The International Journal of Pavement Engineering (IJPE) was born in the offices of the US Army's Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL) in Hanover, New Hampshire, USA in the autumn of 1997. A lunchtime conversation, lubricated by strong black coffee and fed by one of the large sandwiches fabricated in the general store next door, was taking place lamenting the absence of a high-quality journal devoted to publishing pavement engineering papers. The participants in that meeting were Dr Vincent Janoo, Program Manager (Roads and Airfields) at CRREL, and I. In a typical energetic and enthusiastic fashion, Dr Janoo proposed that something should be done about this problem and who better to do it than ourselves. Having finished lunch, he dragged me off to the CRREL library to identify some potential journal publishers and I was ‘persuaded’ to write to them to ask whether they would like to start such a journal.
In this brief sketch of the events that led to the birth of the IJPE can be seen many of the characteristics that made Vincent Janoo such a stimulating, encouraging and sometimes frustrating person to work with. Where others talked, he acted. To him difficulties were there to be overcome. When those difficulties were technical, he would seek out or work out a good engineering solution – pragmatic yet scientific. When they were practical, he would move mountains to overcome them. When they were administrative he would charge through them regardless. And food often featured in the doing!
No amount of bureaucracy got in the way of finishing a job he had set himself to achieve. As a consequence, he got much more done than most people around him and was warmly appreciated by all who received the outputs of his work, while his colleagues alternately humoured him, secretly admired him and became exasperated by him as he left a trail of bureaucratic fall-out in his wake. One of his colleagues summed him up as being not so much a person but more a force of nature! As a result, many of his considerable number of friends will have felt somewhat bruised at times, but it was impossible to hold a grudge against him. Big-hearted, amusing, politically incorrect, warm, caring and fundamentally humble, Dr Vincent Janoo was someone who attracted respect and love.
Vincent Janoo was born in Malaysia in 1954. He moved to Melbourne, Australia, to study at University, but dropped out of college before being re-directed by his mother. Moving to the USA he eventually enrolled at Utah State University, later moving to Portland State University from where he graduated in 1980. During his freshman year at Utah State, he met Judy Farrin on a visit to Maine – where he had gone to eat lobsters – marrying her four months later. While at Portland State his first daughter, Angela, was born. Graduating with a BS in Structural Engineering, he moved to New England, nearer his wife's family, the corner of the USA that he was to count as home. First, he studied for a MS degree in Civil (Geotechnical) Engineering at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, graduating in 1982 before moving to the University of Colorado at Boulder to undertake a PhD in Civil (Geotechnical) Engineering, with Tony, his son, arriving at this time.
At Boulder, Vincent developed his experimental skills, subjecting sandy soils to high-confining pressure true triaxial conditions in a cubical apparatus, while monitoring pore water pressures. His aim was to study the behaviour of specimens loaded along complex stress paths, simulating realistic stress histories of ground subjected to explosive loading. His work involved extensive design, development, manufacture and testing of laboratory equipment as well as soil testing. His colleagues from that time remember him as an excellent experimentalist, full of insight and with great patience, always cheerful and exhibiting the can-do attitude that marked all his subsequent work.
He completed his PhD in 1986 and started work with NASA at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, developing a lunar soil testing device. But, after less than a year, he secured a post as a Research Civil Engineer at CRREL in Hanover, New Hampshire, which was to be his workplace for the next 16 years. He settled into a clapboard house in a rough field on the edge of a small township across the state line in Vermont and raised his family, which was expanded by the arrival of his second daughter, Amanda.
It was at CRREL that he grew into the outstanding pavement engineer known by so many researchers and practitioners. He undertook major studies on low-temperature cracking of asphalt, gravel road performance, reinstatement of utility cuts and pavement design – especially for expedient roads, developing new facilities and new business for his employer. Knowledgeable in materials, instrumentation, evaluation, design and construction, there were few areas of pavement engineering that he did not tackle with verve and considerable competency. He collaborated widely, both within and outside the USA, bringing the work of CRREL to a much wider technical audience than previously. He chaired conference sessions. He was chair or member of many ASCE and US Transportation Research Board Committees. He undertook external examinerships for several PhD and MS thesis students. He gave lectures at several universities as an adjunct professor. Perhaps, his most notable achievement at this time was to secure the considerable funding needed to purchase a Heavy Vehicle Simulator with which to commence a new full-scale pavement testing programme at CRREL to investigate the effects of subgrades on pavement performance. One of the many remarkable aspects of this achievement was to persuade the US Army to fly the new HVS from its place of manufacture in South Africa to the USA. Once again, his force of character proved irresistible, even by the powers in the military!
In the first few years of the new century, Vincent became restless and searched for an opportunity where he could be more his own boss. He considered working for various consulting firms as a regional director, but soon discarded such a conventional move, volunteering instead to work for the US Army Corps of Engineers in Afghanistan, who needed assistance in reconstruction of that nation's highway system. In this capacity he obtained funding for, and supervised the reconstruction of, roads and airfields, thereby enabling access to schools and hospitals for the people of Afghanistan. After his work for the US Army was complete (or, maybe, after he had encountered too many administrative obstacles), he opted to stay in Afghanistan working directly for the United Nations Office of Project Services (UNOPS). Here, he was able to combine his skill and drive in getting things done with his technical expertise in road engineering in a situation where bureaucrats were thin on the ground. He quickly found a niche in situations that were often hostile, whether due to climate or enemy, working with Afghani contractors to build substantial lengths of road to time and to budget. From his position as Programme Manager of the National Rural Access Programme, he was promoted to Deputy Director and Head of Programmes for UNOPS in Afghanistan in 2006.
It was in Afghanistan that Vincent really got into his stride, becoming passionate about using his technical and leadership skills to make a difference in the lives of the Afghans. He found a great deal of personal satisfaction in knowing that what he was achieving was helping to improve the situation of a people whom he had come to love. The respect seems to have been two-way, with him receiving thanks from ordinary Afghans for the great improvements in ease of transport that resulted from his work. Although highly unusual for a foreigner to be so recognised, President Karzai of Afghanistan awarded him a medal for his extraordinary contributions to the country.
His colleagues in Afghanistan universally recall a highly qualified and able engineer with ‘a soft corner in his heart for others’. As one of his colleagues wrote to his memorial service:
He was extremely well-respected in the expatriate community, not only as a professional, but also as a kind and caring human being. People like Vince are far apart with few in between. Vince was committed to improving the livelihood and ending the suffering of not only the Afghan people, but all impoverished and persecuted people around the world. He leaves behind a legacy that few can measure up to. He made a difference!
In Kabul, Vincent met Erlien Wubs, a Dutch citizen working for the International Labour Organization. They married in June 2007 but the marriage was to be much too brief as; soon afterwards, Vincent was diagnosed as having advanced cancer. Initially he responded well to treatment but, after the conclusion of his mission in Kabul, having just arrived to take up a new role in Juba, Sudan, he was taken seriously ill and repatriated to Hanover, where, despite specialist attention, he died on 30 September 2008. He survived just long enough to attend the wedding of his eldest daughter, Angela, although very frail.
Large in both size and personality, Dr Vincent Janoo was not an ordinary man. Capable, driving and forceful on the one hand, he was loving, dedicated, funny, responsive and not a little self-questioning and self-doubting on the other. All who knew him will be sad he is no longer with them, but will relish the largeness of spirit that he has left behind.
My thanks to Dr Sally Shoop and Dr Edil Cortez of USACE-CRREL, Professor Stein Sture of the University of Colorado at Boulder, Pastor Dean Eggert of West Lebanon Baptist Church and Frederick Chase, Chief of Party, USAID, Strategic Provincial Roads, Southern and Eastern Afghanistan for much of the information on which I have drawn.