printable versionMemorial Resolution: Boyd Colton Paulson, Jr.
BOYD COLTON PAULSON, JR.
1946 - 2005
The Stanford community lost a leader in construction engineering and management with the death of Professor Boyd Colton Paulson, Jr. on December 1, 2005 at the age of 59 years. Family and friends celebrated his life at a memorial service at Memorial Church on 7 February 2006. Boyd's major contributions in construction education and research and in providing affordable housing mean that he will be greatly missed in many professional and non-profit organizations and by a large group of friends.
Boyd was born in Rhode Island in 1946, the oldest of five children. His father became a project manager in heavy construction and the family moved, frequently on very short notice, to various project locations in Utah, New Mexico, Canada and Australia. Boyd enjoyed the challenge of catching up academically with other students in each new school, boyhood adventures in a variety of rural locations, and working on construction jobs himself when he was older. In 1962 and 1963 he and his family lived in a remote construction camp in Australia while Boyd Paulson Sr. managed the Snowy Mountain Project, a major infrastructure development. While attending high school in Australia, Boyd met his future wife, Jane Kingdon, who was in his 1963 graduating class. Jane remained in Australia to attend the University of Sydney, while Boyd enrolled at the University of Utah. In 1965, he transferred to Stanford, eventually earning three degrees in civil engineering: B.S. '67, M.S. '69 and Ph.D. '71.
While Boyd was a student at Stanford, at age 21, he was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease, a cancer of the lymph system. He was accepted as one of the earliest research patients by Dr. Henry Kaplan, then doing pioneering work at Stanford Hospital, and received radiation treatments using a newly-developed medical linear accelerator. His illness went into remission, but returned the following year, and this time he received chemotherapy under the direction of medical oncologist Dr. Saul Rosenberg. In the field of medicine their two names are linked as the pioneers who led the cure of Hodgkin's disease and related lymphomas so thousands of people are alive today. Boyd survived this second round of treatments. Shortly thereafter Jane, who had immigrated to the US in the meantime, happened to come to California and visited him. They were married a few months later in 1970. The family eventually grew with the addition of their son Jeffrey and daughter Laura and enjoyed 36 happy years together.
Boyd continued his studies at Stanford, graduating with a PhD in 1971, and subsequently began his academic career at the University of Illinois. He returned to join the Stanford faculty in Construction Engineering and Management in 1974 where he served for 31 years. During this time he also served as a visiting professor at the University of Tokyo (1978), the Technical University of Munich (1983), the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland (1990-91) and the University of Hawaii (1998).
Boyd's commitment and tireless actions resulted in his major role in building the academic discipline of Construction Engineering and Management. His fundamental approach, creativity, openness to new technology, and interaction with industry built a solid foundation for this new field. The workshop that he organized in 1975 for industry and academic leaders set goals for basic research in construction that charted the course for many years. His work with the National Science Foundation, the Department of Transportation, the Business Roundtable and others, resulted in understanding of new technology for heavy civil work that significantly advanced practice.
He took advantage of opportunities to work on two of the largest U.S. urban rail projects in the second half of the 20th century—BART, in Northern California, and Metrorail, in Washington, D.C.—as a researcher focusing on lessening the disruption caused by construction in urban areas. His other construction projects included a dam and tunnel on Australia's Snowy Mountains Hydroelectric Scheme, a pipeline in Alaska and a six-month analysis of urban tunneling in Japan.
Teaching was always a labor of love for Boyd. He put tremendous effort in developing materials and industry contacts to provide an intense learning experience. Students marveled at his ability to balance such very different topics as the performance and economics of construction equipment vs. the entitlement and construction of affordable housing, in a single course in a way that increased students' interest in both.
Boyd became a passionate teacher and builder of affordable housing. His initial intention was to provide an opportunity for students in his field operations course to plan work at the crew level, try to implement their plans on Habitat for Humanity projects, and learn about the real world challenges of getting something built. But, as was usual for Boyd, he did much more. He first offered a course on the design and construction of affordable housing during the 1998-99 academic year and added a freshman seminar covering this topic the following year. Taking the pragmatic view as always, he moved these courses away from the field construction topics that he loved toward other activities that are even more critical to the success of these projects, such as funding and entitling land and designing homes that satisfied community plans, constrained sites, and family needs. Many of the students who enrolled in one of the nine total offerings of these courses gained more than just Boyd's extensive knowledge of the field; they gained this passion for helping.
To continue his involvement in affordable housing, Boyd served on the boards of two of the Bay Area's leading nonprofit organizations focusing in this area—Peninsula Habitat for Humanity and the Mid-Peninsula Housing Coalition. He provided major input to construction oversight of Peninsula Habitat for Humanity's $2 million, 24-unit condominium project for low-income residents in East Palo Alto, California. Stanford recognized this exceptional community service by awarding Boyd the 2004 Miriam Aaron Roland Volunteer Service Prize, which is given annually to faculty members who have demonstrated a personal commitment to community service and have engaged students to integrate academic scholarship with significant volunteer work.
Boyd's commitment to the construction profession included chairing: the ASCE Committee on Professional Construction Management from 1974 to 1977; and the National Science Foundation's Civil and Environmental Engineering Division Advisory Committee from 1983 to 1989. He also served as vice chair of the U.S. National Committee on Tunneling Technology (1986-89) and the National Research Council Panel for Assessment of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (1995-98). His professional honors include ASCE's 1980 Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize, Germany's Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Research Fellowship in 1983, ASCE's 1984 Construction Management Award and 1993 Peurifoy Construction Research Award. In 1984, he was named a distinguished scholar by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences Committee on Scholarly Communication with the People's Republic of China, and in 1986 he was given the Project Management Institute's Distinguished Contributions Award. He was elected to the National Academy of Construction in 2001.
Boyd Paulson was a gracious, kind, intelligent and caring colleague, professor, adviser and friend. All who knew him will always be inspired and guided by his consistent, flawless integrity in all matters, professional and private. The way in which he lived each phase of his life, and the quiet courage and dignity with which he managed the end of his life, will serve as a lasting beacon of inspiration.
Committee:
C. B. Tatum
Raymond E. Levitt