A bit more about Fraser

  I developed an interest in geology at the tender age of 13 when I walked into the Portsoy Marble Shop while on holiday in Banffshire. The Aladdin’s cave of mineral specimens on view mesmerised and fascinated me and I returned later that week to spend some of my holiday money on a text book. I was hooked from then on and there was never any doubt that I would study geology at University and become a volcanologist.

  Needless to say there’s not much call for volcanologists so, after graduating in 1981, I have variously been a Coal Exploration Geologist (in Botswana), an engineering geologist with Andrews Kent and Stone and Thorburn Colquhoun and a contaminated land specialist with Thorburn Colquhoun, Dames & Moore/URS and now Terrenus. I believe my career path has provided a valuable insight into the physical environment and the development process and allows me to understand a site from a practical and real-world perspective.

  I get a kick out of seeing a job through to the end, looking at the finished building and thinking “I had a part in that”. I get an even bigger kick from being thanked for a job well done. Of course, you have to do a job well to get the thanks so that’s a key driver for me for each and every project I take part in, large or small.

  My interest in geology and the landscape carries over to my spare time, where my main hobby is in landscape and wildlife photography. I have been told my work is good enough to sell and, although I have never sold a photograph, they have won me a few prizes. I also spend a lot of time keeping fit, primarily by cycling, and on my other obsession, Alfa Romeo. I have promised myself that I will replicate the scene from The Graduate one day, when I drive a vintage Alfa Spider in the sun with Mrs Robinson playing on the stereo.

  I have been married to Sheona since 1982 and we have a daughter in her late teens. Thankfully they are both very patient and understanding.