Lloyd Cluff is the winner of EERI's 2009 George W. Housner Medal

At EERI’s Annual Meeting last month, EERI Honorary Member Lloyd S. Cluff, director of the Geosciences Department of the Pacific Gas and Electric Company in San Francisco, was awarded EERI’s highest honor, the George W. Housner Medal, in recognition of his sustained work in the application of geologic knowledge to critical facility and building safety, his support of effective public policies to reduce earthquake risk and hazards throughout the world, and for his service to the Institute, including his term as president.

In a letter to EERI in response to receiving the award, Lloyd wrote, “I am deeply honored and grateful for this distinction…I especially appreciate receiving this honor in Salt Lake City, because Utah is my home state. While I was attending the University of Utah, I was introduced to the Wasatch fault, and investigated my first destructive earthquake, the 1959 Hebgen Lake earthquake; these two factors caused me to get hooked on active faults and earthquakes. I was honored to first work with Professor Housner following the 1964 Alaska earthquake, and again during the EERI Learning from Earthquakes investigations of the 1967 Caracas earthquake, as well as many subsequent earthquakes. I am deeply grateful to other EERI mentors: Clarence Allen, Karl Steinbrugge, Henry Degenkolb, Harry Seed, and Frank McClure, who have all played a significant role in my career.”

Lloyd presently directs PG&E’s Earthquake Risk Management Program. He is responsible for making seismic reviews of PG&E facilities and, together with other PG&E departments, assessing their ability to accommodate earthquakes. Prior to joining PG&E in 1985, Lloyd was vice president, principal geologist, and director of Woodward-Clyde Consultants in San Francisco. For 25 years, he led a distinguished interdisciplinary group of geoscientists and earthquake engineers in the evaluation of earthquake hazards and risk for critical facilities worldwide. With Woodward-Clyde, Lloyd directed a team of earthquake geologists that evaluated the route of the proposed Trans-Alaska Pipeline. Where the proposed pipeline crossed the Denali fault, Lloyd’s team was involved in implementing an innovative design to protect the integrity of the pipeline during future fault displacements. In 2002, the design earthquake occurred, displacing the pipeline 18 feet. It remained intact; not a drop of oil was spilled.  

He has been a consultant to the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, advising on seismic and geologic criteria for the safe siting and design of nuclear power plants. In 1975, the President’s Office of Science and Technology Policy appointed him a member of the Newmark-Stever Panel, whose work was the basis for the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program. He was a commissioner on the California Seismic Safety Commission for almost 15 years, serving as its Chairman for two terms. The California Earthquake Loss Reduction Plan was developed under his leadership. He was a member of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Senior Seismic Hazard Analysis Committee from 1993 to 1996, charged with developing guidelines for the seismic regulation of nuclear power plants and other critical facilities. In 1996, Lloyd’s leadership was instrumental in establishing the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center (PEER), particularly its lifelines component. 

Lloyd has had numerous opportunities to assist international governments. He has served on commissions or panels addressing the seismic safety of existing or proposed reservoirs, dams, nuclear power plants, or other critical facilities in Chile, Egypt, Iran, Mexico, Nicaragua, Portugal, and Venezuela. In 2000, Lloyd was honored to be a member of the National Interacademies US/Iran Cooperative Initiative, sponsored by the State Department to normalize relations between the U.S. and Iran through science, engineering, and medical cooperative projects. Lloyd currently is a member of the Seismic Safety Advisory Board for the Autoridad del Canal de Panama, developing seismic design criteria for new and existing facilities in Panama’s effort to expand the canal’s shipping capacity.

Lloyd served as EERI president 1993-95. He has also been president of the Seismological Society of America and the Association of Engineering Geologists. He was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 1978 and a Fellow in the California Academy of Sciences in 1992. He has been awarded the Alfred E. Alquist Medal from the California Earthquake Safety Foundation, the Department of Interior’s highest citizen award, the John Wesley Powell Award, and the Western States Seismic Policy Council’s Award in Excellence for Lifetime Achievement.