Robert Franklin "Frank" Carmichael III
B.S., University of Texas at Austin, 1973
M.S., University of Texas at Austin, 1975
Frank Carmichael was born in Brady, McCulloch County, Texas and graduated from the Brady Independent School system in the top 10 of his class. He was a member of the National Honor Society and participated in the High School Band and Golf Team. He was also a member of Boy Scout Troop 402 and obtained the rank of Eagle Scout. The Brady Rotary Club selected him to participate in a Bi-District youth Conference in Mexico, and the Texas Farm Bureau selected him to attend a Citizenship Conference at Baylor University.
Carmichael earned his BSCE with Honors in 1973 and MSCE at The University of Texas at Austin. While at the University, he worked at the Center for Highway Research during the academic year and at the Brady Residency of the Brownwood District of the Texas Highway Department each summer. This gave him a strong foundation in the theoretical and practical aspects of highway engineering. He was a member of the student chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers and organized a student trip to see the initial construction of the new Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport (DFW). He was selected to the Chi Epsilon Honorary Civil Engineering fraternity and was elected president his last year before graduation. He completed his thesis on “Modification and Implementation of the Rigid Pavement Design System” in 1974.
Upon graduation, he went to work at Austin Research Engineers, Inc., and his early years were spent working on research projects for the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), the National Cooperative Research Program (NCHRP) and the World Bank. He completed and co-authored numerous research projects, including work on the 1993 AASHTO Pavement Design Guide, NCHRP Report 300, “Bridge Management Systems,” and NCHRP Report 285, “Evaluating Deferred Maintenance Strategies.” He also implemented pavement management systems and studies for state and local governments nationwide. He worked internationally on projects in The Netherlands, Bolivia, Argentina, Nigeria and Malaysia. He rose to the rank of president of the firm.
Carmichael has spent his career focused on transportation engineering, having completed pavement design projects for street, road, highway, toll road, airport and port projects. He has also completed project designs for mass transit authorities in the area of alternative fuels for compressed natural gas refueling stations. He has continued to develop pavement evaluation and design systems. Several of his projects have been recognized and won awards.
He has been an active member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the Texas Society of Professional Engineers and the American Public Works Association. He has also been active with the Capital Area Boy Scouts of America as a boy scout leader and scoutmaster of Troop 5 and volunteered at 3 National Jamborees. He is a 30-year member and Paul Harris Fellow of the Rotary Club of Austin and is a graduate of the Leadership Austin program. He has been married for 44 years to Vicki Cain Carmichaelof Houston, Texas (B.S. Department of Natural Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin, 1977). They have one son James Brady Carmichael (B.S. Joe Jackson School of Geophysics, 2000).
