Engineering Legends: Great American Civil Engineers
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Engineering Legends: Great American Civil Engineers
Nearly one-fourth of the world's engineers work or live in the U.S., and more than its share of outstanding engineers are among those in the pantheon of civil engineering legends. In this book, 32 among the �best of the best� are spotlighted and many others are cited. These mentors and role models have helped define the profession as it is today.
Engineering Legends is a very entertaining effort to remedy the fact that most of the general public and media remain unaware and uninformed about engineering accomplishments. It introduces a broad cross-section of civil engineering pacesetters, from the late 1700s to the early 21st Century, who helped shape our nation.
Among them are little-known women such as Kate Gleason, who pioneered mass-produced and low-cost concrete housing, and better-known men, such as George Ferris, who produced the Ferris wheel to answer architect Daniel Burnham�s taunt that U.S. engineers had designed nothing as notable as France�s Eiffel Tower. There is educator and innovator Hardy Cross, who revolutionized the way complex problems could be solved before computers. And there are engineers who founded still-flourishing companies, such as CH2M-Hill�s Holly Cornell, and some whose companies have been absorbed by other firms, such as George Clyde of Woodward-Clyde, which was bought by URS.
Author Richard Weingardt, an engineer, has filled the book with surprises about the non-engineering pursuits of his subjects. There also is a foreword by eloquent engineer-historian Henry Petroski.