1911–2002

Elected in 1966

“For transportation and safety technology.”

BY RAYMOND J. KRIZEK

DONALD S. BERRY, Professor Emeritus of Civil Engineering at Northwestern University, died in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on December 16, 2002, at the age of 91. A consummate transportation engineer, Professor Berry helped create transportation engineering programs at three universities and was responsible for pioneering interdisciplinary graduate studies in transportation engineering at Northwestern.

Don was born on January 1, 1911, in the middle of a blizzard on a ranch near Vale, South Dakota. He attended high school in Rapid City, South Dakota, and graduated from the South Dakota School of Mines in 1931. His graduate studies took him to Iowa State University, where he received an M.S. in 1933, and the University of Michigan, where he completed his Ph.D. in transportation engineering in 1936.

During his graduate studies at the University of Michigan, he met the girl who was to become his wife for more than six decades. At a student dance one evening, Don met a young lady named Helen Mitchell, an M.S. student in history, and that was the beginning of their romance. After their first date, Don told his roommate he had met the girl he was going to marry. Don and Helen were married on October 30, 1937, in Washington, D.C., Helen’s hometown. Their honeymoon consisted of the trip from Washington to Evanston, where the couple set up home-