Citation on the award of Life Membership, April 2025
Roger Shelton is awarded a Life membership of NZSEE for his services to earthquake and structural engineering in New Zealand.
Roger Shelton has worked in various capacities in the structural engineering profession for the majority of his professional career and is currently a Senior Structural Engineer at BRANZ. He has been a member of the NZSEE for many years.
Roger is currently serving on the NZS3604, Light Timber Framed Buildings, review committee, as the BRANZ representative. This standard is the most widely used standard by the design and construction industry in NZ, underpinning the design of most timber framed houses and other buildings. The importance of a sound engineering basis for the standard cannot be overestimated.
This is not the first time that Roger has served on this committee. He has been a BRANZ representative in the review of this standard over several issues of the standard, particularly the 1999 and 2011 versions. The 1999 version introduced a rational relationship between NZS3604 and the specific engineering design standard for timber buildings, NZS3603 and the earthquake loadings standard, NZS1170.5. The previous issues were a codification of what had been standard building practice for many years.
Roger authored the BRANZ “Engineering Basis of NZS3604” document first in 2007, following the 1999 version, and then again in 2013, following the 2011 revision. The engineering basis publication was intended as a source document outlining the reasoning and calculations behind the tabulated design information in NZS3604, requiring Roger to spend many hours of researching and documenting the engineering background to the standard. Roger’s knowledge of the standard and its engineering basis has meant that he is the “go to” source of reasoning behind the engineering clauses of the standard.
He has authored many articles in the BRANZ Build magazine and BRANZ Guideline, providing valuable interpretation of the engineering intent of the standard and its clauses, particularly in the area of seismic performance.
Roger also represents NZ on the ISO Loadings Standard subcommittee, TC98/SC3 – Loads, Forces and Other Actions. His efforts on this committee have ensured that NZ has kept up to date with international developments in the development of standards for loadings on buildings, as well as providing an NZ influence on their development.
Immediately following the 4 September 2010 Darfield earthquake and again immediately following the 22 February 2011 Christchurch earthquake Roger volunteered without hesitation to undertake structural safety assessments of dwellings in the declared civil defence emergency in the Canterbury area. In this role he worked long hours in the field assessing the structural safety of dwellings, determining with an empathetic approach whether traumatised residents could safely remain in their dwellings following these events.
Roger was selected as a member of the Engineering Advisory Group (EAG), first to the Earthquake Commission and then to MBIE (formerly DBH), providing guidance resources to the engineering and building community following the September 2010 event. Many hours outside of his normal workday were spent in the rapid development of the guidance publication “Repairing and Rebuilding Houses Affected by the Canterbury Earthquakes” for use by the industry in the rebuild of Christchurch. This document is still referred to daily by designers in all Territorial Authorities throughout NZ for the construction of dwellings in liquefaction-prone areas.
In the 2000’s, Roger took a two-year time out from his BRANZ employment to assist as a Volunteer Service Abroad (VSA) volunteer in Bhutan. In this role he oversaw the construction of new buildings, imparting his vast earthquake engineering knowledge to the Bhutanese engineering and construction community.
Roger’s most recently published NZSEE Bulletin paper was in 2019 titled “Experimental Studies on In-plane Performance of Plasterboard Sheathed Ceiling Diaphragms.
This lifelong commitment to structural and seismic engineering makes Roger a worthy recipient of Life Membership of the Society.
