Mike is a registered civil engineer (Canada), and an independent consulting engineer, with some 40 years of experience, mostly consulting, but ten years of that with resource companies. He is generally most known for the state parameter approach to soil characterization, work that led to an invitation to write a book on soil liquefaction. As will be evident from a quick glance at the book, Mike is an exponent of the heresay that geotechnical engineering must be based on applied mechanics, not geology, and that the Critical State Soil Mechanics is fundamental, readily measurable, and something every geotechnical engineer should appreciate.