Oskar was born in Swaziland, where he spent his youth and completed his schooling. He left for Johannesburg in 1956 to study civil engineering at Wits University, graduating with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in 1961 and 1963
respectively. He spent the next seven years working for Nchanga Consolidated Copper Mines in Zambia, initially in a geotechnical role focused mainly on pit slope stability and later transferring to production, where he moved
successively through the roles of Shift Boss, Mine Captain, and Assistant Open Pit Manager Production and Planning, ending as Open Pit Manager. Oskar left Nchanga in 1969 to take up an appointment as Senior Lecturer in Soil
Mechanics and Foundation Engineering at Wits, where he worked with his mentor Professor Jere Jennings. He remained at the university until late 1973, lecturing in soil mechanics; his research focused on rock slope stability,
which later led to a PhD thesis dealing with methods of stability analysis for rock slopes. While at the university, he also consulted for civil and mining clients.
During 1973, Andy Robertson persuaded Oskar and Hendrik Kirsten to join him in a consulting partnership and Steffen, Robertson, and Kirsten commenced in 1974. The new partners set out to build a firm where staff could reach their
full potential without having to leave for new challenges – the concept was a series of practices under a unifying and supportive umbrella. They recognized that work must be interesting, preferably fun, and would need to be
profitable to be sustainable.
Oskar was very much the statesman and “spiritual leader” in the new practice, and his personal values had an outsize influence on the culture that evolved. He firmly believed that ownership opportunities for strong contributors
were essential in securing their long-term commitment to the business, leading to increasingly broad-based ownership in SRK.
Over the following decades, Oskar’s recognition and profile as a top-drawer consultant went from strength to strength, significantly contributing to SRK becoming a premium brand in the industry. His consulting activities included:
open pit planning and design; rock and soil slope stability analysis and design for road and rail cuttings and open pit and strip mines; and general surface mining geotechnics, including tailings dam investigation and design.
His innovation and discovery activities included developing frameworks for pit optimization, strategic mine planning, and the application of probability techniques in geotechnical engineering, particularly regarding risk analysis
of slope failure in open pit stability investigations.
Oskar served as President of the South African Institution of Mining and Metallurgy from 1989 to 1990. He was awarded the Brigadier Stokes Memorial Award in 1995 and the SAICE Geotechnical Gold Medal in 2001. The former award is
given to individuals who make a unique contribution to the mining industry over many years and the latter is for individuals who have made a significant contribution to furthering the art and science of geotechnical engineering
in South Africa. Oskar was also awarded the Mining Journal’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010 in recognition of his technical contribution to the international mining industry.
For those of us who worked with Oskar, we remember his strong interest in supporting and growing people, his belief that our problem-solving approaches and technologies should continue to evolve, his commitment to his clients,
and his sense of humour. His belief in, and support for, our potential as consultants led not only to our striving to produce results, but tremendous respect and affection for him as an individual. At no time did he show signs
of having an ego – things were never about Oskar – which is truly remarkable in an industry where egos are not uncommon.
Oskar retired from SRK in 2005 – a requirement of the employment contract at SRK (South Africa) – but continued on a full-time basis as an associate. His work increasingly included panel membership on consulting review boards and
commissions as an independent reviewer for open pit mines, including Chuquicamata in Chile, Nchanga in Zambia, and Kumtor in Kyrgyzstan.
Oskar’s health began to deteriorate in recent years and he became increasingly frail. He had both hips replaced in 2017 and was diagnosed with late stage prostate cancer in May of 2018. He passed away peacefully on June 27th with
family at his side. He is survived by Marge, his wife of 53 years; his daughters Helen, Linda, and Heidi and their families; and his niece Ilse and nephew Oskar junior (who were largely raised by Oskar and Marge after their
mother’s death) and their families.
