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RIC H ARD N . W H I T E
1933–2009
Elected in 1992
“For advancing understanding of the behavior of structures, for innovations
in engineering education, and for leadership in concrete technology.”
BY WILLIAM McGUIRE
R ICHARD NORMAN WHITE, James A. Friend Family
Distinguished Professor of Engineering at the Cornell
University School of Civil and Environmental Engineering,
died on October 3, 2009.
Dick was born on December 21, 1933, in Chetek, Wisconsin,
and grew up on several different dairy farms. His father
alternated farm ownership with operation of a small contracting
firm. Work on the farms, helping his father in construction,
and his classroom interests made civil engineering Dick’s clear
choice while still in high school.
He received his civil engineering education at the University
of Wisconsin, Madison, earning his B.S. in 1956 and M.S. in 1957.
Then, after six months of active duty service in the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers, he returned to the University of Wisconsin
to study for his Ph.D., which he received in 1961. While
studying for the doctorate he worked part time as a structural
engineer for a consulting firm and served as an instructor at
the university, with responsibility for several undergraduate
courses. As an undergraduate he had met Margaret Howell,
also a student at the university. They were married in 1957,
and Marge completed her undergraduate program while
he worked on his doctorate. These formative years were the
firm base for his later career and his accomplishments as a
359
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360 MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
teacher, a writer, an administrator, a professional leader, and
a community servant.
In 1961, Dick joined the Cornell University School of
Civil and Environmental Engineering faculty as an assistant
professor. He was soon recognized as an exceptional teacher,
winning the engineering college’s Outstanding Teacher Award
in 1965—a promise to be confirmed in later years by the same
award in 1996 and as a three-time winner of civil engineering’s
Chi Epsilon Award. He was also the lead author of the White,
Gergely, and Sexsmith three-volume set of textbooks Structural
Engineering (New York: Wiley, 1972), which integrated aspects
of mechanics, analysis, behavior, materials, and design. It was
widely successful and had a broad influence on undergraduate
education in civil engineering. As his research interests started
to lean toward concrete structures and the need to appreciate
their physical behavior, Dick conceived, designed, and built
a structural models laboratory for instruction and research
in concrete systems. It, too, had a successful history and has
recently been succeeded by a 21st-century facility founded on
the same principles and named in his honor as the Richard N.
White Instructional Laboratory.
As is almost inevitable in academia, a person of Dick’s talent
and vision is drawn into administration. Dick had several
appointments. One of the most influential was that of director
of the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering from
1978 to 1984. His most outwardly visible accomplishment was
in the physical plant. When he came into office, the hydraulics
research laboratory was small and inadequately equipped.
The need for improvement was clear. Dick took the lead in
planning, fund-raising, and construction of a 5,000-square-
foot addition to the engineering school’s building, a facility
that was completed in 1983 and named the Joseph H. DeFrees
Hydraulic Laboratory in honor of its major donor. Dick was
also an efficient manager of the day-to-day affairs of the
engineering school.
In these and his other administrative roles what came
across most memorably was the nature of the man himself.
As colleagues said in recording and reflecting on Dick’s many
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RIC H ARD N . W H I T E 361
accomplishments and the awards and recognition he received
throughout his career: “We particularly acknowledge the
statesmanlike . . . he performed as a distinguished member
of the Cornell University faculty—a role that infused and
yet transcended his specific area of research and which
demonstrated his personal warmth, knowledge, compassion
and commitment to students, staff and faculty in Civil
Engineering and in every aspect of the University in which
he participated. Dick was uniformly admired and respected.”
Beyond the university, Dick was active nationally in
professional affairs, most notably with the American Concrete
Institute. From his initial membership in the 1950s to a term as
president in 1997, he was active at all levels of the institute. He
was on numerous technical committees and at various times
was chairman of the Technical Activities Committee and the
Standards Board and a member of the Board of Directors. He
also received the institute’s Joe W. Kelly Award for leadership
in education in 1992, the Wason Medal for Most Meritorious
Paper in 1993, and honorary membership in 2006.
Dick also maintained a part-time consulting practice. In
the course of his career he advised dozens of organizations—
structural engineering firms, manufacturers, national labora-
tories, government agencies, universities, and publishers—on
a variety of topics, such as structural analysis design and
research, project evaluation, and editorial policy.
In 1988, Dick was named James A. Friend Family
Distinguished Professor of Engineering at Cornell. He was
elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1992 and
to honorary membership in the American Society of Civil
Engineers in 2001.
He started to receive widespread recognition for his
writing, research, and professional activity while still in his
30s. Until he was incapacitated by illness in 2005, he was in
demand off-campus as a lecturer, ambassador of the American
Concrete Institute, and venerated mentor of foreign graduate
students.
Dick and Marge enjoyed travel and the associated
opportunities to meet people, and his professional travel
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362 MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
plus sabbatical leaves from Cornell enabled them to see and
experience many places. He had terms as a visiting professor
at the universities of California at Berkeley, Puerto Rico
at Mayaguez, Durham, and Southwestern Jiaotong. Other
engagements covered much of the civil engineering worlds of
Latin America, China, the Middle East, and Northern Africa.
Dick was an outstanding photographer. He always carried
a camera on trips, recording the scenery, people, foods, and life
wherever he was. He particularly enjoyed taking pictures of
birds, animals, and flowers. His work was shown extensively,
both in group exhibitions and one-man shows.
Locally, the White’s first real Ithaca home, in the Ellis Hollow
section, was a Tech-Built house finished off by Dick and his
father. In the years they lived there, Dick and Marge were
leaders in the community, cochairs of the 25th Anniversary
Ellis Hollow Fair, and hosts of many gatherings of neighbors
and colleagues featuring fine food and wine.
Dick suffered the first of two strokes when he was 72 and
he died four years later. He was denied gentle twilight years.
But he was remarkably successful in everything he undertook,
and the legacy of his good work remains.
He is survived by his wife, Margaret; daughter, Barbara
Ann Shaffer (William) (of Arlington, Virginia); granddaughter,
Natalie Apseloff; grandson, Nicholas Apseloff; son, David
Charles White (fiancee, Soeung Brenda Oeun) and children,
Kuyheang Sok, Layheang Sok, Mary Sok, Andy Sok, and
Michael Daniel Oeun (of Ithaca, New York); a beloved sister,
Joyce Mortt (of Eau Claire, Wisconsin); three nieces, Susan
Nelson (Mike), Madelyn, and Cynthia Lamb (J. P. Bowersock),
and sons, Eli and Oliver; and Jennifer (Mark) Johnson and
son, Peter; brothers-in-law Charles Howell (Mary) and Robert
Howell (Kathy); a niece, Kim Dutter (Roy) and her children,
Mathew, Kailey, and Kasey; and a nephew, Dan Howell, and
his sons, Jacob and Jeremy.
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