Richard Crowder – Halcrow

I work as a consulting engineer specialising in water management planning predominantly in the area flood risk and water quality management. This involves work on Catchment Flood Risk Management Plans, strategy studies, flood risk assessments, flood mapping, flood forecasting and flood warning, software engineering and much more!

My workload at Halcrow is varied, and at times unpredictable due to the type of projects we get involved with which makes every day a new challenge. Supplying a direct service to a wide range of clients such as the Environment Agency through to small independent developers or even farmers means things are often exciting and demanding. Working for such an organisation also means I have a real opportunity to make a difference to society and especially future generations. For example with a flood risk assessment or a flood mapping project I am often assessing risk of flooding at a particular site. This can then impact on the value of the site/property and any future developments or may lead to mitigation measures which will potentially save lives during a flood event.

In my current role I am responsible for the UK & IRE water management planning market sector of our business and I am also the Halcrow Framework Manager for the Strategic Flood Risk Management Framework with the Environment Agency. On route to this job, I initially undertook a Civil and Structural Engineering Degree and was then fortunate enough to be offered a research position on an EC Research and Development (R&D) project based at Delft Hydraulics in the Netherlands. This was followed by a Research Assistant post at Bradford University working on an Environment Agency R&D project. On completion of this project I turned from research to consultancy and took the full time role of Senior Modeller with Bullen Consultants (now Faber Maunsell) before taking on the role of Divisional Manager for river and coastal modelling. At the same time as joining consultancy I also continued with research through part time study for a PhD in computational hydraulics. Although this was a significant commitment it certainly paid off for me in the long run. In 2002 I joined Halcrow, as an Associate Director, which gave me the opportunity to build a team in Leeds and develop the business in the NE of England.  I then took on my current role in 2006.

I am Full Member of CIWEM and have sat on the local branch committee for the past 8 years. Not only does this help me to keep abreast of events and activities in area of environmental management but it also keeps me in touch with friends and professionals in the industry who works for other organisations. I also enjoy mentoring others who wish to become CIWEM chartered.

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