Gary C. Hart

Gary C. Hart, a noted practitioner and educator in structural and seismic engineering for tall buildings, founding president of the Los Angeles Tall Buildings Structural Design Council and a principal emeritus of design firm giant Thornton-Tomasetti, died on Oct. 21 in Marina del Rey, Calif. He was 73.

Thornton-Tomasetti (TT) announced his death on Nov. 17, but a spokeswoman says it is not releasing the cause.

Hart specialized in building investigation and forensic engineering, performance-based design and structural analysis of buildings, says the firm. He joined TT in 2015, after its purchase of Weidlinger Associates Inc., where he was a principal and director after that firm had acquired the company he founded, Hart Consultant Group.

Hart also was founding editor of "The Structural Deign of Tall and Special Buildings," a national periodic journal published by John Wiley & Sons for the Los Angeles seismic design group that focused on innovative engineering and construction practices. He also was a tenured structural engineering professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, from 1968 to 2001.

In a May 2002 ENR story, Hart was tapped to confirm the value of a study that vastly expanded analysis of damping adjustment factors used in the seismic design of buildings. He called it ''the first definitive study in over a decade of the way damping modifies the response of a building in a quake [that was] far more in-depth than anything that has been done before'' and called on ''forward-thinking" structural engineers to use the new results "to better understand behavior and reduce unnecessary conservatism out of ignorance.''

Raymond Daddazio, TT president and former Weidlinger president and CEO, noted Hart's "immense influence on the development of safe ways to build in seismically active regions throughout the world and the generation of structural engineers whom he educated.”

A memorial service tribute is set for January in Los Angeles.

Richard H. Stanley

Richard H. Stanley, who, as chairman of Stanley Consultants Inc., propelled the Muscatine, Iowa, engineering firm started by his father into the global arena and capped a 62-year company career, died on Nov. 17 at age 85 after a brief illness.

Joining the firm in 1955 as a design engineer, Stanley became president in 1971 and was chair from 1984 until 2007. He retired as chair emeritus in 2013.

Stanley Consultants ranks at No. 78 on ENR's list of the Top 500 Design Firms, with about $193 million in 2016 revenue. It is ranked among the Top 150 Global Design Firms.

In 1991, the firm bested three other, much larger competitors—among the 454 firms that initially competed—for a multimillion-dollar U.S. Army Corps of Engineers engineering contract to rebuild two Kuwait-sited air bases that were heavily damaged in the Persian Gulf conflict. Despite its comparatively small size, Stanley is "not an unknown quantity" to the Corps, Stanley told ENR. The firm had done similar master planning and engineering work on air bases in Oman.

From 1984 to 2017, Stanley chaired the Stanley Foundation, of which he was a founding director, in 1956. Through global policy analysis, conferences and other initiatives, the group "advances multilateral action to create fair, just, and lasting solutions to critical issues of peace and security," says its website, although it does not award grants.

Stanley was a past chairman of the American Council of Engineering Companies, president of the Iowa Engineering Society and a 2001 recipient of the Hoover Medal, awarded by the major engineering professional groups since 1930 for "outstanding extra-career services by engineers to humanity."

Gregs Thomopulos, who succeeded Stanley as firm chairman and chair emeritus and was inducted last month into the National Academy of Construction, describes Stanley as a "great leader and unique human being whose values were an inspiration to all of us."

Adds current Stanley Chair Gayle Roberts, "Dick Stanley encouraged us to welcome change in the sense of learning and adjusting in a way that builds a strong future for ourselves and our company."