David E Ross SCS Engineers, USA
Registered Professional Engineer (PE) & Board Certified Environmental Engineer(BCEE) Sr. Vice President, SCS Engineers (retired), Long Beach, California USA
Mr. Ross has devoted his 52-year professional career to the practice of environmental
engineering, with a focus on solid and hazardous waste management and remediation projects. He retired in 2014 as a Senior Vice President of SCS Engineers (SCS) in charge of the firm’s International Practice, after serving for 43 years in various leadership positions, including as a member of the Board of Directors and retirement investment committees.
Mr. Ross earned his BS and MS degrees in Civil Engineering in 1967 and 1968, respectively, at the University of California, Berkeley. He began his professional career as a Commissioned Officer in the US Public Health Service, Bureau of Solid Waste Management, in Cincinnati, Ohio. (This agency later merged into the US Environmental Protection Agency [USEPA].) There, he worked on solid waste demonstration grant-funded projects covering innovative technologies for refuse collection, processing, recycling, and disposal. In 1970, Mr. Ross joined the California Department of Health Services, where his primary assignment was to compile information for and to help prepare the nation’s first state-wide hazardous waste management plan.
Joining the start-up engineering company, SCS, in 1971, Mr. Ross served as principal engineer and/or manager for over 400 projects in the USA and abroad related to solid and hazardous waste management, recycling, waste-to-energy, landfill gas-to-energy systems, environmental impact assessments, and water quality protection. His assignments have supported solid waste management improvements on 6 continents, including projects in Canada, Egypt, Israel, Argentina, Colombia, China, South Korea, Thailand, and New Zealand.
Mr. Ross continued his engineering work while concurrently serving in many management positions within SCS, including Director of the company’s founding office in Long Beach for 10 years, then Director of SCS’s offices in the USA’s Western Region for 7 years. Later Mr. Ross managed all of SCS’s business development and projects assignments for clients outside the United States, supervised SCS’s marketing department, and sat on 6 of SCS’s standing corporate management committees. Since 2008, Mr. Ross has been an Associate Editor of Waste Management & Research, the International Solid Waste Association’s peer reviewed technical journal, published by Sage.
Capping off his career, Mr. Ross was named in 2015 the recipient of the Robert L. Lawrence Distinguished Service Award by the Solid Waste Association of North America (SWANA), the USA’s ISWA member.
Residing in Long Beach, California, with his wife, Mr. Ross is the proud grandfather of three active and curious teenage boys and one young girl. When not coordinating peer reviews for papers submitted to WM&R, Mr. Ross enjoys travel, photography, cycling, reading histories and mysteries, gardening, listening to music, exploring science and politics with the grandkids, and walking his dog.
