Gilliam Stelling Harris

Gilliam Stelling Harris died June 1, 2018 at 5:30 p.m. He was born September 25, 1927.  He was preceded in death by his father and mother, Gilliam Sims Harris and Marguerite Stelling Harris and his sons Joel Leslie Harris and Benjamin Jay Harris.  He is sGurvived by his wife Patricia Norris Harris, Son John (Carolyn) Harris, Daughter Susan (Dr. John) Harris Ward, Daughter Karen (Max, deceased) Harris Tullos, seven grandchildren and eleven great grandchildren.

Gill was a member of Annunciation Catholic Church, a past president of its Pastoral Council and choir director. He was happiest when being with those of his 25 member family.  He was also very happy while leading his big band for parties and dances, but his passion was Structural Engineering.  He was an early pioneer in the development of structural engineering and drafting computer software.  Most of his colleagues and associates were scattered over the North American continent.

As a Structural Engineer since 1950 he retired in 2001 from Ceco Building Systems having served as Director of Engineering, Southern Region for 23 years and consultant to them for eight more years.

Formerly he was Director of Research and Engineering for Metal Building Manufacturers Association (Cleveland, OH) for 6 years and Chairman of its Technical Committee for 3 of the years while at Ceco.

Gill’s degrees were a Bachelor’s from Clemson and a Master’s from Rice both in Civil/Structural Engineering.

He was a fellow and Life Member of American Society of Civil Engineers and Structural Engineers Institute serving on its committees for “Design Loads on Buildings (since 1974), “Loads During Construction”, “Progressive Collapse Committee” and “EF Scale for Measuring Tornadoes”.  He was a Life Member of the National Society of Professional Engineers and Mensa.  He served two terms as president of a 1300 member Mensa group in Houston, TX.

Gill was inducted into Metal Construction Hall of Fame in 2012.

He was a consultant to metal building companies, lectured to practicing engineers for their continuing education and performed forensic investigation of wind, snow and water damage.

He developed the three dimensional lattice analogy for the design of concrete thin shell structures which became the forerunner of the finite element method.

Using the University of Western Ontario wind tunnel research he wrote the first U.S. boundary layer based wind load standard for low rise buildings.  Many of its provisions though modified remain in today’s practice.

Serving as pallbeares will be Paul Ackerman, Roger Burlingame, Randy Gray, Glenn Lautzenhiser, Dr. Bing Witty, and Wink Wright.  Serving as Honorary pallbearers will be Wesley Platt, Robert Borden, Carl Doumit, Robert Elder, Dick Mahoney, and George Smith.