TunnelTalk reporting
FIn memoriam – Claude Bérenguier Direct by Design
September 2024
or ITA, the International Tunnelling and Underground Space Association, there have been few more influential individuals for its early development and survival than Claude Bérenguier. When the Association was founded in 1974 and its Secretariat established in France, Bérenguier joined the Secretariat team in 1975 as Deputy Secretary General and became Secretary General in 1987. He remained in that post until 2011 when he continued his more than 30-year dedication to the Association and its Secretariat as a driving force behind the creation of the ITACET Foundation, which, in association with the ITA-CET Committee for Education and Training, has been organising training courses all over the world for the past 15 years.
It is with sadness that the ITA confirmed that Claude Bérenguier died after suffering a heart attack on Friday 29 August 2024 in Lyon, France, aged 82.
Bérenguier studied civil engineering and graduated as an Ingénieur des Travaux Publics de l´Etat from the ENTPEEcole Nationale des Travaux Publics de l´Etat in Vaulx-enVelin in 1965 and began his professional career at CETU – the Centre d´Etudes des Tunnels in Bron, Lyon. With a move to Paris, he worked for three years with the Ministry of Economy and International Affairs and returning for another six years of study at the ENTPE.
Together with taking on the position of Secretary General of the ITA, he began his career as a skilled communicator and influential civil servant with a period of 1989 to 1992 working for SETRA, the Service d´Etudes Techniques des Routes et Autoroutes (Public Institute on Roads and
Motorways) followed with a four-year association with CETE Méditerranée, an association for Public Consulting on Roads, Transport, Environment and other infrastructure in the Mediterranean region, and from 1996 to 2000 with CODATU – Coopération pour le développement et l´amélioration des transports urbains et périurbains to promote cooperation for the development and improvement of urban and suburban transportation. Before retiring after 36 years of outstanding public service in 2002, he supported the work of CNAM – the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers (National Institute of Technical Sciences).
For the ITA, Bérenguier will be remembered as a fine diplomat, expert administrator and tireless promoter of underground infrastructure, its use, design and construction and his guiding principle that the Association is a federation of its Member Nations. Through his skilled administration, he oversaw the growth of the Association and its activities and worked tirelessly to increase its influence in the promotion of the use of underground infrastructure throughout the world, taking in his stride smooth operation of its Secretariat services and managing the duties of the General Assemblies of the 80 Member Nations each year. He applied these same qualities and with equal dedication to the ITACET Foundation, ensuring its efficient operation and arrangement of training courses on wide ranging topics to support the development and operation of underground infrastructure. More than 8,500 engineering professionals of the world have benefited from more than 80 training sessions organised by the Foundation in collaboration with the ITA-CET. Bérenguier’s contributions to ITA will be remembered at ITA events and by ITA Member Nation societies that owe so much of their success to his untiring central ITA and Secretariat support and promotion.
The death of Claude Bérenguier is particularly poignant for the ITA coming as it does so soon after the death of fellow ITA colleague and statesman Olivier Vion in late July. Claude and Olivier will be remembered at ITA and ITA Member Nation events during the coming months and at a special memorial at the next General Assembly of Member Nations at the World Tunnel Congress in Stockholm, Sweden, in May 2025. n
• ITA and ITA-CET
• Obituary - Olivier Vion
• BTS Conference, London, UK
• ITA Awards and SIG Conference, Genoa, Italy
• WTC2025, Stockholm, Sweden
Claude Bérenguier, 1942 – 2024