Department of Conservation and Recreation
Conserve. Protect. Enjoy.
Department of Conservation and Recreation
Dam Safety Engineer
Mark Killgore.Mark Killgore’s interest in dams started early — in elementary school, in fact. He and his classmates would build dams on playground gullies and see how long it took for them to burst.
A fun way to spend recess turned into a passion and career for Killgore, now the Lead Dam Safety Engineer for DCR and a licensed professional engineer in Virginia and Washington.
Killgore came to DCR following an extensive career in Washington. After graduating from Seattle University with a double major in Spanish and civil engineering, his first job had him working on a hydroelectric dam feasibility study. He later earned a master’s in civil engineering with a focus on water resources and the environment. While working for EBASCO, a consulting engineering company for dams and hydro., Killgore spent much of his time on hydrologic and hydraulic design and assessing the environmental impacts of hydroelectricity and dams.
“A key area of practice for me was dam safety engineering,” he said. “I find it very rewarding to protect public safety by designing well-engineered dams.”
Killgore has worked for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Louis Berger Group and Puget Sound Energy. He also has experience in engineering education having served on the faculty both at Seattle University and the University of Texas at Austin. While with the American Society of Civil Engineers, he worked to raise the bar on education requirements for the professional engineer’s license. He taught water resources engineering and fluid mechanics at Seattle University. He also serves on the advisory board for the Hydropower Research Foundation, which focuses on creating the dam and hydro engineers of tomorrow and advancing the state of the practice. Mark is the State Representative to the Association of Dam Safety Engineers for Virginia. ASDSO helps develop national policy related to dams.
At DCR, Killgore is assigned to work on new guidance documents and refine regulations while supervising the five Regional Engineers and two Mapping Engineers. A key initiative is identifying the risks and safety measures associated with dams not currently under DCR Operating Certificates.
Mark recently was the keynote speaker for the 31st FEMA National Dam Safety Program Technical Seminar. Mark shared with over 265 colleagues in the federal, state and private dams sector the successful development of the Dam Safety Inventory System (DSIS) database that serves as the digital foundation for the dam safety program. He also led DCR’s participation in the FEMA Community Technical Assistance Program, a six-month FEMA training exercise that included peer review of our processes and enhancements to Virginia’s emergency response capabilities.
Mark enjoys travel and has given several talks in Latin America on engineering and often can be found hiking around a dam and reservoir just for the enjoyment of the commonwealth’s water resources. Did you know nearly every lake in Virginia is created by a dam? Only Lake Drummond (in Great Dismal Swamp) and Mountain Lake (in southwestern Virginia) are natural lakes.
