Clyde N. Baker, Jr. Foundation Engineering Scholarship

The Clyde N. Baker, Jr. Foundation Engineering Scholarship Fund was established in 2020 to honor Baker’s contributions to the deep foundations industry.

The fund will provide scholarship awards to students enrolled full-time in an undergraduate or graduate civil engineering program at any accredited college or university in the United States. Recipients must have a minimum GPA of 3.0 on a scale of 4.0, or, alternatively, a “B” or its equivalent; demonstrate an interest in the area of foundations engineering; and demonstrate financial need.

Bernie Hertlein (1949 – 2022), DFI Educational Trust trustee and a senior consultant at GEI Consultants, led the initial fundraising drive to raise contributions to the fund.

Applications are made through the At-Large Scholarship Program. See Application Instructions for details.

Clyde N. Baker, Jr. (1930-2022)

Clyde N. Baker, Jr., P.E., S.E., retired after a successful career as senior principal engineer at STS Consultants and later as a senior consultant at GEI Consultants, in Vernon Hills, Illinois. During his career, he served as a geotechnical engineer or consultant on several of the tallest buildings in the world, including four of the tallest in Chicago (the Willis Tower, known as the Sears Building, Trump International Hotel & Tower, the John Hancock Center, and the Amoco Building) as well as Petronas Twin Towers in Malaysia, Taipei 101 in Taiwan and Burj Khalifa in Dubai. He also worked as a consultant on several supertall buildings, including the Spire in Chicago, Doha Convention Center Tower in Qatar, and Incheon 151 Tower in Korea.

He was a leader in using in-situ testing techniques correlated with past building performance to develop more efficient foundation designs. In the Chicago soil profile, this facilitated economical use of belled caissons on hard pan for major structures of 60 to 70 stories, which normally would have required extending caissons to rock at significant cost premium.

Baker was the recipient of the DFI’s Distinguished Service Award, the ADSC Outstanding Service Award, ASCE’s Thomas A. Middlebrooks and Martin S. Kapp Awards, and the ASCE Ralph B. Peck Award, the 2007 Engineering News Record Award of Excellence and the ASCE Opal Lifetime Achievement Design Award. He received the Washington Award and presented the Terzaghi Lecture in 2009.

Baker received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in civil engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a B.S. degree in physics from William and Mary College in Williamsburg, Virginia.

The 2023 Application period is closed. The 2024 Application period will open April 2024.

Supporter
GEI Consultants, Inc.
Bernie Hertlein