MARSCHALL Rear Adm. Albert R. “Mike” Marschall, third commander of the Naval Facilities Engineering Command and an industry and government construction executive, died on Nov. 18 in Alexandria, Va. He was 87. A Naval Academy graduate, he was NAVFAC commander and chief of civil engineers from 1973 until he retired in 1977 after 36 years in the Navy. Marschall also was a vice president at George Hyman Construction Co., Washington, D.C., and a commissioner of the U.S. General Services Administration’s Public Building Service. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering and was a national president of the Society
George W. Housner, an earthquake engineering pioneer, died on Nov. 10 of natural causes in Pasadena, Calif. He was 97. Housner, the Braun professor emeritus of engineering at California Technology Institute (Caltech) in Long Beach, was responsible for developing the most complete mathematical system to analyze effects of ground shaking on structures. HOUSNER Engineers previously only considered the quake force pushing upon a building. Housner realized that an earthquake isn’t static but rather sets off vibrations throughout the entire structure that could bring it down. His mathematical framework helped to better understand those vibrations and led to the implementation of
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