PICARDI E. Alfred Picardi, the structural engineer for Chicago’s 1,136-ft-tall Aon Center, died on Aug. 14 in Virginia Beach, Va. He was 88. Picardi eventually became chief engineer at Chicago’s Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, where he had a hand in designing the city’s 1,128-ft-tall John Hancock Center. He left the firm in 1967 and went to Perkins & Will, where he designed Aon, the world’s fourth-tallest building when completed in 1973. Picardi developed a way to use the tubular structure’s V-shaped exterior columns as a container for its mechanical systems and adapted the oil firm’s cost and risk simulations to
SEINUK Ysrael A. Seinuk, a structural engineer who pioneered innovative design techniques for tall buildings in New York City and around the world for more than 50 years, and who led two design firms, died on Sept. 14 in New York City at age 78. The cause was cancer, says a spokeswoman for Ysrael A. Seinuk PC, the New York City-based firm of which he was CEO. Seinuk devised innovative high-rise engineering approaches, including New York�s first use of seismic isolators and a frame for a slim structure that eliminated transfer girders. He was named an ENR Marksman in 1983
STEHLY Richard D. Stehly was an activist in the American Concrete Institute for more than 30 years, pushing the technical boundaries and construction possibilities of the materials to the global industry. But his Sept. 18 death in Edina, Minn., apparently after suffering a fatal heart attack at a hockey game, has silenced him only six months after reaching the advocacy group’s top spot as president. ACI says that Kenneth Hover, Cornell University professor of civil and environment engineering, and the group’s senior vice president, will succeed Stehly as president. Stehly was also senior vice president and principal engineer of American
Robert A. Olmsted, the first director of long-term planning for New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and a transportation engineer, builder, historian and industry mentor for more than 60 years, died on Aug. 16 in Manhattan. He was 85. Olmsted early in his career at the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel (left) and at the 2009 Manhattan Bridge centennial. Olmsted—a descendent of Frederick Law Olmsted, the landscape architect who designed New York City’s Central Park—began his own industry career in the late 1940s as a Cornell University engineering graduate on the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. A protégé of Ole Singstad, the innovative
Robert A. Olmsted, the first director of long-term planning for New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and a transportation engineer, builder, historian and industry mentor for more than 60 years, died on Aug. 16 in Manhattan. He was 85. Olmsted—a descendent of Frederick Law Olmsted, the landscape architect who designed New York City’s Central Park—began his own industry career in the late 1940s as a Cornell University engineering graduate on the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. A protégé of Ole Singstad, the innovative structure’s chief engineer, Olmsted went on to work for other New York-area transportation agencies and on global engineering
ROGERS John B. Rogers, a founder of what became RNL, a major Denver-based architect, died July 12 of complications of lung disease, in Denver. He was 88. A practice that Rogers founded in 1956 merged ten years later with two other firms to become RNL. Rogers, considered a pioneer in the profession, served as president for 30 years until the mid-1980s, and as chairman until 1995. With 250 employees and $29.1 million in 2009 revenue, the firm is No. 355 on ENR’s list of The Top 500 Design Firms. Rogers was an early advocate of integrated project delivery, the charrette
WOODMAN Lorrin E. Woodman, co-founder and former CEO of transportation and environmental infrastructure engineer Baxter & Woodman Inc., Crystal Lake, Ill., died on June 13 in Woodstock, Ill., of an undisclosed cause. He was 94. Woodman, who started the firm with fellow civil engineer Richard M. Baxter in 1946, retired in 1975. Baxter & Woodman, now owned by its 200 employees, ranks 352nd on ENR’s list of the Top 500 Design Firms, with $29.2 million in 2009 revenue. MATZZIE Donald E. Matzzie, 69, a transportation engineering executive and researcher for 44 years, died on July 5 in Mt. Lebanon, Pa.,
GUSTAFSON WINDMAN Arnold L. Windman, a former top executive of consulting engineer Syska & Hennessy, New York City, and an early advocate of tort and liability reform, died on June 19 in Hilton Head, S.C., of complications from a fall, says his family. He was 83. As a senior engineer, partner, president and vice chairman of the firm, Windman oversaw a number of its key design projects, including the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the American Hospital in Paris. He retired in 1991. A former president of the society that preceded the American Council of Engineering Companies,
James S. “Jim” Myers, former senior engineer at The Louis Berger Group Inc., Morristown, N.J., whose 40-year career included some of the firm’s toughest global assignments, died on May 13 of natural causes in Northport, Wash. He was 75. Myers held engineering and law degrees and was a certified scuba diver, licensed instrument pilot and marksman. “He was a man of such engineering brilliance, tenacity and dedication, he forever will be a legend at Berger,” says Larry D. Walker, Louis Berger president. Photo: Louis Berger Group Engineer Myers (left) at memorial to workers killed during an Afghanistan road rehab project
PATTISON Robert K. Pattison, a high-speed-rail advocate and former public- and private-sector transportation senior executive, died on May 12 in Fairfax, Va. He was 88. Pattison’s career in freight- and passenger-rail engineering, operation and administration spanned four decades. He served as president and general manager in the 1970s of the Long Island Rail Road, the largest U.S. commuter railroad, and was general manager of the Penn Central-Conrail Railroad. Pattison also is a former vice president of Parsons Brinckerhoff, where he was technical director of railway engineering on all its domestic and international rail projects. He also is a founding member