Edmund P. “Ed” Segner Jr., a dedicated, honored engineering educator who served at five universities, has died. He was 93.
Segner, Ph.D., P.E., F.ASCE, taught at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where he was department chair from 1990-96; the University of Memphis; the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa; the University of Oklahoma; and Texas A&M University. Prior to his academic career, he was a professional engineer licensed in Alabama, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas.
There is an endowed scholarship at the University of Alabama at Birmingham honoring him for his service to the Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering and to commemorate his contributions to engineering and the growth and development of the department during his tenure as professor and chair.
Born in Austin, Texas, Segner received engineering degrees from the University of Texas at Austin in 1949 and 1952, the same year he married his life’s love, Martha Fairfax Smith Segner. He went on to earn a doctorate in structural engineering from Texas A&M in 1962. He served in the U.S. Air Force Reserves and attained the rank of major.
He was named engineer of the year in 1997 by the Engineering Council of Birmingham. In 2004, he was named to the UT Austin Academy of Distinguished Graduates, Department of Civil Engineering.
The Segner Endowed Scholarship was established at UAB by Segner and Martha, Brig. Gen. Charles A. Machemehl Jr., and Edmund P. Segner III to carry on Segner’s legacy of excellence through the many engineering students who still benefit from it.
Segner was an active member of his church, the Greater Alabama Council of Boy Scouts, and the Birmingham Kiwanis Club.