'Ilwaco near the mouth of the Columbia (River),' said his son, 'was his favorite spot.' Anderson liked to 'un-stress' via fishing. 'He was active in many community groups,' said his son, 'and was known locally for his outspoken advocacy of historic preservation and excellence in education.'Īs competitive as he was, Mr. He moved back to Tacoma in 1951, and with his brother, Thomas, founded Concrete Technology Corp. faculty, where he was on the team that developed the electric-strain gauge - used worldwide to measure strains in structural materials.ĭuring World War II he headed the technical department at Philadelphia's Cramp Shipyard, supervising the design and launching of submarines and destroyers.Īfter the war he directed testing of a prototype of the U.S.' first prestressed-concrete bridge, Walnut Lane Bridge in Philadelphia.

He worked as a bridge designer in Germany, then returned to the Anderson earned a civil-engineering degree at the University of Washington and a doctorate at M.I.T.

The drum buckled the steel, but just went `boing!' against the concrete.' So my dad set up a steel and a concrete pole, and had a crane swing a steel drum full of gravel at them. 'They said concrete would crack like a sidewalk if a car ran into it. 'We were fighting with steel people for a contract to build streetlight poles,' said his son. Anderson, who died June 23 at 85, loved a challenge. The drying concrete shrinks around the wires, forming a virtually indestructible composite. Prestressing concrete, said the son, involves pouring it around strong wires under tension. So they set up a firm to make alternative design proposals using concrete instead of steel.' 'My dad and his brother set up a factory in Tacoma but had no business because no one understood it. 'He brought the concept of prestressed concrete from Europe, where it was in production, to the United States,' said his son Karl Anderson of Tacoma. The Tacoma native also came up with the revolutionary curved and angled beams of the monorails in Seattle and at Disney World. This visionary engineer, his family and their associates designed concrete light poles despite widespread skepticism. Anderson's theme might have been, 'Anything steel can do, concrete can do better.'

Concrete rose angie thomas