/ Awards / Ed Wasserman Named Recipient of 2019 Richard S. Fountain Award

Ed Wasserman Named Recipient of 2019 Richard S. Fountain Award

Parul Dubey on February 28, 2019 - in Awards, News, People

From left to right: Chris Garrell, National Steel Bridge Alliance, AISC’s bridge division; Wasserman; Ronnie Medlock, High Steel Structures and chairman of the Steel Bridge Task Force Oversight Council; and Tom Macioce, Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and chairman of the AASHTO T-14 Committee. Credit: SMDI

 

The Steel Market Development Institute’s (SMDI) Steel Bridge Task Force has named Ed Wasserman, senior engineer of bridge design and engineering at Modjeski and Masters, as the recipient of the 2019 Richard S. Fountain Award.

Established in 2001 and named for the founder of the Steel Bridge Task Force, the Fountain Award recognizes leadership in steel bridge research and outstanding efforts to advance AASHTO specifications. Wasserman received the award at a Steel Bridge Task Force meeting in January in Orlando. The task force was formed more than 40 years ago to coordinate research that establishes safe, cost-effective steel bridges and to implement these developments into steel bridge design codes, specifically the AASHTO design codes.

“Throughout his career, Ed has made lasting contributions to the improvement of steel bridge design,” said Robert Wills, vice president of construction market development for SMDI, a business unit of the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI). “When he chaired the AASHTO T-14 Committee, Ed championed a multi-year research project that completely overhauled the AASHTO specifications to unify the design of straight and curved steel girders, resulting in more cost-effective steel bridge designs. He was always quick to engage the Tennessee Department of Transportation in the development and testing of new design strategies for construction innovations such as high-performance steels [HPS].”

Before joining Modjeski and Masters, Wasserman was director of the Structures Division at the Tennessee Department of Transportation, which won 34 design excellence awards over the course of his leadership. He served as chairman of the AASHTO T-14 Committee for 25 years as well as chairman of the AASHTO T-10 Technical Committee for Prestressed Concrete Design (later subsumed into the Technical Committee for Concrete Design). He has also won an AISC Lifetime Achievement Award.

The Richard S. Fountain Award was established in 2001. Past recipients of the award include:

  • Alexander D. Wilson, ArcelorMittal USA (2014)
  • Ronald D. Medlock, PE, High Steel Structures, Inc. (2013)
  • Yoni Adonyi, PhD, PE, LeTourneau University (2012)
  • Ahmad M. Itani, PhD, PE, SE, F ASCE, University of Nevada, Reno (2011)
  • John M. Kulicki, PhD, PE, Modjeski and Masters, Inc. (2009)
  • William J. Wright, PhD, PE, Federal Highway Administration’s Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center (2008)
  • Donald W. White, PhD, Georgia Institute of Technology (2007)
  • Dean C. Krouse, Independent Consulting Metallurgical Engineer (2006)
  • Professor Dennis R. Mertz, University of Delaware (2005)
  • Camille Rubeiz, American Iron and Steel Institute (2003)
  • Professor Karl H. Frank, University of Texas at Austin (2002)
  • Michael A. Grubb, PE, BSDI, Ltd. (2001)

 Click here to view the full Press Release from SMDI. 

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