau Seraya immersed tunnel in Singapore, and the Hong Kong Strategic Sewage Disposal Scheme.

Jeff Turnbull and Graham Shutter also died early this year.

Jeff Turnbull was Chair of Mott MacDonald during design of the Channel Tunnel and Graham Shutter was head of firm’s Tunnels Division in the mid-1990s.