About the Facilitator

Richard Bieniawski, Ph.D, MS(Eng), M.ASCE, is Emeritus Professor of GeoEnvironmental Engineering, and of Science, Technology and Society, both at Penn State University. Since 2001, he is also Distinguished Professor of Geotechnical Engineering at the University of Madrid, Spain, where he received Doctor Honoris Causa for developing a design method for tunneling and mining. An auditorium at the Madrid School of Mines was named after him in 2003 as Aula del Prof. Bieniawski, together with a Scholarship called Beca Bieniawski.

The author of 12 books, over 180 research papers (some translated into Spanish, German, Russian, Chinese and Korean), a collection of assays on communication and leadership, and of a mystery novel, he directed and produced two scientific movies, three theatre plays, and designed artwork for all his books. He guest-lectured in many countries and universities and held Visiting Professorships at University of Karlsruhe, Germany, at Stanford University, at Harvard University and at the University of Cambridge, England.

His wife Elizabeth - and co-Facilitator - is a historian and an M.S. in library and information science (please see her full Bio). They retired to Prescott in 1996 to experience the Wild West and sunshine, after 20 years of winters in Pennsylvania.

Richard is dedicated to his hobbies of genealogy, publishing a quarterly family magazine called "Bieni-Zine" and financial planning; both are international travelers and ardent students of Spanish language and culture, having learned the language at Yavapai College in five years and traveled to Spain eight times for the past nine years. They have three married sons, all engineers, and EIGHT grandchildren!