Johnston Named as Engineer of the Year : Professional Group Holds Its Annual Presentation on Washington’s Birthday

It was not just a coincidence that award ceremonies of the Institute for the Advancement of Engineering were held on George Washington’s birthday.

Each year, since the institute was founded in 1967, its membership gathers during National Engineers Week to pay homage to Washington in recognition of his first career as a civil engineer and surveyor and to present engineering merit awards to individuals, engineering project achievement awards to organizations, and the coveted Engineer of the Year Award.

Friday’s festivities at the Huntington-Sheraton in Pasadena singled out Roy G. Johnston for the top individual career award as 1984 Engineer of the Year. A structural engineer, Johnston has served the industry and contributed importantly to the field of seismic safety.

Johnston, founding partner and executive vice president of Brandow & Johnston Associates of Los Angeles and former president of the state Board for Professional Engineers, shared the spotlight with other recipients, including five engineering projects, special individual awards and college students.

The award-winning projects were a $700-million expansion at Los Angeles International Airport (city of Los Angeles, Department of Airports), a $75-million water reclamation plant in the Sepulveda Dam Recreation Area (Daniel, Mann, Johnson & Mendenhall); the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (Southern California Edison Co.); the Douglas KC-10A super tanker (McDonnell Douglas Corp.) and a highly classified piece of mini-missile hardware to neutralize ground tank forces (Hughes Aircraft Co.).

The Los Angeles International Airport expansion program was completed in mid-June in anticipation of the Olympics, and more than doubled the terminal space, adding 4,000 central terminal parking spaces and a complete second-level roadway. Financing for the massive project came from airport and airline revenues.

Also in mid-June of 1984, the Donald C. Tillman Water Reclamation Plant in the Sepulveda Dam Recreation Area made its debut with a new exciting look. The plant, which processes 40 million gallons of reclaimed water daily, designed in partnership with the Los Angeles City Department of Public Works.

The plant is located on a 90-acre site and includes a two-story administration building cantilevered over the edge of a small lake in a six-acre Japanese garden designed by Koichi Kawana.

The San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (Units 2 and 3) together generated more than 10 billion kilowatt hours of electricity, equivalent to 17.2 million barrels of oil, resulting in fuel savings to Edison’s customers of about $600 million.

The KC-10A super tanker was developed by the Douglas Aircraft Co. division of McDonnell Douglas to function as a low-cost, long-range aerial tanker capable of carrying large amounts of fuel and cargo.

Two projects developed by Hughes Aircraft for WASP and MLRS military systems are mini-missiles employing the latest algorithm technology to provide autonomous target acquisition and discrimination.

Special individual awards, in addition to Johnston’s, were given to Clifton A. Moore, general manager of the Department of Airports of Los Angeles, for “outstanding service to the profession by a non-engineer”; to L. .A. County Supervisor Deane Dana for “distinguished service as an engineer in government,” and to Bee R. Waples Jr., who was named the first recipient of the Frank E. Reeves International Interprofessional Memorial Award for “outstanding service to the Institute for the Advancement of Engineering.”

Individuals given the institute’s Outstanding Engineer Merit awards in specific engineering categories were: Rodney H. Boudreaux, vice president of engineering and test at the Rocketdyne division of Rockwell International Corp., for his “contribution to aeronautics and astronautics engineering;” Asadour H. Hadjian, principal engineer of the Bechtel Group, for his “contributions to civil and structural engineering” (particularly in the field of earthquakes); Paul H. Denke, a research engineer at Douglas Aircraft Co., for his “contributions to engineering structural analysis,” and Roland E. Meissner III, director of the Sulfur Projects Group at the Ralph M. Parsons Co., for his “contributions to chemical engineering.”

From a group of engineering student winners from 23 Southern California universities and colleges, four were recognized by the institute as “outstanding” in overall balance of academia and leadership. They are Leslie Ann Momoda, UCLA; Judy Weber, USC; Todd R. S. Honda, Harvey Mudd College, and Jorgen Lien, UC Santa Barbara.

The Institute for the Advancement of Engineering has coordinated National Engineers Week activities for Southern California engineering societies and associations since its inception.

Primary participants are the Consulting Engineers Assn. of California and the Los Angeles Council of Engineers and Scientists, an organization consisting of 35 professional societies and affiliations with a combined membership of more than 50,000.