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General Announcement
Ted Flaxman, the founder of ISTT
Ted Flaxman
Ted Flaxman was incontestably one of the pioneers of the “trenchless technology”, and the founder of the ISTT (International Society for Trenchless Technology). He left us on the last 8th October of 2020, at the age of 92.
In 1985, in London, he chaired the organizing committee for the IPHE (Institution of Public Health Engineers) and its conference “Trenchless Construction for Utilities”. It was the very first “NO-DIG “event. The decision was taken then to create the “International Society for Trenchless Technology” in 1986, to spread widely the information and the innovations with the aim of international events, magazine,s and an annual discerning prize rewarding the most remarkable progress.
Mathieu Lechatelier, the first French member of the ISTT, became one of the founders of the French branch (FSTT) in 1990 at the sides of Michel Mermet, Daniel Crosnier, Christian Legaz, Yves Notin, and Michel Audouin. Then a NO DIG event was organized in Paris in 1992, and a few years later, upon suggestion by Ted Flaxman to its board, Michel Mermet became Chairman of the ISTT (and happened to be congratulated in London, with Ted Flaxman aside, by the Duke of Edinburgh!).
For anyone who happened to know closely Ted Flaxman, he was the most “English fashioned engineer” and highly “humanist”. He participated actively in any international NO-DIG event, but also to every French event called VST (Ville Sans Tranchée), the annual event devoted to the trenchless technology in France.
Ted Flaxman remains forever an example as a bright engineer, unselfish leader, with a visionary, widely open-mind and humanist plus a specifically British wit. The “French Society for Trenchless Technology “, members and its board of directors, express warmly their deepest sympathy to his family.
Michel Mermet,
FSTT-French Society for Trenchless Technology
From front-left, Satoru Tohyama, Ted Flaxman (Center) and Michel Mermet.
