John Clark - Engineer of the Year 1994, SEAW Southwest President 1972

Born in Walla Walla, John H. Clark received the BSCE with honors from Washington State College in 1956, the MSCE from UW in 1980, and the PhD from UW in 1989.

His employment began in 1956 with Morrison-Knudsen Company. He served in the US Army Corps of Engineers 1956-58, worked for the Washington State Department of Highways bridge division 1958-1963, with Arvid Grant & Associates as VP 1958-1979, with Andersen Bjornstad Kane Jacobs (ABKJ) as Vice President and Chief Bridge Engineer 1979-1997, in 1997 as H. T. Person Visiting Professor at the University of Wyoming, and self-employed beginning 1998.

Major projects include three Columbia River Bridges: at Vantage, I-90 WA, at Astoria, and the Intercity Bridge, Pasco-Kennewick (the first cable-stayed bridge constructed in North America, recognized by the President's Commendation as a monumental engineering accomplishment); West Seattle Freeway High Level Bridge (CECW Honor Award for Engineering Excellence) and the West Seattle Swing Bridge (the only concrete double-leaf swing bridge construction in the world, CECW Grand Conceptor Award for Engineering Excellence, ASCE Outstanding Civil Engineering Achievement Award, ACEC Grand Award); Navajo Bridge, Colorado River near Lee's Ferry; Denver's 23rd St Viaduct; seismic retrofit of Seattle's University Bridge; the Hoover Dam By-pass Bridge; and Canyon B Bridge Eastmont Extension in Douglas County, WA. He served on the Concrete subcommittee for AASHTO LFRD Specifications, 1st Ed.

Professional activities: Fellow, ASCE and Chair, ASCE Loads on Bridges Commitee; ACI Director and Technical Activities Committee

At the time of his recognition as Engineer of the Year 1994, Equilibrium (Summer 1994) noted: "Those who have worked with John will tell you that he epitomizes a bridge engineer. His state-of-the-art technical ability is cutting edge, and designing bridges is his passion. ... He was a member of the ATC delegation to the New Zealand Workshop on Seismic Design of Highway Bridges (ATC-12) and was a delegate and speaker to the 7th Joint US-Japan Bridge Workshop in 1991 and 1993 in Tsukuba City, Japan. John has led two People-to-People tours, to China and Russia/Eastern Europe, where he presented papers, facilitated discussions, and assisted with this exchange program where different countries had the opportunity to meet and discuss bridge engineering issues."

In 2019, PSEC honored John as Professional Engineer of the Year.

Posted March 2012, updated March 2020