David B. Steinman

In 1906 he earned a bachelor's degree from City College and in 1909, a Master of Arts from Columbia University and a Doctorate in 1911.

He also received an honorary Doctor of Science in Engineering on 15 April 1952 from degree mill Sequoia University, but would distance himself from it soon after a 1957 inquiry raised doubts over its legitimacy, and did not mention the qualifications in his biographies.

[5] David B. Steinman built bridges in the United States, Thailand, England, Portugal, Italy, Brazil, Haiti, Puerto Rico, Canada, Korea, Iraq and Pakistan.

Some sources[6] have him born in Chomsk (Хомск חומסק), Brest, Belarus in 1886, and emigrating to the United States with his family in 1890.

Because his family had little money, he worked to put himself through both the City College of New York, graduating summa cum laude in 1906 and then Columbia University, where he completed three additional degrees culminating in a PhD in Civil Engineering.

His PhD thesis was on a steel truss arch design for the Henry Hudson Bridge.

While he was attending Columbia he did fellowships as well as teaching nighttime classes at the City College and Stuyvesant Evening High School.

[9] He received a 1-year leave of absence from the University of Idaho to work on the Hell Gate Bridge.

Bankers added millions of dollars in financing costs even after the most economical design was created.

For example, Robinson and Steinman changed the original plans for the Florianopolis bridge, using eyebar chains as the upper chord of the stiffening truss instead of the conventional wire-cable.

Steinman was offered a job as an assistant engineer on the Rondout Bridge for $200 a month, and accepted it.

At this job he checked bridge designs and strengthened old ones but, the United States fell into the post-war Depression of 1921.

He presented his findings at the 1938 meeting of the structural division of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

The failure did occur and he wrote that it had a profound impact on his design principles; he became even more conservative.

During this period Steinman became president of the American Association of Engineers and campaigned for more stringent educational and ethical standards within the profession.

More importantly, development and planning of the Mackinac Bridge had been contemplated for some time, and Steinman was appointed to the board of engineers based on Michigan State Legislature legislation of 1950, stating "the board of engineers retained by the Mackinac Bridge Authority was to be selected and nominated by the Dean of Engineering at the University of Michigan," and was soon the spokesman for the board.

But his health was failing and he suffered heart attacks in 1952, the same year the legislature approved funding.

From the beginnings of his work on the Mackinac Bridge, Stewart Woodfill was impressed with Steinman's ethical procedure in addressing his requests.

Although he proposed the project of the Strait of Messina Bridge, a grandiose 1524 meter center span crossing of the Sicilian Straits of Messina, the "Mighty Mac," completed in 1957, and at the time the longest suspended span between anchors, was his last major achievement.

--Tribute—In closing, Dr. Dunn said this about the need for a broader education for engineers, "If the engineer's training neglects the great human mirrors of history and languages, if his heart and mind are insensible to the great social forces, if he but feebly develops the subtle qualities of character that make for personality, his career is limited, no matter how much science he knows" (Ratigan 315).