John G. Hodgkins, a longtime construction and traffic engineer with the Maine Department of Transportation, an expert in settling construction contract disputes, and an ASCE leader as 1992-93 Maine Section president and on the Board of Direction from 1996-99, has died. He was 90.
From 1957 through 1996, Hodgkins, P.E., F.ASCE, worked for Maine’s transportation department. Over his first 20 years and again from 1984 to 1996, he was involved with construction activities; during his later period as supervisor he was credited with updating many of the department’s contracting practices. Over his tenure he advanced to director of project development, then deputy chief engineer.
During his period as an MDOT traffic engineer, Hodgkins implemented Maine’s right turn on red law and wrote official procedures for business directional signing.
In that role he had a moment of fame when he denied a request from then-Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger to lower the speed limit in front of his house on Mount Desert Island. As he told the New York Times, his main concern had more to do with writing the letter of denial. “I [just] wanted it to be grammatically correct.”
Concurrently, Hodgkins became an expert in dispute resolution and prevention on construction project contracts, settling issues arising while at MDOT and as a consultant on external projects including Boston’s Big Dig central artery/tunnel project. He was appointed or reappointed by three different Maine governors to the state property tax review board.
He retired from MDOT in 1999 as deputy chief engineer after 47 years of professional public engineering, more than half of it in management. His many awards for civil engineering excellence included ASCE Zone 1 Government Engineer of the Year in 1994 and MDOT’s coveted David H. Stevens award.
Hodgkins taught highway design and construction as an adjunct civil engineering professor at the University of Maine, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering in 1956 and a master’s in 1961.
Hodgkins and his wife Beth produced maple syrup for 50-plus years as principal owners of Jackson Mountain Farms in Temple, winning many ribbons for quality.
Aside from ASCE activities, he was active in the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, the National Committee on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, and the Transportation Research Board.
Locally he chaired the Yarmouth Zoning Board of Appeals and the Yarmouth Historical Society, served on the board of directors of Bridgecorp Inc. and the Temple Stream Theater. He was a member of Maine Lodge 20 A.F. & A.M. in Farmington.
He raced canoes in whitewater; ran marathons; backpacked along long distances on the Appalachian Trail; and climbed Mount Katahdin three times in the winter. In retirement, he wrote book reviews and detailed personal experiences and travels for Library Journal and various newsletters. He published A Soldier’s Son: An American Boyhood During World War II, about growing up in Temple, Maine.
