Blair Birdsall ’29 *30

Blair died June 25, 1997. He prepared at Barringer H.S. and Blair Academy. At Princeton he played freshman and scrub football, was secretary of the Engineering Society, and joined Dial Lodge. His roommates were Dick Bernheim and Ernie Ward.

After graduation, he roomed with Bud Wall and Date Smith while getting his CE degree. He worked with Voorhees Gmelin & Walker and at Wallkill State Prison before his long career with John A. Roebling Sons, in Trenton, where he became chief engineer of the bridge division. Blair was one of the most famous bridge engineers in the world. In 1964 he joined Steinman Boynton Gronquist & Birdsall, and continued as partner. At the time of his death, he was still a consultant to Denmark's Great Belt project, which will have the world's longest free span. Blair's honors were many: the borough president of Manhattan declared May 24, 1984 as Birdsall Day; Blair was the guest of honor at the 1987 anniversary dinner of the Golden Gate Bridge; and he was the first winner of the American Society of Civil Engineers' Roebling Award.

In 1931 he married Helen Burnett, sister of James Holden Burnett '32. After a divorce Blair married Elizabeth Figueroa in 1955, who survives, as well as a daughter, Elizabeth Evans, sons William and James, stepsons Rodolfo Celis and Jose Celis, and a stepdaughter, Maria Celis-Wirth. The class extends sincere sympathy to what Blair always called his "two fine families."

The Class of 1929