PSU professor wins award
Oregon’s “Engineer of the Year” is a professor at Portland State University. Franz Rad was presented with this honor in late September in a ceremony on the Portland Spirit dinner ship.
The announcement of the award was made at the annual meeting for the American Society of Civil Engineers. Chik Erzurumlu, the founding dean of the College of Engineering and Computer Science at PSU delivered the news.
According to Rad, the award is usually bestowed upon practicing engineers. He said that it is the third time that a Portland State faculty member has been the recipient of the award.
He said it was nice to see university professors being recognized as professionals in the engineering world.
“We are in good company,” Rad said
Rad has taught at Portland State for 31 years. He has served as chair of the department of civil engineering for 23 years.
The American Society of Civil Engineers, which presented the award, has about 2,000 active members. It is the largest professional association for engineers in Oregon.
The criteria for the award are professional achievement and service to the society of American engineers, encouragement to potential engineers, contributions to technology, and community service.
“I consider it an honor and a vote of confidence from my colleagues,” Rad said.
Rad is involved with other professional organizations in Oregon. Those organizations are the American Concrete Institute, the American Society for Engineering Education and the Structural Engineers Association of Oregon.
Rad served as chair and vice chair for the American Society for Engineering Education (Pacific Northwest section), and as representative to the ASCE Department Heads Council’s Executive Committee. He has been director, president and vice president of both the concrete institute (Oregon chapter) and the Structural Engineers Association.
Rad is a member of a national team of seminar speakers for the American Concrete Institute that provides instruction for civil and structural engineers throughout the country.
He is the author or co-author of more than 70 technical publications.
Rad’s technical field is structural engineering. His focus is in earthquake-resistant design with an emphasis on reinforced concrete design.
Part of his research includes field inspection of an estimated 50,000 commercial buildings in the Portland area. He has helped develop computer models for earthquake hazard assessment.
Rad has worked on this research for the past 10 years. He said Portland is in bad shape for earthquakes. He said it is better to have an earthquake every few years instead of every few hundred years so the weaker structures can be purged. As of right now, there are many structures that would not be able to withstand a large earthquake.
His research at Portland State has been a help for ballot measures 15 and 16.
“I am hoping and enticing everyone to vote yes on the ballot measures,” Rad said.
Ballot measures 15 and 16 ask for the retrofitting of public structures such as schools and firehouses.
Rad said the work that Portland has done is the most reaching data analysis in the country in regards to community investment in building. He attributes that to the fact that analyzing structural vulnerability is very time-consuming and costly.
Rad said that several Portland State students have assisted in his research over the years. He estimated that there are currently 250 civil engineer majors at PSU.
