Ralph Brazelton Peck was born in Canada on June 23,
1912. He was a civil engineer and a member the faculty of the University of Illinois for over 50 years.
The Peck family moved from Canada to the U.S. when he was six
years old. After graduating from high
school, Peck was a junior member of the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad signal
gang where he performed trackside work
He then continued on to college - both as a student and a professor.
Peck attended Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) and was
given a three-year fellowship for graduate work in structures. Most of his time was spent working with
structures, mathematics, and geology. He
received a bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering and a doctorate of Civil
Engineering in 1934 and 1937, respectively.
On the day of his graduation, June 14, 1937, Peck completed his graduate
work and married Marjorie Truby.
His first design was a 60-foot long girder for the Rio
Grande Railroad near Aztec, New Mexico.
It washed out during a flash flood a few years later. He was laid off from his first job after
seven months. Peck began additional post-graduate
study at Harvard University. He took a
course with Arthur
Casagrande and impressed him enough to become a lab assistant and field
observer.
Karl Terzaghi supervised Peck's consulting work at Republic
Steel. Terzaghi recommended that Peck take a faculty position that had been
offered to him by the University of Illinois. Peck was a member of the faculty
at the University of Illinois from 1942-1974. He authored and co-authored over
200 publications including text books.
Before his teaching career, Peck briefly worked for the
American Bridge Company and on the Chicago Subway. Upon retirement from the University of
Illinois he worked as a consulting engineer on over 1,045 projects until about
2005. His involvement included:
- Lock and dam construction failures on the Ohio
River
- Dams in the James Bay project in Quebec
- Trans-Alaska Pipeline System
- Rapid transit systems in Chicago, San Francisco,
and Washington
Peck was president of the International Society of Soil
Mechanics and Foundation Engineering from 1969-1973. He received the National
Medal of Science in 1975. Peck died on
February 18, 2008.
Missouri University of Science and Technology has an
excellent photo-bio of Peck: Ralph B.
Peck: Photographic Essay of an Amazing Career.
Resources:
Engineering at Illinois - Ralph
Brazelton Peck
Missouri University of Science and Technology - Ralph B.
Peck: Photographic Essay of an Amazing Career
Wikipedia - Ralph Brazelton Peck
World Wide Web of Geotechnical Engineers - Hall of Fame - Ralph Brazelton Peck
http://www.rpi.edu/magazine/spring2008/classnotes/peck.jpg [image]
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