Harry Willard - Life Member 1981, SEAW Seattle President 1980 d. 1985

Harry G. Willard began undergraduate studies in civil engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and earned the BSCE from the University of Washington in 1947.

Harry had more than 35 years of experience in the practice of enginering, in all facets from design to construction management. A long-time member of the Seattle firm of N.G. Jacobson and Associates, Inc., he served as Principle-in-Charge responsible for prime design and construction management of fourteen multi-story parking garages of precast prestressed concrete, and three precast prestressed pier projects. In 1972 he joined Andersen Bjornstad Kane Jacobs, Inc., where he participated in many of the firm's projects including the Skagit County Jail and the Anchorage Pretrial Facility.

In SEAW activities, Harry took an instrumental role on committees that brought seminars to his colleagues: a Masonry Design Seminar in 1979, a Wind Design Seminar in 1982, and a highly successful Failure Prevention Seminar in 1974. In addition to his term as SEAW Seattle President May 1980-May 1981, he served on the SEAW Seattle Board and as a Trustee of SEAW.

His involvement in the engineering community also incorporated service as President of the American Concrete Institute of Washington State, on the Board of Directors of the Engineers Club of Washington, and the Society of American Value Engineers.

His colleagues recalled an instance that personified Harry "as a friend who could be counted on to help with whatever needed to be done:" a Wind Seminar in 1982 "almost ended in disaster because the seminar notes which had been promised to be delivered at noon still had not arrived at 2pm. Harry volunteered to help without being asked and worked selflessly without let-up for the next 6 hours on a two-bit office copying machine so that the notes could be delivered at the end of the seminar." (Source: SEAW Equilibrium June 1985)

Posted April 2012

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