A Century-Long Specialty

“I just stood still, and it happened around me,” laughs professional engineer and APEGA life member Eugene Bolstad—he just celebrated his 100th birthday. Those familiar with Bolstad’s achievements know this is, indeed, quite funny—he has accomplished much in the past century. From the caves of Sudbury to the underground tunnels of the University of Calgary, from the roads of Alberta to heating systems in the Arctic, Bolstad’s influence spans our communities, buildings, and roadways. And he isn’t one for standing still—unless it’s ears alert, listening to the sounds spreading around him.

In 1940, he was a hopeful first-year student at the University of Saskatchewan, working to be a mining engineer. “I had some visions of being in a checkered shirt and high-top boots, tramping around in the mines.”

He left school to get experience, shovelling rock in a mine in a prehistoric mass of ore in the Sudbury Basin—an area made accessible for mining by the development of the Canadian Pacific Railway. He spent two years stomaching the rapid drop in the mine shaft elevator, landing to spend the day shovelling rock. After about a year he was promoted to chiselling grooves across the rock faces to collect laboratory samples. By the end of his second year, he had determined a career as a mining engineer was not for him.  

The journey to professional engineer

He left Sudbury and returned to university, where he started to work towards becoming a mechanical engineer, until he left school once again to take a job with a plumbing company. “I found out all about plumbing—what makes a toilet work,” he laughs. “Very few people have any understanding whatsoever about what happens when you press that lever.”

In 1957, he began working with an architectural and engineering firm, where the principal encouraged him to get his professional engineer designation. “I applied to APEGA, and they came back with a letter that said we’ll give you credit for what you’ve accomplished so far, and you have to study for and write the following 13 examinations.”

When the weather turned in the fall of 1963, Bolstad set up a work desk in the basement of his house and studied throughout the winter. In the spring, fully germinated with engineering knowledge, he sat for the exams. “I got them all, except one.” He was granted a supplementary exam in September. “I sat for that final exam and sure enough, shortly afterwards, I got the letter from APEGA addressed to Eugene Henry Bolstad, P.Eng.”

He explains that he used to be concerned about the fact that he hadn’t graduated from a university, had never attended a convocation, and hadn’t received a degree. “It used to bother me a little bit, that feeling of ‘I’m not quite an engineer.’” But in 1970, he received a phone call that changed his feelings. The dean of engineering at the University of Alberta called him to ask if he’d make a speech to the graduating class on being a professional engineer. He agreed, and gave the speech. “And then I walked out of there and I thought, if the dean of engineering thinks I’m good enough to make a speech to the graduating class, I think I’ve passed.”

Bolstad has received his life member status with APEGA, alongside life memberships with the Canadian Acoustical Association, which he helped form, and ASHRAE, the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers. He developed two specialties: acoustics and sound control, and heating.

The sound of accomplishment

One project he is particularly proud of stemmed from a heating technique he learned about when he built a powerhouse in the Arctic where the hot water from a plant was distributed in a utilidor, which also contained the power and the telephone lines. He used the same technique to distribute heat through underground tunnels at the University of Calgary. He can find his way anywhere on campus in them. “That was also part of my mining experience—I was accustomed to wandering around in dark tunnels. It’s not for everybody—I can tell you that!” Bolstad chuckles.

In 1971, Bolstad made a submission to the Government of Alberta to complete the Edmonton Area Noise Survey and was awarded the job. Edmonton was divided into districts, and the survey took about a year to complete. “We established how noisy each of these little communities was.” Bolstad and the team he put together made recommendations to minimize noise in Edmonton, such as creating walls containing blocks with specialized faces to deflect and spread vehicle sounds. These line St. Albert Trail and many other roads in Edmonton today.

When farmers were complaining about the noise from a gas compressor station near Drumheller, Bolstad, a well-established expert in sound by then, came in to advise. “It was making an awful howl, and I got hired to measure how loud it was—which was loud—and then I had to try to figure out what we could do about it.” The total pitch and frequency of the sound meant it was coming from the compressor itself. Bolstad told them to put jacketing on the piping in the yard. “And lo and behold, we were able to reduce the noise to the point where the only thing I could hear was the water dripping off the downspouts.”

In 1972, Bolstad expanded his career in sound when he built a laboratory for testing building materials for sound transmission. It was the only full-scale laboratory outside of the National Research Council in Ottawa, and the only one able to issue sound certification for materials such as windows and doors. When the open office plan became popular, their laboratory tested dozens of partitions to make sure offices would have sufficient noise suppression.

Advancing through the decades

Bolstad started his last company in 1975, moving into sound engineering. “It was the business of measuring noise in all kinds of different locations,”—an excellent choice for Alberta, he explains, as the province has a ready-built source of noise from gas plants and compressor stations. Thirteen years later, the Department of Industry and Commerce with the Government of Alberta appointed him chairperson of a technical committee responsible for creating a series of regulations limiting the amount of noise any particular plant or operation could make. This was especially important in Alberta, Bolstad says, as “industry was beginning to permeate every community.” The regulations the committee created were adopted in Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. “As a result, I’ve come up with a reputation, I guess you’d call it, of being a noise monitor,” he smiles.

He is bemused by how technology has developed since he was a practising professional engineer—and a little envious of the engineers practising today who get to use it. He’d programmed calculators for years and owned the first rendition of a standalone general computer. “It had two eight-inch floppy discs, one on each side of the keyboard, and each one contained 64KB of memory—can you imagine that against today’s computers?” A group of his friends who took over his sound engineering business tell him about how the adept monitors they use can be left on site for a week recording sound while simultaneously analyzing data using at least three types of programming. “And I think, oh my, what couldn’t I have done with that!” Bolstad chuckles, “I started out with a tape recorder and a simple sound meter!”

A resounding success

He affirms that much of the business of engineering hasn’t changed. “They still calculate the stresses and materials so that the bridge you’re designing will carry the load that it’s supposed to carry—that’s no different.” While he is impressed by the technological advances up-and-coming engineers have to work with, his career advice for the same group is simple. “Any work that you approach, any work that you do, you’ve got to put your own mark on it. You have to develop your own specialty.”

And Bolstad would know. The results of his engineering specialties still ring effective across Alberta, and his legacy of excellence in the profession will resound for ages to come. “I am very proud of being a professional engineer and using the P.Eng. title at the end of my name. That really is my pride.”