DAVID VOLKERT OF VOLKERT & ASSOCIATES PASSES AWAY

David G. Volkert, P.E., retired Chairman of the Board of Volkert & Associates, Inc., passed away on Monday, January 8, 2001, after a brief illness.

Volkert President and CEO T. Keith King spoke for the company in expressing his condolences to the family. "Our thoughts and prayers go out to Betsey and the family on this great loss. David Volkert was a great leader in our profession for many years. He enjoyed the respect and love of all who knew him."

A civil engineering graduate of Cornell University, Volkert was a professional engineer registered in several states. He served on the Architects Advisory Group on the Restoration of the West Front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., and established the David Volkert Engineering Scholarship Fund, which is administered through The Community Foundation of South Alabama.

David Volkert moved to Mobile, Alabama, in 1946, when J.P. Ewin, Inc. (later to become Ewin Engineering Corporation and then Volkert) was a small engineering firm owned by Southern Industries, a subsidiary of Waterman Steamship Corporation. Mr. Volkert was President of Southern Industries and a Vice President of Waterman.

In 1954, David Volkert acquired Ewin Engineering and set up Mobile as the main office. He gradually opened offices throughout the southeast, beginning with Miami in 1955, the Washington, D.C. area in 1957, and New Orleans in 1959. In 1963, the firm was renamed David Volkert & Associates, Inc.

In addition to Mobile, Miami, District of Columbia, and New Orleans, the firm now has offices in Birmingham, Alabama; Alexandria, Virginia; Tampa, Florida; Ft. Walton Beach, Florida; Gulf Shores, Alabama; Chattanooga, Tennessee; and Dalton, Georgia. There are also a number of field offices housing right-of-way acquisition specialists and construction inspection and management personnel who are assigned to projects in those locations.

The firm has grown from 14 employees to a multidisciplinary firm with 500 employees in eight states. It is ranked #199 in Engineering News-Record’s most recent listing of the top 500 design firms in the United States. The firm, which began in New Orleans in 1925, celebrated its 75^th anniversary in 2000.

David Volkert is survived by his wife, Betsey; daughter and son-in-law, Dana and Eric Goulder; and son and daughter-in-law, David and Melinda Volkert.