Edward C. Sullivan: Nov. 21, 1944–Feb. 16, 2009

On Monday, February 16, 2009, Dr. Edward C. Sullivan (see Fig. 1) died at the age of 64 following a surprisingly brief battle with melanoma. Ed was a distinguished scholar and a true gentleman. As an associate dean and professor with the College of Engineering at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly), Ed was deeply involved in the advancement of engineering education and transportation engineering practices. Those of us who were fortunate to know and work with Ed have lost an esteemed colleague and faithful friend. The greater community of engineering professionals has lost an outstanding contributor and gifted educator.

Current and former students joined together with colleagues and loved ones at Ed’s funeral in Grover Beach, California, on February 21, and again at his memorial service at Cal Poly on March 17—St. Patrick’s Day. Abundant love, admiration, and respect for Ed were boldly evident at the memorial events, helping to assuage feelings of sorrow and grief. Dozens of speakers shared memories and identified the qualities in Ed they favored the most. Chief among these were his integrity, quality, patience, humanity, and his sense of adventure. Ed had an appetite for world travel and joyfully navigated any mode of transport. His personal hobby interest in transportation complemented his professional capacity for cultivating knowledge. The result was a diverse and distinguished career specializing in transportation systems analysis and economics, as well as engineering education.

Ed received both his B. S. (1966) and M. S. (1967) degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley (1971) and his M. B. A. from John F. Kennedy University (1987). Before coming to Cal Poly, Ed worked as a research engineer and professor at UC Berkeley’s Institute of Transportation Studies. He joined the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at Cal Poly in 1989 and became an Associate Dean in 2005. Ed has also been a lecturer at Beijing Jiaotong University, a visiting professor at the Universidad Central de Venezuela, and a consultant to Administrative Staff College of India, Hyderabad. He was expecting to travel to Saudi Arabia next year where he would have helped Saudi instructors launch a new engineering program at University College at Jubail.

In the course of his scientific work and project experience, Ed had become an authority in the field of transportation demand analysis, transportation economics, and road pricing. In 1994, Ed launched a comprehensive analysis of high occupancy toll lanes (HOT Lane) and choice behavior in Southern California, through which he answered many important questions about value pricing. He advised the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey on a value pricing study. He consulted with the Minnesota Department of Transportation to review the MnPass HOT lane network proposal. His frequently cited evaluation of the State Route 91 express lanes appears as a chapter in Street Smart: Competition, Entrepreneurship, and the Future of Roads (Gabriel Roth, editor).

In 2003, Ed led the development and implementation of a Web-based guide to transportation benefit-cost analysis to encourage increased use and proper application of benefit-cost analysis. Other noteworthy examples of Ed’s scientific work include award winning papers featured in the Journal of Transportation Engineering, ITE Journal, and Transportation Research Record.

Even as he prepared for the surgery from which he did not recover, Ed had been actively serving ASCE as an area editor for the Journal of Transportation Engineering. During his $30\text{years}$ of ASCE service Ed has served on seven different committees, including the Committee on Urban Transportation Economics, the Committee on Microcomputers in Urban Transportation, and the Committee on Transportation Education. Just last year, Ed was awarded the Society’s Frank M. Masters Transportation Engineering Award in recognition of his innovative work (identify specific work). His exceptional service to ASCE, the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE), the Transportation Research Board (TRB), and the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) will be sorely missed. Friends and associates will step forward to fill the vacancies Ed left behind, and we will undoubtedly see Ed’s fine example reflected in the future work of these organizations.

If there was one professional capacity in which Ed’s passing would be most sorely felt it would be engineering education. Ed had been working with regional graduate centers around the country to develop a new model of professional graduate education for engineers. He cofounded the ASEE National Collaborative Task Force on Engineering Graduate Education Reform and was strong force in this innovative effort to emphasize professional practices and feature project-based learning. At Cal Poly, Ed had been advocating new graduate programs and helping to launch new fellowships, including a five-year package that supports study for a M.S. degree at Cal Poly followed by a Ph.D. program at UC Santa Barbara. We are thankful to Ed for these emerging programs, and for the heartfelt dedication he bestowed upon individual students while cultivating their professional growth. As we remember Ed, let us renew our commitment to excellence in engineering practice, innovation, and capacity building, and be encouraged to joyfully share our time and talent to uplift the next generation of engineering professionals.

Ed was born in November 1944 to Edward and Catherine (Cahill) Sullivan in Worchester, Massachusetts. When Ed met Donna, they were both students living in Boston. They married in 1965 and delighted in $43\text{years}$ of marriage, two daughters, and four grandchildren. Throughout his career, Ed wisely made time to explore the world, seek adventure and relax with his family. We express our condolences to Donna and family at this difficult time and we thank them for sharing Ed with us. With their blessing, Cal Poly’s College of Engineering has established a scholarship in Ed’s name.