08/26/92
CONTACT: Stanford University News Service (650) 723-2558
STANFORD -- Clarkson H. Oglesby, 83, the Cyrus Palmer Professor Emeritus of Civil Engineering and an expert on roads, died Sunday morning, Aug. 23, in Frankfurt, Germany, while on a Stanford Alumni Association tour of the Danub .
In 1946, Oglesby originated the undergraduate construction option in civil engineering and in the mid-1950s helped expand it into a program leading to the M.S., Engineer and doctoral degrees.
A native of Clarksville, Mo., he graduated from Stanford in 1932 with a B.A. in engineering and received his Engineer degree in 1936. He retired in 1974 but was recalled for teaching a year later.
Before coming to Stanford to teach in the Army Specialized Training Program in 1943, Oglesby spent nine years working with the Arizona Highway Department and two years working with a contractor. During that time, he realized th at his own education at Stanford had prepared him to analyze technical problems and to design structures but had taught him little about how to carry out construction.
Oglesby proposed and received support for offering two undergraduate courses, one that taught estimating and the other equipment and methods. With the addition of Professor John Fondahl to the civil engineering faculty in 1955, and several others later, the teaching and research programs, primarily at the graduate level, have flourished.
He was the author of two books, Highway Engineering and Productivity Improvement in Construction.
Oglesby was a member of the State Division of Bay Toll Crossings, the Advisory Committee for Los Angeles County Mass Transit, the American Society for Engineering Education's cooperative committee with the Associated General Co ntractors, and the Highway Research Board.
He was a Fulbright lecturer at the Imperial College, London, and Stanford's representative to the U.S. Forest Service's transportation planning efforts.
In 1989, he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering "for outstanding leadership in education and research in construction and highway engineering." In 1964, he received the Golden Beaver Award for outstanding contrib utions to engineering construction.
Services have not been set.
Oglesby is survived by his widow, Ardis; three daughters, Virginia Hancock of Portland, Ore.; Judith Donaghey of Oakland; and Marjorie Zellner of Portola Valley; and four grandchildren.
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