By Pierre Friele
Published: Dec. 22, 2013
I first met Frank Baumann in about 1986, as an undergrad doing summer fieldwork at Meager Creek with a friend of Frank’s, Peter Jordan. The meeting was brief, but notable because what I remember is Frank taking us out on a tour to demonstrate his new device – a GPS receiver – brand new technology at the time.

In retrospect, the meeting was notable too because it highlighted the fact that Frank could count as friends and colleague many well-known and experienced geotechnical professionals, in that case Peter Jordan.
I moved to Squamish myself in 1991. At first I did the usual thing and commuted to Vancouver to work for a firm there. But in 1996 I heard that Baumann Engineering could use a geoscientist, so I phoned Frank up.
He gave me a pack of air-photos to type, and said if he liked my work I’d be welcome aboard. In the end I worked with Frank from 1996-2004, and he acted as my professional mentor. It was a tight-knit office shared with JCH Forestry, located above Westward Sales on Pemberton Avenue.
At that time in his career, he was focusing on Forestry Practice, conducting terrain stability assessments, developing road deactivation standards, presenting workshops for contactors and teaching those things at BCIT.
He was an inveterate talker, always reclined in his desk chair, feet up on the desk, jawing away on the phone to a prospective client, or relating a professional concern to any ear he had access to, and he loved story telling. He had one motto that I won’t forget, and that was “engineers should not overbuild or underbuild, but get it just right.”
He was a man of his convictions. He was proud of his roots in that way, and often related how his father had left Germany just before WWII in conscious objection to Nazi fascism.
In professional life Frank was possessed with a moral commitment to expose and get action on geohazard issues he felt posed an unacceptable risk to human life. In doing so, he was not afraid of being outspoken, and loved the media for its reach. Even recently, whenever disaster hit (e.g., Johnson’s Landing, High Prairie) you could count on hearing Frank on the radio expounding on his views. For the media, he was the go-to man.
His interest in the Cheekye fan was burning at the time I first started, as he had just duked it out with a local politician on related matters, had discovered the so-called Garbage Dump debris flow and was involved with Thurber & Golder Engineering in conducting the first very detailed hazard assessment of Cheekye fan.
My initial introduction to Cheekye fan, and many other geoscience topics, came from Frank. His infectious inspiration was instilled in me, and I am grateful for that.
In many ways Frank was larger than life. I could not travel anywhere in BC for work without having to answer questions about Frank – “what was he up to now,” and “how was he doing.”
People would recount images of the classic Frank – showing up on the job wearing the Peruvian toque and his red engineer’s vest bedangled with all sorts of devices: video camera, SLR camera, laser rangefinder, GPS in addition to all the usual tools – definitely not your average consultant. Always the early adopter, the latest of his gadgets was, a Quadcopter fitted out with GoPro for low-level aerial reconnaissance.
It is the larger than life version of Frank that will remain with me – Good memories are the best.
MichaelL65 says
Frank was my Grade 11 Earth Science teacher, and my Grade 12 Geology teacher at Howe Sound Secondary in 1982 and ’83. My memories of Mr. Baumann are of a man that loved his subject, and loved teaching it with great enthusiasm. His passion made you want to learn. But there is something more than his passion for teaching that made a lasting impression on my life. Frank Baumann was a man that genuinely cared about his students. I will never forget Frank asking me one day, how I was doing, and really wanting to know what was happening in my life at that time. He invited me to go out one day after school to help him do some environmental work in what is now the Industrial Park. I honestly cannot remember what we were doing, or how I actually helped him! But I do remember Frank asking me about me, and my life. I was so shcked and surprised that Frank had asked me to go and help him. I will always remember him as my favorite teacher, and human being that genuinely loved and cared for others, and, lived out his faith with love and passion. When I heard of his passing, I wept many tears.
Jeremy Sherman says
I just took an avalanche course in New Hampshire and a report by Frank was included in the coursework. As a civil engineer, I was motivated and fascinated by his work and searched for him on the web. It is unfortunate to find he has passed; his life and work is inspirational to me as an engineer and a mountaineer.
-Jeremy