Tribute to Geoff Hillier
Geoffrey Derek Hillier
Born: 14 May 1938, Bexleyheath, Kent
Died: 5 March 2021, Arford, Hampshire
Education and Professional Qualifications: Chatham House Grammar School Ramsgate; King's College London 1956-59. BSc (Eng). Geoff Hillier originally went to King’s to read Mechanical Engineering but switched to Civil Engineering for which he was awarded his BSc (Eng) degree. He later qualified as a Chartered Engineer and Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers (MICE).
Career:
On leaving King’s College in 1959 Geoff joined W&C French Contractors working on the Crossness Outfall and subsequently Fitzpatrick Contractors on the Hyde Park Underpass in 1960. He then travelled to Malmo, Sweden with a local consulting engineering firm for some two years. He returned to the UK in 1963 and joined Sir William Halcrow and Partners, consulting engineers, with whom he stayed for the remaining 35 years of his professional career. His first project with Halcrow was the site supervision of the construction of an 8000 foot runway, associated taxiways and aprons at Benina Airport, Libya where Halcrow was also engaged in other airport and road projects.
He returned to the London head office of Halcrow in 1965 to work in the Transportation (Airports and Roads) section, on the planning, economic evaluation and detailed design of a series of road projects in Tanzania. This involved the co-ordination of a survey team on site with selection of route alignment from aerial photographs in Head Office and a computer analysis of the alignments and earthworks. Geoff was responsible for route selection, structural and pavement design and economic benefits for the road system which totalled some 260 miles, and which formed the subject of four feasibility reports. From 1966 to 1968, Geoff returned to Libya as Senior Assistant and then Resident Engineer on the supervision of construction of 18 km of a dual two-lane highway from Benghazi to Benina. This was an all-purpose road with at-grade and grade-separated intersections.
Returning to London in 1968, he spent two years on the investigation of alternative sites for a Third London Airport. This involved co-ordinating the work of economists, planners, air traffic control specialists, noise consultants, airline management advisors and civil engineers and resulted in the production of six major ‘Proofs of Evidence’ called for by the UK Government Roskill Commission appointed to report and recommend the location of the airport, a matter which has been under debate ever since. When this project was completed, Geoff then went to Bahrain for Halcrow from 1970-73 as Resident Engineer for the construction of a dual two-lane steel box girder bridge on the Manama - Muharaq causeway.
He next moved to Oman in 1974 as Senior Resident Engineer for the construction of a military airfield at Thumrait in the Dhofar Region of the southern Oman desert. This involved the construction of a 4000m concrete runway, associated taxiways and aprons, and all support facilities. Remarkably, completion of the operational base was achieved seven months after the instruction to commence design was received by Halcrow. Such a tight programme was only achieved by working hand in hand with the British Contractor and flying in bulk materials like cement in C130 aircraft from Dubai onto a graded strip. Once the base was operational, Geoff became Project Manager for all works involved in the development of Thumrait including road construction, completion of Phase II of the airbase and building works within the garrison. He then became Halcrow’s senior representative in Oman, responsible for the firm’s entire portfolio of work there. This included major, multi-million pound, works in five different areas of Oman with over 100 staff carrying out supervision on them. In 1976 he returned to Halcrow’s London office to carry out project administration for all the work going on at Thumrait and for the design of support facilities for Jaguar aircraft operation.
In 1979 he was located in Kuala Lumpur preparing for Prime Minister Mahathir’s Economic Planning Unit a National Airports Plan for all 52 of the country’s regional and rural airstrips and airports. Many, in particular in Sabah and Sarawak, were inaccessible except by air and the team was sometimes hosted on arrival in light aircraft by the local Dayak communities.
During the early 1980’s Geoff led the Halcrow team in the BAA-Halcrow Joint Venture to prepare the Master Plan for the proposed Athens airport at Spata. On finalisation, he returned to the Halcrow London office to manage the Halcrow Airports Group. From then until his retirement there were many diverse projects dealt with by the Airports Group under Geoff’s leadership, but the major ones were the planning, design and construction supervision of the Eurohub terminal at Birmingham airport, the planning and site preparation for the new airport for Kuala Lumpur (KLIA), Inchon airport in South Korea, the Chisinau airport terminal in Moldova, Sakhalin Island on the extreme eastern front of Russia , a new EBRD funded terminal at Tashkent, the Sofia Airport Master Plan and the design and construction supervision for the World Bank funded rehabilitation of the ex USAF Subic Airbase in the Philippines to facilitate direct cargo flights from as far as the US west coast.
The KLIA project was his most significant and valuable achievement. Located 45km south of KL and on a 100 square km site with challenging forested terrain requiring extensive earthworks and drainage, the airport was initially designed to handle 25 million passengers annually. Opened in 1998 it now has three parallel runways , processed 60 million passengers recently and now with a long term capacity of 100 million it offers motorway and direct express rail connections to the city. In recognition of his work on KLIA he was one of five individuals nominated in 1995 by The Times for the award of Consultant of the Year.
As a record of the work on the Birmingham Eurohub Terminal, he co-authored with C W Groom, a paper in the Proceedings of the ICE in August 1993 titled 'Birmingham Eurohub Terminal: design of Civil, Architectural and Structural works'. On the strength of his work with the airports group, Geoff was made a Director of Sir William Halcrow & Partners, Consulting Engineers, London until his retirement in May 1998, Alistair Tucker, Halcrow and Associates Ltd from December 1991 and Sir William Halcrow and Partners (Malaysia) Ltd from May 1992 to September 1997.
Outside his Halcrow duties, he was appointed a Major in the Corps of Royal Engineers, Territorial Army, Engineer and Transport Staff Corps, on 10 April 1991. On 19 February 1997 he was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel in the re-named Engineer and Logistics Staff Corps. On 25 February 1998, he was transferred to the supernumerary list. He also served as a Parish councillor in Alkham, Kent, (Dover District) from May 2015 to May 2019 where the family home was located.