[1] Born in Fuzhou, China, as the fourth of eleven children, he was raised in Beijing where his father was a justice of the ROC's Supreme Court.

He did not begin formal schooling until age 11, and only so because his parents forged his birth year to be 1911 so that he would qualify.

He returned to UC Berkeley to join its faculty in 1946, and began to research and develop the practice of prestressed concrete.

Pre-stressing the concrete allowed Lin to accomplish the goal of incorporating unique shapes without sacrificing the bottom line.

Among his engineering accomplishments were the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, the Kuan Du Bridge in Taiwan, and the roof of the National Racetrack in Caracas, Venezuela.

[5][6] His El Cerrito, California home is the world's first residential structure made of prestressed concrete.

His widow, Margaret Kao Lin is also the daughter of a former ROC supreme court justice.