2005 Honorary Members

Pierre-Claude Aïtcin    

Pierre-Claude Aïtcin is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Civil Engineering of the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada.

From July 1990 to April 1998, he was the Scientific Director of Concrete Canada, the Network of Centres of Excellence on High-Performance Concrete, a network of 15 teams of researchers from several Canadian provinces. For nine years, he also held an Industrial Chair on Concrete Technology, a program of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) in collaboration with 13 industrial partners.

An ACI Fellow since 1988, Aïtcin is a former member of ACI Committees C234, Silica Fume in Concrete, and C 363, High-Strength Concrete. He received the ACI Arthur R. Anderson Award in 1995 "in recognition of outstanding laboratory and field research on the composition, structure, and properties of high-performance concrete and on superplasticizers and silica fume," and the ACI Construction Practice Award in 2004. Aïtcin is also a member of the Canadian Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the Canadian Society of Civil Engineering.

In 1999, he received an award from the Société des ingénieurs civils de France. Also, in conjunction with his colleague Carmel Jolicoeur and the company of Handy Chemicals of Candiac, Quebec, he received the 1996 Award for Excellence for the best university-industry partnership in R&D given by the Conference Board of Canada and NSERC.

He is the author of the book High-Performance Concrete, which was published in 1998. French and Portuguese versions of this books were published in 2000 and 2001. 

His research interests include the manufacture and use of high-performance and ultra-high-performance concretes and the use of industrial by-products in concrete.

Samuel J. Henry

Samuel J. Henry was employed by ACI for 29 years, where he served as Technical Director and Managing Director of Engineering. While at ACI, he helped to create the Manual of Concrete Practice in 1967. Prior to his service at ACI, Henry worked in many capacities related to the concrete industry, including the California Highway Bridge Department and a consulting engineering firm in New York City that designed many famous bridges and turnpikes.

Henry received the ACI Henry L. Kennedy Award in 1980 and the ACI Henry C. Turner Medal in 1998.

He received a BSc in civil engineering in 1951 from Lafayette College and an MSc in civil engineering in 1959 from New York University. Henry also served in the U.S. Army during World War II.

Arthur H. Nilson   

Arthur H. Nilson was engaged in research, teaching, and consulting relating to structural concrete for over 40 years. He was a member of the faculty of the College of Engineering at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, since 1956, where he was in charge of undergraduate and graduate courses in the design of reinforced concrete and prestressed concrete structures until his retirement in 1991. He served as Chairman of Cornell's Department of Structural Engineering from 1978 to 1985. Prior to teaching, he worked as a structural engineer in California and Connecticut.

An ACI Fellow, Nilson has served on many professional committees, including ACI Subcommittee 318-D, Flexure and Axial Loads; Beams, Slab, and Columns; ACI Committee 435, Deflection of Concrete Building Structures; and was a founding member and Chair of Joint ACI-ASCE Committee 447, Finite Element Analysis of Reinforced Concrete Structures. He was awarded the ACI Wason Medal for Materials Research in 1974, the ACI Wason Medal for Most Meritorious Paper in 1986 and 1987, and ACI Structural Research Award in 1993.

He has also been honored by the civil engineering student body at Cornell for outstanding teaching. He was elected Professor Emeritus in 1991. He has also held research appointments or lectureships at the University of Manchester and Salford University in England and Technical University of Milan in Italy.

He has authored or coauthored two textbooks, Design of Concrete Structures and Design of Prestressed Concrete, that are widely used in the U.S. and abroad and have been translated into several foreign languages.

Since his retirement, he has devoted himself to many long-term interests including photography and music. Also, as a life-long sailing enthusiast, he and his wife Linda have cruised the New England coast from Long Island Sound to eastern Maine.

Nilson received his BS from Stanford University in 1948, his MS from Cornell in 1956, and his PhD from the University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, in 1967. He has held registration as a Professional Engineer in several states.

Hajime Okamura    

Hajime Okamura is President of Kochi University of Technology, Kochi, Japan. From 1966 to 1998, he was faculty member at the University of Tokyo and was conferred the title of Professor Emeritus in 1999.

An ACI Fellow since 1986, he is a member of ACI Committee 440, Fiber Reinforced Polymer Reinforcement. He is a former member of the ACI International Activities Committee and a former liaison member of ACI Committee 318, Structural Concrete Building Code. He has received numerous awards, including an award for outstanding contribution in the area of concrete technology in Japan 1991 and the Medal with Purple Ribbon from the Emperor of Japan in 2001.

He specializes in the nonlinear mechanics and constitutive laws of reinforced concrete and the seismic analysis of structures and development of self-compacting high-performance concrete.

He received his PhD in engineering from the University of Tokyo in 1966.

James S. Pierce     

James S. Pierce is Chief, Water Resources Services Division, for the Technical Service Center of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in Denver, CO. In his current position he is a senior manager with direct responsibilities for Water Resources Services. He started his professional career with the New York State Department of Transportation. Subsequently, Pierce worked for Martin Marietta Cement and then the Bureau of Reclamation, where he also worked as Chief, Materials Engineering Branch. 

An ACI Fellow, Pierce is a member of ACI Committees 211, Proportioning Concrete Mixtures; 221, Aggregates; 225, Hydraulic Cements; and 304, Measuring, Mixing, Transporting, and Placing Concrete. He has also served as the Chair of the Chapter Activities and Marketing Committees and the Standards Board. Pierce received the Henry C. Turner Medal in 1994 for service to the concrete industry. He served as President from 1996 to 1997 and was a member of the Board of Direction. 

Pierce has been active in ASTM International where he serves as a member of several ASTM Technical Committees. He was a member of the Board of Directors and served as Chairman of the Board. He received the William. T. Cavanaugh Award in 2004 for promoting use of voluntary consensus standards. He is also a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

Pierce received his bachelor's and master's from the School of Civil Engineering at Purdue University.