John Focht Jr on Hvorslev and early researchers and practitioners
On the Waterways Experiment Station, John A. Focht, Jr., writes, “Good advice to a new graduate can have a major effect on his career. Arthur Casagrande suggested early in 1947 that I apply for a position at the US Waterways Experiment Station (WES). I took his advice, accepted the offer that came from Vicksburg, and have been thankful ever since. The engineers there were all outstanding technically, individually helpful to the young engineers, and excellent role models both professionally and personally. They were Bill Turnbull, Stan Johnson, Woodie Shockley, and perhaps most important of all at that time, Charles Mansur, my immediate boss. Each of these men was an extremely proficient writer and editor, and taught me how to write a good technical report. Quality exploration and laboratory testing were trademarks of WES. Dr. Juul Hvorslev was the ultimate authority on exploration. Tommy Goode, head of the Exploration Section, put quality into practice and indoctrinated all of us who came through the Station with a commitment to an understanding of what constitutes quality and appropriate soil exploration. After I had been called back to active duty for the Korean War in 1950, Charles Mansur prepared a paper on the principal results for the ASCE Soils Journal and submitted it with me as a co-author. That paper, Mansur et. al., (1956) won the ASCE Middlebrooks Award for 1957.”
John A. Focht, Jr., continues, “In Vicksburg I lived in the same boarding house with Dr. Juul Hvorslev, a most remarkable gentleman and an engineer. For several months, Juul took Wally Sherman (a classmate at Harvard) and I, to work since we were just out of school and in debt. He even offered his car for us to use on a date but neither of us took him up on his generous offer. Juul was an incessant cigarette smoker; I think more than Terzaghi, he carried on an immense correspondence with engineers all around the world and shared the technical content of some of his correspondence with us at meal time and in the car. Those conversations were an education in themselves. Three other young geotechnical engineers who ate at 2602 Drummond, were Bill Emrich, Bob Kaufman, and Bob Cunny. I returned from Korea in 1952 and worked at WES for about 8 months before we moved in April 1953 to Houston to join Greer & McClelland (soon to become McClelland Engineers, Inc.)”
On high rise buildings and deep basements, Mr. John A. Focht, Jr., remembers, “I had the opportunity to work with Phil Rutledge in 1958 on the First City National Bank in downtown Houston. To provide the owner with a second opinion, we suggested retaining Mueser Rutledge to review our predictions. In our first meeting Phil asked, If we don’t agree, whom shall we call in, Raymond Dawson?”
“Fazlur Khan was perhaps the most complete engineer I ever worked with on Shell Plaza. Faz was the chief structural engineer for such projects as the World Trade Center in New York and the John Hancock and Sears Towers in Chicago. But he was also effectively an architect and a pretty good foundation engineer. It was my good fortune to assist him on One and Two Shell Plazas in Houston beginning in 1960. His first assistant on these two projects, Joe Colaco, remained in Houston so we continued to work as a team on a number of subsequent major buildings. Pete Gemeinhardt was my able assistant on these and other projects.”
With respect to Offshore Structures, John A. Focht, Jr., says, “In 1954, we had an opportunity to review and evaluate the results of a full-scale lateral pile load test performed in the Gulf of Mexico. Our results published in McClelland et. al., (1958) were the beginning of the “p/y” technique for predicting the performance of laterally loaded piles. That paper won the ASCE Laurie Prize in 1959. It also marked the beginning of my still continuing association with Lymon Reese and Hudson Matlock on a wide variety of offshore related problems. Their subsequent tests and analytical studies done in the later 50’s and 60’s are still the foundation of laterally loaded pile predictions. Partial or complete overturning of a number of wellhead structures during a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico led to a series of pullout tests in 1958 on piles installed into sand by a combination of procedures, sponsored by several oil companies. The results were included in McClelland’s Terzaghi lecture in McClelland (1974).
Improvement in the prediction of the capacity of long piles in clay has been a major activity for me throughout my career. The evolution of the predictive technique advocated by me, adopted by McClelland Engineers, and generally followed by API for offshore piles is reasonably well documented in Focht et al., (1977), Focht (1983), and Pellieter et.al., (1993). McClelland et al., (1969) co-authored with Bram McClelland and Bill Emrich received the ASCE State-of-the-Art Civil Engineering Award for 1971. The topic of pile capacity was also the subject of two other papers, Focht et.al., (1981) and Vijayvergia et al., (1972). Each of my co-authors added substantially to my understanding and the profession of pile capacity in clay. In my opinion, these papers and others on offshore foundation problems were a major reason that McClelland Engineers received the Distinguished Achievement Award for Organizations from the Offshore Technology Conference in 1986, the first time that award went to a consulting firm. Working closely over the years with other leaders of McClelland Engineers – Bram McClelland, Bob Perkins, Bill Emrich, Charles Mansur, and W.T. Reynolds – added much to my personal knowledge, status, and satisfaction. Harry Poulos spent part of a sabbatical in our office several years before and I was convinced from that interaction that he would concur with our approximate combination of procedures as presented in Focht el. al.,(1973).
The Ekofisk tank structure installed in 1973 in the North Sea was the first offshore petroleum gravity structure. The foundation at the site consisted of dense clean sand in about 270 ft of water. The exterior wall of the Doris-type structure was a perforated, energy-dissipating baffle 300-ft in diameter rigidly connected to the interior tanks. The oil storage tanks were in the center with a common mat supporting both components. The Norwegian government wanted a review of its expected performance particularly under the repeated cyclic loads of a severe North Sea storm and turned to NGI as their consultant. Until that time, NGI had had very little involvement with offshore geotechnical engineering. Phillips Oil Co., authorized me to retain Ken Lee of UCLA to assist in the evaluation of the storm effects and to attend a hurry-up meeting in Oslo at NGI. I met Ken in New York and we flew together to London on a 747. We had seats in the upstairs lounge and worked the whole flight over to develop a response to the Norwegian questions and concerns.
It was generally accepted by NGI, but Laurits Bjerrum wanted more field demonstrations of the sand density rather than just judgement and the opportunity for detailed cyclic load analyses. Ken also wished to run cyclic tests on the sand. Ken Lee’s contribution is clearly evident in Lee et.al., (1975), which won the ASCE Middlebrooks Award for 1976 for us. Considerable credit for the success of Ekofisk must go to William R. Bowles, the Phillips engineer working along with the rest of the team.”
John A. Focht, Jr., writes “In 1982, Harry Seed asked me to prepare the theme lecture on piles for the 1985 ISSMFE Conference to be in San Francisco. I had just been elected as Vice President of ASCE and was very busy with my new duties; I enlisted Mike O’Neill of the University of Houston to be the co-author and assist in gathering data on the international state of the practice for design and installation of axially loaded piles. Nearly 200 detailed questionnaires were sent out world wide with a 30 percent return.” Working closely with Mike for about a year gave John A. Focht, Jr., the benefit of his substantial experience with drilled shafts and driven piles. He still likes the last paragraph of that paper Focht el.al.,(1985).
“The good technical engineer is one who knows the limits of his experience on problems and soil conditions comparable with his current assignment and makes appropriate extrapolations. He knows what he knows and uses it confidently. More importantly, he knows what he does not know, seeks available knowledge, and then proceeds fully, acknowledging his limitations and uncertainties. This description fits Mike O’Neill very well.”
On Dams, these are the memories of John A. Focht, Jr.,“Geotechnical studies for Livingston Dam on the Trinity River near Houston began in 1961. In response to concerns and at our recommendations, the designers (Brown & Root, Inc. and Forrest & Cotton, Inc.) retained Dr. Arthur Casagrande as a special consultant.
Dr. Terzaghi was seldom at a loss for words. I remember, however, a technical session at an ASCE convention (probably in the 60’s) regarding dams on cavernous limestone. The session was probably sponsored by the TVA. During the discussion period, Terzaghi got up and said something like, “This has been interesting but I make it a practice not to take assignments in cavernous limestone regions”. Another equally- distinguished looking gentleman rose to reply generally as, “With all due respect to Dr. Terzaghi, there simply are major societal needs for dams in some cavernous limestone regions, and some of us have the job to design and build them so that they will safely fulfill their intended purpose”. Dr. Terzaghi had no reply. As part of a routine 5-year inspection of Morris Sheppard Dam on the Brazos River west of Fort Worth in December 1986, the inspection team of Freese and Nichols, Inc. and McClelland Engineers, Inc. almost simultaneously discovered problems with the dam. A special consulting board was retained consisting of A.J. Hendron of the University of Illinois and James Libby, a consulting engineer.”
On ASCE activities, John A. Focht, Jr., remembers that “In 1975, I was asked to serve on the Executive Committee of the ASCE Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering Division. That volunteer assignment gave me the opportunity to work closely over a period of five years with men like Harry Seed, Dick Gray, Ernie Selig, Bob Schuster, Bill Swiger, George Sowers, Woodie Shockley, and John Lysmer. While our joint efforts were directed at activities of the Division, there were lots of discussion at meals and in the evening regarding our interesting projects. The learning experience for me was tremendous. I only hope that I contributed something to each of them in return for what they taught me.
The number of geotechnical engineers who held an ASCE office seems to be disproportionately larger than the geotechnical membership. MAY BE IT IS BECAUSE GEOTECHS TEND TO WORK WITH AND FOR OTHER CIVIL ENGINEERS MORE THAN OTHER SUBDISCIPLINES. THEREBY, THEY HAVE PROPORTIONATELY GREATER EXPOSURE WITHIN PRACTICING CIVIL ENGINEERS; OR MAY BE, THEY HAVE A GREATER COMMITMENT TO PROFESSIONAL SERVICE. Other geotechs served as Vice President of ASCE – Trent Dames, Bill Moore, Gene McMasters, Bill Zoino, Bob Lawson, Walter Lefevre, and Bill Marcuson. Twenty-three geotechnical engineers served as ASCE Director to the best of my knowledge: Charles Britzuis, Jose Capacete, Leroy Crandall, Elio D’Applonia, Raymond Dawson, Ed Fusik, Arthur Greengard, Delon Hampton, Ken Hansen, Richard Hazen, Lloyd Held, Jeff Hilliard, Ron Hirschfeld, Peter Hoadley, James Olson, J.A. Padgett, Ralph Peck, Carlton Proctor, Gardner Reynolds, Ed Rinne, Phil Rutledge, Malcolm Steinberg, and Ed Wilson. Some of these are also very well known for their technical contributions. The rewards of such service are innumerable, but one of the greatest that I received are the friendships.
Perhaps one of my most exciting and rewarding society assignments began in 1994 with a request from Jim Davis, Executive Director of ASCE, to head a small task committee to consider the feasibility of transforming the geotechnical Engineering Division of ASCE into a new semi-autonomous organization…Geo-Institute. That and a similar committee looking at the Structural Division recommended to the ASCE Board of Direction in 1995 that two pilot institutes be authorized. Mike O’Neill, Larry Roth, and Jim Davis deserve credit for their energy and commitment in bringing the Geo-Institute so far, so fast.”
McClelland at AIT in 1981
