John W. France, P.E., D.GE, D.WRE
JWF Consulting LLC
Mr. John France is a registered professional engineer who is an individual consultant. He received BS and MS degrees in civil engineering from Cornell University. Mr. France has 49 years of consulting engineering experience, during which time he has worked on hundreds of civil engineering projects. For the past 42 years, his professional career has been focused on dam engineering and dam safety services. During his career, Mr. France has been involved in various capacities in evaluating and remediating slope stability issues for earth dams. He has served on review boards and panels for dam safety projects for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Reclamation, BC Hydro, and Brookfield Renewable Energy. Mr. France served as the team leader for the independent forensic investigations of the 2017 Oroville Dam spillway incident and the 2020 failures of Edenville and Sanford Dams. He has twice received the ASDSO President’s Award for his contributions to dam safety.
John Rice, Ph.D., P.E., G.E.
Schnabel Engineering
Senior Technical Consultant
John Rice, Ph.D., P.E., G.E. is a Senior Technical Consultant at Schnabel Engineering in Denver, Colorado. Dr. Rice received his PhD in 2008 from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University specializing in geotechnical engineering. He is a registered geotechnical engineer in California since 1999 and registered civil engineer in California since 1993. From 2008 to 2024 Dr. Rice was an Associate Professor at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Geotechnical Engineering program at the Utah State University at Logan, Utah. Dr. Rice’s teaching record at Utah State University includes Embankments, Dams, and Slopes; Ground Improvement; Advanced Shear Strength of Soils; Risk Assessment for Dams and Levees; and Foundation Analysis and Design. Before his career in academia, Dr. Rice worked for 16 years as a geotechnical consultant in California including extensive work on the Sacramento levee system. In 2013 he was awarded the Engineering Educator of the Year Award by the Utah Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers.
Harry C. Donaghy
AECOM
Geotechnical Engineer
Harry Donaghy is a registered professional engineer with 6 years of experience in geotechnical and dam engineering. He supported the Independent Forensic Team’s investigation of the Edenville Dam and Sanford Dam failures. He co-authored a guidance document on “Seepage and Slope Stability Modeling for Embankment Dams,” and recently presented an Association of State Dam Safety Officials (ASDSO) webinar on slope stability modeling. Each year he helps teach the ASDSO technical seminars on “Seepage through Earth Dams” and “Stability Analysis of Embankment Dams.”
