www.enr.com/articles/10224-engineering-a-career-of-enduring-contributions
US Federal Court House Seattle

Engineering a Career of Enduring Contributions

May 11, 2015
Engineering a Career of Enduring Contributions

Jon Magnusson, senior principal with Seattle-based engineer Magnusson Klemencic Associates (MKA) and son of a civil engineer, recalls visiting the construction firm where his father worked and eyeing a 50-lb box of nails, whereupon the 8-year-old inquired if he could pocket a handful of them. Upon returning home, nails in jeans, he seized a small piece of wood and began pounding them into it.

The episode propelled Magnusson on an odyssey in which he spent much of his youth at construction sites and, later, studying civil engineering at University of Washington after considering a career as a builder. "I liked the idea of starting with a blank sheet of paper and deciding what was going to be built, which is a very different challenge than being handed a sheet of paper and being told what to build," says Magnusson. "Looking back, it was so exciting to see what we'd put on paper rising and taking shape in three dimensions on previously empty sites."

Today, it's hard to imagine a firm that has left a more indelible imprint on sites throughout Seattle than the enterprise bearing Magnusson's name. Among other achievements, the structural and civil engineering firm has had a hand in virtually every significant public building and arena constructed in Seattle over the past 20 years, including structural standouts such as Seattle's EMP Museum; Seattle Central Library; Safeco Field, home to Major League Baseball's Seattle Mariners; and Century Link Field, home to National Football League's Seattle Seahawks.

Perhaps no other U.S. engineer has received greater recognition than MKA, the recipient of 25 national awards from the American Council of Engineering Cos., the majority during Magnusson's 25-year tenure as the firm's chief executive officer. "That was all part of the Magnussonian regime," says Ron Klemencic, who recently succeeded Magnusson as CEO. "John possesses a unique combination of skills found in few, including world-class technical engineering abilities, a profound capacity to see the big picture and an unequaled talent in communicating business and technical issues in a manner understandable to all."

His ascent, by any measure, was meteoric. Upon receiving a master's degree in civil engineering from University of California, Berkeley, he joined MKA— then Skilling Helle Christiansen Robertson (SHCR)—in 1976, having enjoyed a rich and varied internship with the firm between undergraduate and graduate school. By age 30, he was a firm principal. He became CEO at 34.

"I absolutely loved the work and worked hard," Magnusson says. "Those were crazy times—I was traveling like crazy, doing whatever it took to make the firm successful. My professional advancement was a by-product of that. That's the advice I give to younger colleagues: If you want to advance, focus on your firm and your work, and forget about advancement."

John Skilling, principal during Magnusson's early years with the firm, held similar views. "[Skilling] was an amazing individual and mentor," says Magnusson. "His attitude was: It didn't matter how old you were, but what you were contributing to your firm and your profession."

To this day, the firm eschews conventional metrics. "At no point have we ever set the goal of being a certain size or billing a certain amount on an annual basis. Rather, we focused on what it was we wanted to do— the types of buildings we wanted to design, the types of firms we wanted to work with," says Magnusson. "I mention that to colleagues employed by other firms and they just can't believe it, but it's true. If you do the right thing, size and billings will follow."

Both have. With branch offices in Chicago and Shanghai, MKA has executed projects in 46 states and 53 countries, collectively valued at $87 billion. Projects have ranged from stadiums to convention centers to high-rises.

Magnusson took "a firm with a rich legacy of creativity in the 1950s and 1960s and leveraged it, propelling it to an even higher level," says Klemencic. "He polished it, focused it and brought in the talent required to carry that legacy forward."



During those years, Magnusson not only emerged as the voice of his firm, but of his profession, making more than 260 presentations to colleagues, academics and laymen. His also was a voice of calm and clarity during one of the nation's darkest chapters, the 2001 collapse of the twin towers at New York City's World Trade Center, designed by SHCR's Skilling and Leslie Robertson in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

"That was truly an amazing time, hopefully never to be repeated," Klemenic says. "We were watching the events of that morning unfold on television in a conference room. Then the phone started to ring—hundreds of calls from the media—and Jon became a beacon of reason amid declarations that this was the end of high-rise buildings. Many times he was asked, 'Why did the towers fall?' And his response was, 'How were they able to stand for as long as they did after direct hits from a pair of 767s?'"

"The towers were built with more redundancy than I'd ever seen," says Magnusson. "But the answer wasn't —and isn't—how to out-build terrorists, but how to keep terrorists from hitting buildings. People really thought we'd come to the end of an era, that we'd build no more high-rises, but we still do. All the reasons we build them are still there."

Magnusson is dedicated to mentoring a new generation. In 2001, he established a local branch of the Architecture, Construction and Engineering (ACE) Mentor Program to expose high school students in Seattle's Puget Sound area to potential career opportunities. "I first heard about ACE at a Structure's Congress breakfast in Washington, D.C., during which Charlie Thornton, chairman of engineer Charles H. Thornton and Co., brought a young woman on stage and announced she was one of the firm's most recent scholarship winners," Magnusson says. "For a moment she just stood there, and then she started to cry, saying she never thought she'd be going to college, and I said, 'I really need to get a program like this going.'"