Thomas R. Kuesel

Thomas R. Kuesel

World recognized engineer of bridges and tunnels responsible for design of over 130 bridge projects and over 140 tunnel projects in 36 states and on six continents.

Thomas R. Kuesel, a former resident of Charlottesville, died on Wednesday, February 17, 2010. He was 83.

He was born on July 30, 1926, a son of Harry N. and Marie Butt Kuesel.

He was devoted to his family and is survived by his wife of 51 years, Lucia Fisher Kuesel "Ellie"; his two children, Robert Livingston Kuesel and William Baldwin Kuesel; and five grandchildren.

He graduated from Yale University in 1946 with highest honors in Civil Engineering, at age 19, and a Master of Civil Engineering from Yale in 1947, at age 20. He was a member of Tau Beta Pi, the national engineering honor society.

In 1947 he joined Parsons, Brinckerhoff, Quade, and Douglas, one of the oldest and most renowned engineering firms in the United States, as a junior bridge engineer and worked up to Chairman of the Board in 1984. He retired in 1990 and stayed on as Chairman Emeritus and Consulting Engineer.

He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1977. He is an honorary member of the American Underground Construction Association. He received the Golden Beaver Award in Engineering in 1989 from The Beavers, the West Coast heavy construction honorary association.

In 1988, he received the Ernest E. Howard Award for Structural Engineering from the American Society of Civil Engineers.

He was Chairman of the Geotechnical Board of the National Research Council from 1988 until 1989, and Chairman of the National Research Council Marine Board Committee on Ship-Bridge Collisions from 1982 until 1983.

He was a charter member of the United States National Committee on Tunneling Technology from 1972 until 1974.

Among his notable bridge projects is the Newport Bridge at Newport, Rhode Island, a two-mile crossing over Narragansett Bay, which includes the longest suspension bridge in New England with a central span of 1,600 feet.

He participated in the design of the original York River bridge at Yorktown, Virginia, which remains the longest twin swing span highway bridge in the world. In the 1990's, he advised on the reconstruction of the bridge from the original two lanes to four lanes.

In 1991, he advised on the design and construction of the Ford Island Bridge across Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, a floating bridge with a retractable movable span which can open to provide passage for aircraft carriers.

From 1985 until 1993, he worked with the World Bank on a special "panel of experts" convened to direct the development, design and construction of the Jamuna River Bridge in Bangladesh. He also worked with the World Bank on the Rama IX Bridge in Bangkok.

From 1963 until 1968, he directed the design of 20 miles of subways, 25 miles of aerial structures, two rock tunnels and the three½-mile Trans Bay Tube tunnel between San Francisco and Oakland, California, for Parsons Brinckerhoff-Tudor-Bechtel, the general engineering consultants for design and construction of the Bay Area Rapid Transit Project. In the course of his work, he developed the design basis for the resistance of underground structures to earthquakes.

He later was involved in subway projects in Boston, New York, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, Caracas, Singapore, and Tapei.

His tunnel projects include the nine-mile Rogers Pass Tunnel in the Canadian Rockies (the longest railroad tunnel in North America); the West Rock Tunnel on Connecticut's Wilbur Cross Parkway at New Haven; the Lehigh Tunnel on the Pennsylvania Turnpike; the Glenwood Canyon Tunnel in Colorado; the Trans-Koolau Tunnel in Honolulu; and the Great Belt Tunnel in Denmark. Also, the eight-lane Fort McHenry Tunnel beneath Baltimore Harbor; the Second Hampton Roads and the Second Elizabeth River Tunnels at Norfolk, Virginia; and the Bosporos Tunnel at Istanbul, linking Europe and Asia.

One of his most notable tunnel projects was the NORAD Combat Operations Center beneath Cheyenne Mountain near Colorado Springs, which was designed to resist the effects of a nuclear bomb in 1963.

From 1985 through 2004 he was Senior Advisor on the development, design and construction of Boston's Central Artery/Tunnel project, popularly known as "The Big Dig".

He was a co-editor of the Tunnel Engineering Handbook, a standard reference for design and construction used worldwide, and published more than 60 technical articles on tunnels, structures and contracting practices.

He was a former member of Farmington Country Club and a former Board member of the Charlottesville and University Symphony Orchestra.

A private service in his memory was held for his family.

Contributions in his memory may be sent to the Charlottesville and University Symphony Orchestra, P.O. Box 4206, Charlottesville, VA 22905.


This obituary was originally published in the Daily Progress.