Father of earthquake engineering dies

PASADENA, Calif., Nov. 15 (UPI) -- George Housner, who pioneered the modern field of earthquake engineering, has died. He was 97.

Housner, a professor emeritus of engineering at Caltech, died Monday of natural causes, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday.

Tom Heaton, professor of engineering seismology at Caltech, said when Housner developed his interest in earthquake engineering in 1933, after a quake in Long Beach, Calif., the field hardly existed.

"George was a man of great intellect, which he used diligently to reduce the impact of earthquakes on our society," Heaton said. "He was one of those people who changed our world."

The newspaper said Housner is known as the father of earthquake engineering, a subdiscipline of civil engineering.

"Nothing was mentioned in engineering books regarding designing to resist earthquakes," Housner told the newspaper in a 1999 interview.

Housner was born Dec. 9, 1910, in Saginaw, Mich. He earned a bachelor's degree in structural engineering at the University of Michigan.

Housner never married. He will be buried at Mountain View Cemetery in Altadena, Calif.