Founder and Chief Resilience Engineer

FORREST M. LANNING, PE, CPENG

For over 20 years, Forrest Lanning has focused his work on reducing earthquake risk around the world. By utilizing both his structural engineering and earthquake disaster recovery experience, Forrest has been able to provide a highly needed, well rounded expertise in working with local governments on reducing their risk to an earthquake disaster.

Forrest previously served in post-earthquake/tsunami Sumatra, Indonesia and seismically-active Afghanistan as a UN and USAID Earthquake Engineer, respectively. Forrest lived and worked for four years in post-earthquake Christchurch, New Zealand on the recovery and reconstruction following the 2011 earthquake sequence. More recently, Forrest was based in Latin America and led a multi-country USAID/OFDA funded program aimed at working side-by-side with local governments in Colombia and Costa Rica on identifying and reducing earthquake risk. Forrest is a technical expert in seismically assessing and retrofitting buildings in both the developed and developing world while acknowledging and conforming to local construction methods, labor capabilities and available materials.

Forrest is a New Zealand Chartered Structural and Seismic Engineer (CPEng), a California Licensed Professional Engineer (PE) and also served as the US Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) Earthquake, Tsunami and Volcano Disaster Liaison and Advisor for Region 9 (covering the States of California, Hawaii, Nevada and Arizona and US Territories of Guam, Northern Mariana Islands and American Samoa). Forrest was selected as a Housner Fellow with the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute in 2014 for his dedication and leadership on reducing earthquake risk globally. Forrest founded Endapt in 2018 to continue the mission on reducing earthquake risk and assist communities to build back better.

Forrest is currently based in San Francisco, CA.

Media

Honors

• Keynote speaker on California’s mandatory earthquake retrofitting policies for the Republic of Korea, Ministry of Interior and Safety at their International Seminar on Earthquake Policy Development in Seoul, 2018.

• Keynote Speaker on an Earthquake Resilient Building Stock for the Disasters Expo USA in Anaheim, California, 2023

• Keynote speaker on the response and recovery of an earthquake disaster for the US Territory of Guam, Department of Homeland Security and Civil Defense at their Earthquake Disaster Symposium, Guam, 2019.

• Team member of the US Department of Interior, Strategic Sciences Group to study the long term effects of the 2018 Kilauea Volcano Eruption on the Island of Hawaii.

• Team Leader, EERI 2016 Ecuador Earthquake Field Reconnaissance Mission to document damage and effects of the 2016 M7.8 Muisne Earthquake.

• Invited guest speaker by the US Ambassador to New Zealand to speak on global earthquake risk reduction projects at the Connecting Young Leaders conference at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand.

• Housner Fellow, Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI).

Publications and articles

• Resilience in Design and Construction: Housing and Schools in Banda Aceh (15 years after the M9.1 Earthquake and Tsunami), 17th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering, Sendai, Japan, 2020

• Influence of Ground Motion on Performance of RC Infill Frames in the 2016 Ecuador Earthquake, 11th National Conference on Earthquake Engineering, Los Angeles, CA, 2018

• Implementing Nepal's National Building Code: A Case Study in Patience and Persistence, Earthquake Spectra, EERI, December 2017 Special Issue (external link)

• Re-Levelling & Base Isolation of the Christchurch Art Gallery, 16th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering, Santiago, Chile, 2017

• USAID PREPARE Program in Costa Rica and Colombia, 16th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering, Santiago, Chile, 2017

• Earthquake Reconnaissance Team Report: M7.8 Muisne, Ecuador Earthquake on April 16, 2016, EERI Learning From Earthquakes Special Report, 2016 (external link)

• Challenges of School Construction in Post-Disaster Sumatra, Structural Engineers Association of Northern California newsletter, San Francisco, CA, 2007

Professional deployments, reconnaissance and work locations

• 2020 M6.4 Puerto Rico Earthquake Sequence, Southwest Puerto Rico

• 2019 M7.1 Ridgecrest Earthquake Sequence, Kern and San Bernardino Counties

• 2018 Cat 5 Super Typhoon Yutu, Saipan and Tinian, Northern Marianas Islands

• 2018 Kilauea Volcano Eruption and Earthquakes, Island of Hawaii, USA

• 2017 M7.1 Puebla Earthquake, Mexico City, Mexico

• 2016 M7.8 Muisne Earthquake, Manabí, Ecuador

• 2015 M7.8 Gorkha Earthquake, Kathmandu, Nepal

• 2013 M6.4 Seddon/Cook Strait Earthquake, Marlborough Region, New Zealand

• 2011 M6.4 Canterbury Earthquake Sequence, Christchurch, New Zealand

• 2006 M6.4 Yogyakarta Earthquake, Central Java, Indonesia

• 2006 Mount Merapi Volcano Eruption, Central Java, Indonesia

• 2005 M8.4 Nias Earthquake, Nias, Indonesia

• 2004 M9.1 Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami, Aceh and Nias, Indonesia