Pilko & Associates | John Black

John Black

John has more than 30 years experience in engineering geology and environmental consulting. Since joining Pilko in 1999, John has been involved in the soil and groundwater contamination aspects of numerous transactions involving chemical facilities in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Europe and the U.K.; for coal and gas-fired electric power plants; for several petroleum refineries, storage terminals and pipelines; and for miscellaneous industrial facilities.

His experience in the upstream oil and gas industry, including coal-bed methane, includes identifying and assessing environmental issues related to properties in the U.S., Azerbaijan, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Peru, Trinidad and Venezuela. This experience includes both on-shore and off-shore properties.

For the first 15 years of his career, John worked mostly on geo-engineering projects, including foundations for large buildings, bridges and dams. He was retained by the U.K. government to advise a Central American organization, based in Guatemala City on engineering geologic factors associated with the construction of various capital infrastructure projects. The assignment required extensive travel throughout Central America. This was followed by a three-year term with a major German civil engineering firm as resident engineering geologist working on the Masterplan for Electric Power Development for the Republic of Guatemala. During this period John became fluent in Spanish as a second language.

John then migrated to San Francisco, to work on nuclear, hydro-power and water supply projects, including a one-year assignment in Peru working on a major slope stabilization project. He commenced working on environmental projects in Denver from the mid-1980s. In 1990 he was transferred to Houston and was appointed Principal and Operations Manager of that firm.

In 1994 he was appointed as Managing-Principal-in-Charge of another company’s Houston office, continuing to work on a wide range of environmental projects. He left to become an Independent Consultant in 1996, focusing on overseas environmental E&P projects, principally in South America.

John is a Registered Geologist in the State of Texas. He was awarded a B.Sc. (Honours) in Applied Geology, from the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland.