Henri Pougatsch graduated in civil engineering in 1966 from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL). He began his professional career as a project engineer in the consulting office of Professors Alfred and Jean-Pierre Stucky, internationally well recognized dam specialists. This activity allowed him to quickly become familiar with the design of concrete dams and their monitoring. In 1968, he entered an engineering company in Geneva as project manager for studies and implementation of major projects in Switzerland and abroad in the field of dams and hydraulic structures. In 1980, he joined the dam’s supervision section of the Swiss Federal Office for Water and Geology. In 1997, he was named Swiss commissioner responsible for dam safety, an officer position he held until the end of 2004. As part of his responsibilities, he initiates and supervises the preparation of the early versions of the Swiss guidelines for dam safety. Under his lead, several experts in the specific field of dams, including professors at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, members of the Swiss Committee on Dams and officers of federal and cantonal administrations, as well as the Swiss dam’s supervision section, have contributed to the edition of these guidelines. The guidelines give a detailed interpretation of legal bases and consider the latest developments concerning the design, construction and monitoring of dams. He served also as a member of the Franco-Swiss Permanent Supervision Commis- sion of the Emosson Dam. As a permanent member of the technical commission of the Swiss Dams Committee (SwissCoD), he chaired the working group for dam supervision and actively participated in the other working groups. In 2019 he became honorary member of SwissCoD. From 1999 to 2009 he was invited, as a lecturer, to teach dam safety concepts at the Master of Advanced Studies (MAS) in Water Resources Management and Hydraulic Engineering coordinated by the Laboratory of Hydraulic Constructions at EPFL.