Citation on the award of NZSEE Fellow, April 2025
Geoffrey (Geoff) Banks is conferred Fellowship of NZSEE for his services to earthquake engineering and structural engineering in New Zealand.
Geoff has been a long-time member of NZSEE and has provided significant contributions to NZSEE and to the wider engineering community over the last 40 years. He has served the Society at various times including through serving on the Management Committee from 2014 to 2018, and as convenor of the 2016 NZSEE Conference in Christchurch. Geoff has also written, reviewed and presented many technical papers over the years and contributed to NZSEE as a reviewer and conference session chair.
Geoff has worked and led teams in the earthquake & structural engineering fields for over four decades, including founding and building the successful consultancy Structex, which is now more than 20 years old. His leadership was apparent through both the Canterbury and Kaikoura earthquakes where he volunteered many hours towards immediate and ongoing response and recovery efforts and provided many significant contributions at the subsequent clearinghouse meetings.
Geoff has been an advocate for industry improvement as adviser to the Department of Building & Housing on their Concrete and Steel licensing standards, to Engineering New Zealand (IPENZ at the time) on their practice guidelines, and to the Christchurch Polytech Institute of Technology (CPIT, now Ara Institute of Canterbury) by serving in their Industry Advisory Group. Geoff also represented ACE (Consultants and Engineers NZ) at board level and been a judge for a number of rounds of the annual ACE awards. He has contributed to the NZ Green Building Council where Structex was a Gold Foundation member. He was also an annual guest lecturer on engineering ethics at the University of Canterbury for a number of years.
Geoff continues to push the boundaries of earthquake engineering, striving for resilient communities and the built environment. He is now focusing his efforts on low-cost base isolation alongside ongoing forensic engineering and expert witness work.
The breadth of Geoff’s contribution across earthquake engineering, and to the activities of the Society, represents exceptional service to the profession and makes Geoff a very worthy recipient of Fellowship of the New Zealand Society for Earthquake Engineering.
