Congratulations to Jay Paul, 2016 John F. Parmer Award Recipient
The late John F. Parmer, a founder of SEAOI and its first Executive Director, believed structural engineers should be recognized for their important role in creating our constructed environment.
Jay Paul received his BA and MS from the University of Illinois in Champaign, and has been with the firm of Klein and Hoffman since 1971, where he started the firm’s structural and architectural engineering restoration practice in the early 1980s. A Fellow of the American Concrete Institute, Paul received the ACI Delmar L. Bloem Distinguished Service Award in 2007, served as Chair of ACI Committee 546 - Concrete Repair, and was a principal contributor in the development of the ACI 562 the new ACI standard for “concrete repair.” He was also the first recipient of the ACI Education Award for his work on the guide of how to interpret and use the concrete repair code. In addition to active involvement in SEAOI, including serving as President 2001-2002, Mr. Paul was active in the International Association of Concrete Repair Specialists and served on the Chicago High Rise Committee.
Jon Boyd, CEO of Klein and Hoffman and President of SEAOI 1987-1988, described Paul as intensely loyal, a great listener, self-effacing and humble. “Jay Paul is an intuitive engineer, which has served him well in the world of diagnostics and restoration,” said Boyd, “And his love of wisdom makes him a great mentor to young engineers.”
photo by Andrew Breen
About John F. Parmer
John F. Parmer, a structural engineer, was one of the seven founders of SEAOI. In 1965 he, along with Frank Wells and Ken Naslund, came to talk to Nissim Eskenazi and George Ellis about starting a structural engineers association in Illinois. They were joined by Henry Miller and Frank Cooper. Within a very short period of time, SEAOI was founded. John F. Parmer became the first executive director and he, as well as his wife Chris, spent many hours working for SEAOI at 173 W. Madison Street in Chicago.
In the spring of 1977, at age 88, Mr. Parmer’s health began to fail and he found it necessary to retire from SEAOI. In June of that year, SEAOI presented him with an award, the first John F. Parmer Award, for service to the profession. When Mr. Parmer passed away in the fall of 1977, his son, John C. Parmer, and daughter-in-law, Carolyn Noonan Parmer, wanted to remember him by doing something special, on his behalf, for structural engineers. Therefore, in his honor, they presented SEAOI with a check for $500.00 to fund a John F. Parmer Award, honoring a structural engineer whose distinguished career was acknowledged by their peers to be an example of excellence.
John F. Parmer passed away in September, 2005. His family continues to support the John F. Parmer Award as they have done for more than 30 years. Both SEAOI and the Structural Engineers Foundation gratefully acknowledge the Parmer family’s longstanding support of the structural engineering profession.
John F. Parmer Award Recipients
2016 Jay Paul
2015 Ron Klemencic
2014 German R. Gurfinkel
2013 Burton A. Lewis
2012 Ian R. Chin
2011 Robert A. Halvorson
2010 John (Jack) E. Barrett
2009 D. Stanton Korista
2008 Chris Stefanos
2007 Mike Tylk
2006 Charles H. Thornton
2005 John M. Hanson
2004 Ralph S. Peck
2003 Mete A. Sozen
2002 John J. Zils
2001 Chester P. Seiss
2000 Jack Janney
1999 R. Shankar Nair
1998 Kolbjorn Saether
1997 W. Gene Corley
1996 Nissim I. Eskenazi
1995 Clyde N. Baker, Jr.
1994 Eli W. Cohen
1993 Dr. Sidney A. Guralnick
1992 Srinivasa “Hal” Iyengar
1991 Leslie E. Robertson
1990 William J. Hall
1989 Eivind Hognestad
1988 Richard A. Parmelee
1987 Fazlur Rahman Khan (posthumous)
1986 Narbey Kachaturian
1985 Nicholas A. Bilandic
1984 Harry Stavrides
1983 Harold R. Sandberg
1982 Edward S. Hoffman
1981 Walter E. Hanson
1980 Alfred Benesch and Carl Metz
1979 Max Zar
1978 John Gnaedinger