S.C. Hollister, dean of College of Engineering 1937-59

An expanding market for thin steel structures (1930’s) created a demand for rational design standards. Dean Solomon Cady Hollister obtained support from industry to conduct required research. George Winter (Pd.D. CEE 1940) and he joined the faculty of the School of Civil Engineering immediately and his research led to the the first edition of the American Iron and Steel Institute Specification for the Design of Cold-Formed Steel Structural Members (1946), which soon became the recognized standard for this type of construction and has been published abroad in many languages. Another result of this work has been continuous steel industry support of Cornell structural engineering research since 1940, under George’s direction until he retired in 1975.He also devoted much time and energy to the revision and improvement of the Building Code of the American Concrete Institute (ACI), a document that not only governs the design of all reinforced concrete buildings in the United States but also serves as the model for numerous foreign specifications as well.