AASHTO Journal - Former AASHTO President Chamberlain Passes Away

Adrian “Ray” Ramond Chamberlain (above), who served as both executive director of the Colorado Department of Transportation and president of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, died on October 7 in Gulf Shores, Alabama. He was 94.

[Above photo via Colorado State University]

Chamberlain was born on November 11, 1929, in Detroit. He earned a bachelor’s in engineering from Michigan State University in 1951 and a master’s in irrigation engineering and fluid mechanics at Washington State University the following year. Chamberlain went on to enroll at Colorado Agricultural and Mechanical College (redesignated as Colorado State University or CSU in 1957) in the engineering program. In 1955, he earned the first Ph.D. awarded by that college.

Chamberlain was subsequently recruited as a research engineer with the Phillips Petroleum Company. After being awarded a Fulbright fellowship, though, he went to France to study hydrodynamics at the University of Grenoble (part of the present-day Grenoble Alpes University).

In 1956, Chamberlain returned to Colorado Agricultural and Mechanical College to serve in its College of Engineering as associate professor and the manager of civil engineering research. The following year, he was promoted to professor and chief of civil engineering research. Chamberlain was appointed vice president for administration at CSU. He became the university’s executive vice president in 1966. In 1969, Chamberlain was named the ninth president of CSU. He remained in this position for a decade.

Chamberlain went on to serve as chief executive officer and chairman of the board of Chemamagnetics, a Fort Collins, CO-based manufacturer of magnetic resonance spectometers. He was also executive vice president and director of Simons, Li & Associates, a water resources engineering consulting firm likewise located in Fort Collins.

In 1987, Chamberlain was appointed executive director of the Colorado Department of Highways. During his six-year tenure at the agency, it was reorganized into the present-day Colorado DOT in 1991.

Along with carrying out his day-to-day responsibilities as the department’s executive director, Chamberlain became active in the programs and priorities of AASHTO. He was chair of the AASHTO Committee on Economic Development and Expansion, for example, and also served as the association’s vice president.

At the AASHTO Annual Meeting in Milwaukee in October 1991, Chamberlain was elected the association’s 81st president. He cited the following as his emphasis areas for the upcoming year: the enactment of surface transportation reauthorization legislation; an enhancement of transportation research; increased leadership in a broad range of environmental issues; the further development of domestic freight policy; and the recruitment of more professionals into transportation careers.

Just a little over two months after becoming AASHTO president, Chamberlain was among those who joined President George H.W. Bush when he signed into law the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act or ISTEA at a construction site on State Highway 360 in Euless, TX.

As President Bush underscored in his remarks during this ceremony, ISTEA initiated the most sweeping and significant restructuring of surface transportation programs since the creation of the Interstate Highway System in 1956. Chamberlain asserted in a statement on behalf of the association that the new law followed “the goals and recommendations adopted by AASHTO after hearings in every state, involving thousands of Americans from both the public and private sector.”

Chamberlain completed his presidential term during the association’s annual meeting in Rapid City, SD, in October 1992.

After stepping down as executive director of Colorado DOT, Chamberlain continued his involvement in transportation in various leadership roles, including vice president of freight policy and acting managing director of the American Trucking Associations Foundation, as well as vice president of the engineering and design firm Parsons Brinckerhoff (now known as WSP USA).

In addition, he was chair of the Transportation Research Board’s Committee for Review of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Intelligent Transportation Systems Standards Program.