Lymon C. Reese

Lymon C. Reese, PhD, PE, father, grandfather, great-grandfather, scholar, author, entrepreneur, golfer and lover of learning and teaching, passed away on Sept. 14, 2009 at the age of 92. Considering his humble beginnings and struggles as a young adult trying to find opportunity despite the hardships of the Great Depression, Dr. Reese leveraged his positive attitude and sense of hope to create an amazing future for himself, his family, his university students and his business. Lymon Reese was born in Stanley, Arkansas on April 27, 1917 where his father was an employee of a timber company, a "log scaler." Lymon was the youngest of three children. The family lived in a small house consisting of a rail car on a siding and an attached building. Within a few years, the family moved to Murfreesboro where his Father became Tax-Assessor Collector and Lymon and his siblings attended the local schools. Later the family moved to Abilene, Texas, where Lymon completed high school. While in Abilene High School, Lymon worked as a caddy at the Abilene Country Club, beginning a life-long love of the game of golf. He earned fifty cents a round, money that was taken home to help the family. His Father had become ill, the Great Depression bore down, and his Mother kept boarders in the home to help make ends meet. Lymon was Salutatorian of his high school class. He spoke against a laissez-faire attitude toward education and argued for training in high school that would help the graduates find a job. He worked as a groundskeeper during the summer to pay for tuition to Abilene Christian College. The depression continued unabated and, with no money to purchase books, he reluctantly gave up college and worked full-time to help his family. In 1939 he took a Civil Service examination and got a job on a land-surveying party at the salary of $85 a month. His Father had died and his Mother moved with him to the Rio Grande Valley. His surveying team set the stakes for building levees along the River. Lymon learned surveying, while working as a helper on the team, and left for Birmingham, Alabama, where surveyors were being hired to build an ordnance plant. He convinced the interviewer to give him a job as a Party Chief and worked on the layout and construction of buildings in the plant. He and his Mother were living in Alabama when Pearl Harbor was attacked. Later they moved for similar work in Oklahoma where he volunteered for the U.S. Naval Construction Battalions (Sea Bees). He served as Chief Petty Officer in the Aleutians and Okinawa. On being discharged, Lymon worked briefly in construction before being accepted at Rice University as a freshman at age 29. He earned 22 semester hours in a fast-track semester and lettered on the golf team. He transferred to The University of Texas where a more flexible degree plan was offered. While a student, he married fellow-student, EvaLee Jett. Their first baby girl, Sally arrived in 1949 and EvaLee left her nursing education career to pursue full-time motherhood. After receiving his Master's Degree at Texas, Lymon accepted a position as Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering at Mississippi State University. After a year, he took a leave from Mississippi State and moved with his family (Sally and son John for EvaLee to manage) and went to the University of California at Berkeley for his PhD. His college education was funded by the GI Bill, a fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation, and a competitive fellowship from the National Science Foundation. His third child, Nancy, had arrived and, in 1955, the family left Mississippi to accept a position as Assistant Professor at The University of Texas. He spent the remainder of his career at Texas. Dr. Reese is the Nasser I. Al Rashid Chair Emeritus and Professor of Civil Engineering and was Chairman of the Department from 1965 until 1972. He was Associate Dean of the College for Research from 1972 until 1979. He maintained a close relationship with the University and taught occasionally until very recently. Over his career, Dr. Reese conducted extensive research in the field of geotechnical engineering, principally concerning the behavior of deep foundations. He pioneered performing field studies of instrumented piles and developed analytical methods now widely used in the design of major structures. He is author or co-author of 160 papers in refereed journals and 282 technical reports. He is the senior author of two books on foundation engineering. He presented over 450 invited lectures in the United States and abroad. Dr. Reese was selected in 1986 by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) as Terzaghi Lecturer, and he received the Terzaghi Award in 1983. He was chosen by his peers to receive the Joe J. King Professional Achievement Award from the College of Engineering, The University of Texas, in February, 1977. He was invited by the Boston Society of Civil Engineers Section of ASCE to present the 2004 Arthur Casagrande Memorial Lecture in Boston. Dr. Reese was very active in ASCE and was elected Honorary Member in 1984. He held various offices in the Texas Section and was President of the Texas Section in 1968-69. For several years he served as a member of the Executive Committee, Geotechnical Engineering Division, and was Chairman in 1986-87. He was a registered professional engineer in Texas. Dr. Reese lost his beloved EvaLee, a skilled and prolific amateur artist, to cancer in 2003. Following her death he continued to be actively involved with his three children, 11 grandchildren and great-grandchildren whose numbers have grown yearly. He also continued to enjoy a weekly game of golf until the past few months, often with his son and some of his grandsons. Most of his time since retirement from active teaching has been spent at Ensoft, Inc., a distributor of engineering software, where he was principal. Some of his consulting activities were carried out through Lymon C. Reese & Associates, a wholly owned subsidiary of Ensoft. Significant honors received by Dr. Reese include the Offshore Technology Conference Distinguished Achievement Award for Individuals in 1985, and the Distinguished Graduate Award of the College of Engineering, The University of Texas, in 1985. He was elected to membership in the National Academy of Engineering in 1975. He received an Honorary Doctorate from the Civil Engineering Institute of Bucharest, Romania, in 1994. During his 33-year career at The University of Texas, Dr. Reese supervised 71 graduate students who received the M.S. or PhD in Civil Engineering. EvaLee frequently worked with the wives and children of these students, making them welcome in the United States, assisting them with housing, shopping, and local resources. Twelve of the students became professors at universities worldwide, and at least eight established businesses that have hundreds of employees. Many of the students and their families maintained ongoing correspondence with Dr. Reese until his death. Visitation will be held from 6pm to 8pm on Thursday, September 17th at Weed-Corley-Fish Funeral Home, 3125 N. Lamar, Austin, Texas. Funeral Services will be held at 2pm on Friday, September 18th at Highland Park Baptist Church, 5206 Balcones Drive, Austin, Texas. Interment to follow at Austin Memorial Park. Pallbearers are Sam Melant, Josh Melant, Marcus Melant, Kody Reese, Justin Reese and Bobby Brady. Honorary Pallbearers are members of the Steve Matthews Sunday School Class, Highland Park Baptist Church. In lieu of flowers, contributions can be made to the Lymon and Eva Lee Reese Endowed Excellence Fund at The University of Texas at Austin. Please direct donations to UT Cockrell School of Engineering, 1 University Station C2100, Austin, Texas 78712 or online at https://utdirect.utexas.edu/nlogon/vip/ogp.WBX?menu=ENLR