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| His personal piping history includes RCAF Rockcliffe pipeband in the mid-1960s, the renowned Clan MacFarlane pipe band from the late-1960s to 1980s (where he was Pipe Sergeant for several years when the band was at the height of its world-class success), and Niagara Regional Police from the mid-1990s to 2003. Bob is a member of the Pipers and Pipe Band Society of Ontario music board, holds an “A” certificate for pipe band adjudication and a Level II certificate for solo piping.
Bob was born in Dunvegan, a village in eastern Ontario whose namesake is the birthplace of piping on the Isle of Skye. He’s been active on the world piping scene for 50 years and has chalked up nearly as much experience as an engineer and structural steel specialist. |
He has a B.Sc. in Civil Engineering from Queen's University and has been with Acres for 33 of his 37 years in the profession. Much of Bob’s work has been on industrial, marine and power projects across Canada, the USA and abroad.
Bob (far right) in his hometown of Maxville, Ontario, with the Clan MacFarlane in 1982 during a victory parade after the Maxville
Highland Games, North America’s largest competition.
He has designed light and heavy buildings, crane-carrying steel structures, steel-making facilities, alterations to power plants, site works, bridges, dry docks and wharfs. Bob is a member of the Canadian Standards Association Technical Committee on Steel Structures for Buildings, AIST (formerly AISE) Subcommittee No.13 for the Design and Construction of (Steel) Mill Buildings, and is coauthor of numerous papers and the CISC-sponsored Crane-Supporting Steel Structures Design Guide. Some of Bob’s recent project highlights with Acres include:
- Lead Engineer for preliminary design, providing and verifying quantities of construction materials for sitework, foundations, and nonvendor supplied structures to support a bid for a 2 x 450-MW fossil-fueled power plant in Alberta.
- Specialist advisory services for expansion of a gypsum ore covered-storage and shipping facility in the Bay of Fundy, Nova Scotia. This work included redeveloping the gypsum handling facility to double its shiploading rate for two new world-class shiploaders and rebuilding of a wharf where the tidal range is in the order of 15 meters.
- Project Manager for engineering services on a retrofit installation of three SCR units (800 MW each) at the Bruce Mansfield power generating station in Pennsylvania. The work involved intricate layout of almost 1000 tons of structural steel for each unit and analysis of existing steel and foundations to carry the additional heavy loads from the reactor and flues, plus a construction crane runway. The work also included layout and design for the ammonia unloading, storage and distribution facility.
- Lead Civil/Structural Engineer for design of civil/structural works required for the retrofit installation of an SCR unit at the (former) New York State Electric & Gas 550-MW station at Somerset. The work involved intricate layout of almost 1000 tons of structural steel and complex foundation work. It also included a computerized dynamic analysis of the structural system in accordance with the latest US seismic design standard.
In 2003, Bob retired from active pipe band competition but still plays for pleasure and occasionally for hire. He’s an active judge, primarily on the Ontario Highland Games circuit, and adjudicates about six games each summer between Sarnia and Montreal.
Incidentally, to “skirl pipes” is simply to “play them” – not that there’s anything simple about that. Just ask Bob.
For more information on Scottish piping and the Clan MacCrimmon, click here.
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For more information on civil engineering at Acres, please contact:
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Bob MacCrimmon, Project Engineer |
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