John Anderson

Dr. John E. Anderson is Chief Geotechnical and Foundation Engineer for the Tunnel and Underground Practice at HNTB.  He has been practicing geotechnical and foundation engineering for over 40 years.  Presently based in Oakland, California, he was born and raised in the Edison Park area of Chicago, Illinois.  He earned a BSCE, MS-Geotechnical Engineering and PhD-Structural Engineering from Northwestern University. 

John started his career with Bechtel Incorporated in Gaithersburg MD.  He then moved on to McClelland Engineers in Houston, TX, STS Consultants (Chicago and Minneapolis) and GME Consultants in Minneapolis.  He rejoined Bechtel in Ann Arbor Michigan to serve as project geotechnical engineer for the Midland Nuclear Power Station’s remedial soils (underpinning) project.  Bechtel transferred him to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1984 where he’s lived for the past 32 years.  He joined CH2M Hill in 1987 and served as Oakland Geotechnical Department Manager and became the firm’s Geotechnical and Foundation Engineering Discipline lead in 1999 and a Technology Fellow in 2004.  In 2010 he joined HNTB as the Geotechnical Specialist for the firm’s Design Build Division and moved into his present position with HNTB when the Tunnel and Underground Practice was formed in 2012.

John is a licensed Civil Engineer in California and also has professional engineer licenses in Illinois, Iowa, and Michigan.  He has the California Geotechnical Engineer authority license and became a Board Certified Diplomate in Geotechnical Engineering in 2008.  Some of his professional service includes:  the Board of Directors and President of CalGeo (formerly California Geotechnical Engineers Association); the Board of Governors and President of the ASCE Geo-Institute; the Board of Directors and as President of Civil Engineering Inc; and the Board of Trustees and as President of the Academy of GeoProfessionals.   He also served two terms on the California Board of Registration for Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors Geotechnical Advisory Committee.

John and his wife, Kris, have been married for almost 40 years.  They have a daughter and a son and 4 grandchildren.