July 2008 Issue
Obituary
Duncan Alasdair Carswell, P.Geoph.
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A former second-vice president of APEGGA and the 1991 winner of the L.C. Charlesworth Summit Award for Professional Service, Duncan Alasdair Carswell, P.Geoph., has passed away in Calgary after a relapse of leukemia. He was 67.
Mr. Carswell, a life member of the Association, was renowned for his work to resolve issues involving geoscience licensure. First diagnosed with leukemia in 2005, he died May 12 with his family at his bedside.
“From 2006 to April 2008, Duncan and (wife) Pat had wonderful times together, hiking, traveling, spending time with family and friends, and appreciating the extraordinary in the ordinary,” says the official published obituary. With his son Allan, Mr. Carswell also enjoyed a trip to Scotland, the birthplace of his parents.
Mr. Carswell was elected to APEGGA Council in 1982 and served on the Discipline Committee then as well. From 1985 to 1987, he chaired a liaison committee made up of representatives of APEGGA, the Canadian Society of Exploration Geophysicists and the Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists.
On the liaison committee, he “contributed substantively to the work of the committee and its important role in resolving registration, certification and other issues relating to geology and geophysics,” says an APEGGA Summit Awards biography.
In 1988, Mr. Carswell was elected second vice-president of APEGGA, serving two terms in the position. Over the years, he was also involved in a broad range of other APEGGA activities, either chairing or being a member of a number of committees. These included the Calgary Members’ Liaison Committee, the Joint Student Affairs Committee with the University of Calgary, the Calgary Meetings Committee, the Professional Affairs Committee, and the Honours and Awards Committee.
In addition to his extensive direct service with APEGGA, Mr. Carswell contributed to professional, community and industry advancement in a number of other ways. He was the 1982 president of CSEG and a winner of the society’s Meritorious Service Award.
Mr. Carswell was a former president of the Canadian Information Processing Society’s Calgary Chapter and a former chair of SAIT’s computer advisory committee. He chaired a systems committee for the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics, and he was on the finance committee for the establishment of Calgary’s Alberta Science Centre (now the TELUS World of Science).
An APEGGA member since 1970, Mr. Carswell first went to university in the city of his birth, Toronto. He received his bachelor of applied science degree in engineering physics from the University of Toronto.
He came west for his master’s degree in physics, which he received from the University of Calgary in 1965. That’s also where he met his future wife, Pat.
The couple were married in 1965. “The most important additions to their lives were their sons, Keith and Allan,” says the official obituary. Keith, however, predeceased his father in 1988.
Mr. Carswell worked for a number of companies, including the international geophysical company CGG, where he was Canadian general manager. He began his own consulting business in 1985.
An online tribute calls him “a tall, handsome, brilliant man.” Another says Mr. Carswell is “the type of person you just can’t forget.”
In addition to his wife, Pat, and his son Allan, Mr. Carswell is survived by a sister, Anne, a brother, Allan, and many other family and friends.