Julian Britton, Tetsuya Kusuda and Arlex Toro recognized for a lifetime of advancing trenchless technology in their regions
November 2026
ISTT is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2026 ISTT Affiliated Society Lifetime Service Award: Julian Britton (UKSTT, United Kingdom), Dr. Tetsuya Kusuda (JSTT, Japan) and Arlex Toro (LAMSTT, Latin America). Each was nominated by their Affiliated Society in recognition of a lifetime of work advancing the acceptance of trenchless technology in their region.
ISTT congratulates all three recipients and thanks them for their outstanding contributions to the trenchless community.
2026 Award Recipients
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Julian Britton
UKSTT (United Kingdom)
Julian Britton’s distinguished career, spanning more than four decades, reflects his engineering excellence, his drive for innovation, and his steadfast commitment to advancing trenchless technology across the UK water sector. His journey began in 1978 as a draftsman at Bristol Water Works, which supported him through six years of day-release study at the University of the West of England. He then joined the sewerage division of Woodspring District Council, agents for Wessex Water, where his mentors had introduced GRP lining through pioneering experimental projects at Weston-super-Mare. Those projects later underpinned the specifications in the WRc Sewerage Rehabilitation Manual.
In 1986, Julian moved to the Bristol City Agency for Wessex Water, where a year of GRP lining operations led into two decades of tunneling. As Senior Engineer, he delivered four major schemes with a combined drive of 15,000 m of pipe jacking, drill-and-blast and roadheader tunneling, at depths of up to 70 m. The most demanding was the Northern Foul Water Interceptor (1987–1994). For this project he built the team and carried out the ground investigation before serving as site engineer. The tunnel ran through quartzitic sandstone of up to 450 MPa beneath Clifton Village, among the strongest rock in the UK, under strict vibration limits and amid abandoned wells, caves and running sand.
From 1999 his focus turned to cured-in-place pipe (CIPP) lining, and in 2004 Wessex Water asked him to establish its Critical Sewers Team, responsible for all sewer and tunnel rehabilitation. This began a 20-year era of innovation in which the team searched worldwide for solutions and, where none existed, developed their own. Their work extended to resin and material modifications and the creation of in-house commercial CCTV and CIPP lining teams. From 2015, they also applied artificial intelligence to CCTV defect recognition. The culmination was Telesto, a floating LiDAR platform that can survey up to 4,500 m of tunnel of up to 5 m diameter in a single pull. Julian championed CIPP for its environmental benefits, including around 95% lower CO₂ emissions and the removal of some 35,000 truck movements a year from public roads.
Julian has been a passionate advocate for trenchless technology and for UKSTT, serving five years on its Council and remaining an ardent supporter ever since. Between 1987 and 2023 he mentored around 20 engineers, several of whom received the UKSTT Young Engineer Award. He leaves the industry at a moment of exceptional opportunity, and his legacy of innovation and the engineers he nurtured will continue to shape the future of trenchless technology in the UK.
Tetsuya Kusuda
JSTT (Japan)
Dr. Tetsuya Kusuda’s distinguished career, spanning more than five decades, combines academic excellence with the visionary leadership that shaped the development of trenchless technology in Japan. After completing his doctorate in Civil Engineering at Kyushu University in 1970, he joined its faculty. He went on to hold professorships at Kyushu University and Kitakyushu City University, as well as visiting professorships at the University of Florida and Hiroshima University. Throughout these roles he mentored generations of students and published numerous papers and books on civil engineering, particularly sewer systems.
Dr. Kusuda was one of the founding members of JSTT in 1989. At that time, pipe jacking was already in use in Japan, but pipe rehabilitation and HDD were not yet in practice. The various sectors researching trenchless methods were also working independently of one another. Recognizing the need for a platform for cross-industry exchange, he advocated for a national Society to the relevant organizations and brought it to realization. JSTT credits his vision with the significant progress Japan’s trenchless industry has made since.
He went on to serve JSTT as a Board Member from 1989 to 2018 and as Vice Chairman from 2002 to 2018, and in turn chaired its Technical Committee and International Committee. As the Society’s technical pillar, he organized presentations and technical seminars featuring invited experts, and guided the subcommittees on social cost review, underground inspection technology and HDD. Beyond JSTT, he chaired the Review and Certification Committee of the Japan Institute of Wastewater Engineering and Technology (JIWET) from 1993 to 2019. He also chaired the Japan Sewage Works Association’s Special Committee on the Research and Study of Pipe Rehabilitation Methods from 2014 to 2020.
His contributions have earned him the Medal with Purple Ribbon in 2005 and, in 2016, the International Friendship Award from the Trenchless Technology Committee of the Geological Society of China. Today, Dr. Kusuda continues to share his wealth of experience and insight in several roles: Professor Emeritus at Kyushu University and Kitakyushu City University, Honorary Professor at Xi’an University of Architecture and Technology, and advisor to JSTT since 2018. For some 40 years, he has been a leading figure in Japan’s trenchless community, and his legacy will continue to inspire future generations.
Arlex Toro
LAMSTT (Latin America)
Arlex Toro’s career, spanning 45 years, is defined by his tireless promotion of trenchless technology and his vision of sustainable underground infrastructure for Colombia and Latin America. An Industrial Engineer with a master’s degree in finance, project management and environmental management, he entered the trenchless field in May 2007. He worked on two of Bogotá’s most emblematic sanitation projects with the French companies CSM Bessac and Soletanche Bachy, which included two 10-kilometer main tunnels and the city’s first microtunnels for public utilities. This experience marked the beginning of a lifelong commitment to trenchless technology.
In 2012, as Executive Director and national promoter of CISTT in Colombia, Arlex drove his own vehicle, known as the Trenchless Van, to 16 cities across the country. Along the way he presented the case for trenchless technology to utility companies and universities. In 2019 he led the Board’s expansion plan that created LAMSTT, the Latin American Society for Trenchless Technology. LAMSTT now has a presence in 12 Spanish-speaking countries and connects professionals from Europe, North America, Asia and the Americas. He also organized events at every level, including the World Trenchless Conference in Medellín (2017), Latin American conferences in Medellín (2014) and Cartagena (2023), and national conferences in Ecuador and Peru.
Education lies at the heart of Arlex’s contribution. He taught “Special Projects in Trenchless Technologies” at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá for six years, supervised undergraduate research, and delivered more than 100 technical presentations. As certified training coordinator, he oversaw NASSCO PACP, MACP and LACP courses with over 850 certifications issued. He also built a virtual trenchless design course with simultaneous Spanish translation, which issued more than 400 certifications, and an underground mapping course developed with BAMI-I. His “Trenchless for Teachers” program received an ISTT award in 2018, and the Trenchless Technology Center he created was recognized by ISTT in 2024. A dedicated communicator, he reached a wide audience through radio, technical publications and LinkedIn, where his posts drew around 300,000 views a year.
Beyond his technical expertise, Arlex’s passion kept trenchless initiatives alive through the pandemic and periods of economic uncertainty in the region. Now retired, he leaves a legacy of knowledge, collaboration and standard-setting that has firmly established trenchless technology as a viable, efficient and sustainable solution across Latin America.
About the Award
In the mid to late 1980s, leaders in the trenchless construction community began to form national and regional Societies to promote the science and practice of trenchless technology for the public good. Today, 27 Trenchless Societies affiliated with ISTT, representing more than 40 countries, share this mission. More than a dozen of these Societies have been affiliated with ISTT since the early 1990s.
Some Affiliated Societies now have, or have recently had, key figures retire: individuals who were instrumental in the formation of their Society and in the promotion and advancement of trenchless technologies in their region. ISTT established the ISTT Affiliated Society Lifetime Service Award to recognize these individuals for their contribution to advancing the acceptance of trenchless technologies in their region.
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