Robert L. Reed

B.S., University of Texas at Austin, 1946

Bob Reed was born and raised in Leon County, Texas. He enrolled at The University of Texas at Austin in 1943 as a member of the Navy V-12 program, graduating in 1946 with a B.S. in civil engineering and a commission in the Navy.

Bob’s 43-year career with the Texas Highway Department (later TxDOT) began in 1947, interrupted temporarily in 1950 by a two-year term in the U.S. Navy. After graduating from the Navy’s Civil Engineer Corps Officer’s Training School, Bob served the remainder of his tour of duty in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, as a power plant engineer and transportation engineer for the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard.

Upon returning to civilian service with the Highway Department in 1952, Bob served as an engineer for bridge design, overseeing all design and plan preparation in the Austin headquarters. His influence on bridge design spanned many years and impacted a period of unprecedented growth in the Texas interstate highway system. He was instrumental in developing innovative techniques for maximizing efficiencies in prestressed concrete beam use in Texas and supervised the design of many steel highway and railroad structures throughout the state. He received a James F. Lincoln Arc Welding Foundation award for welded bridge design in 1970 and the Gibb Gilchrest Award for Outstanding Highway Service in 1972.

Bob has been an important contributor to technical ideas that have become useful research subjects for the Ferguson Structural Engineering Laboratory faculty. His innate problem-solving skills have led UT researchers to undertake more comprehensive studies in bridge construction.

After retiring from TxDOT in 1985, Bob worked as a consulting engineer for HNTB before returning in the 1990s to compose a comprehensive bridge design manual. The internet-based manual is still in use today.