Dan G. Zollinger, recognized globally for his expertise in concrete pavements, a longtime member of ASCE and the Transportation and Development Institute, and a former associate editor of the Journal of Transportation Engineering, Part B: Pavements, has died. He was 74.
Zollinger, Ph.D., P.E., M.ASCE, devoted more than three decades to teaching, research, and the advancement of pavement engineering. As a professor of civil engineering at Texas A&M University and research engineer with the Texas A&M Transportation Institute, his work focused on concrete pavement performance, rehabilitation, behavior, and design.
A native of Logan, Utah, Zollinger showed an early aptitude for math and science, and was the first winner of an annual model bridge building contest for high school students sponsored by Utah State University’s civil engineering department. He followed that up by attending the university after graduation, and after a fulfilling a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in London, he returned home and completed his bachelor’s degree in civil engineering at the university in 1977. He also joined the Utah National Guard as a field wireman.
Following a short stint with the city of North Logan, Utah and the U.S. Forest Service in Odgen, Utah, Zollinger returned to Utah State to earn a master’s degree in civil engineering in 1981.
Moving to Sacramento, California, he became an airport engineer, working with a firm on several airfield design projects nationwide while continuing his national guard service as a field artillery officer, rising to second lieutenant.
In 1984, Zollinger began work on a Ph.D. at the University of Illinois in the area of concrete pavement design and analysis, which he received in 1989. His dissertation work focused on the performance and analysis of continuously reinforced concrete (CRC) pavements and opened a new era in the mechanistic analysis of this and other pavement types. Dan would become recognized as a worldwide expert in this pavement type.
Moving to Texas, he became a research engineer at the Texas A&M Transportation Institute, then Texas A&M University professor of civil engineering.
Zollinger’s expertise in concrete pavements and contributions to advancing pavement engineering practice included time spent editing the ASCE pavement journal, as well as serving on T&DI's Airfield Pavement Committee. He was a past president of the International Society for Concrete Pavements, was named an ISCP honorary member in 2014, and was a fellow at the American Concrete Institute. His major areas of research included concrete pavement performance, rehabilitation, behavior, and design. He was actively engaged in pavement evaluation, pavement design, and pavement performance. His efforts contributed to the development of performance models used in the AASHTO Pavement ME Design program. He also researched the monitoring of curing quality under field conditions, for which he received patents.
As a professor Zollinger supported countless graduate students whom he grew fond of and have gone on to become professors and researchers around the world, and leaders of public agencies. His son, Corey, became a civil engineer and they enjoyed working on projects, doing research, and attending conferences together. He retired from the Army Reserve at the rank of lieutenant colonel with 39 years’ service in 2009.
Zollinger was an outdoorsman who enjoyed taking his family backpacking and fishing in the mountains of Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah, and cross country skiing. He is survived by his wife Bonnie, two sons, four daughters, and 17 grandchildren.
