Henry James Hatch

Ret. Gen. Henry J. “Hank” Hatch is that rare civil engineer who has held the very highest leadership positions in three major areas of engineering practice: (1) the government; (2) the private sector; and (3) a large nonprofit engineering organization. Then, after becoming an icon in all three of these arenas, he nobly devoted his efforts to being an activist for U.S. engineering practices and causes, including championing high standards of professionalism within the industry.

The first $35\text{years}$ of Hatch’s professional life were in the U.S. Army. He retired as chief of engineers and commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, where he had supervised more than 40,000 Corps employees and 250,000 design and construction contractors, while completing more than $13 billion worth of work annually for the Corps and other army programs. He also had staff responsibility for 50,000-plus U.S. Army facilities engineers worldwide and more than 150,000 active and reserve engineer soldiers.

As the army’s senior engineering officer, Hatch not only oversaw all its construction, he strengthened project management, developed effective environmental programs, and conceived and promoted new concepts for army peacetime operations. Among the issues he advanced were: partnering innovations between owners, designers, and constructors; sustainability; and refinement of transparency and anticorruption issues for design and construction contracting (Fig. 1).

Ret. Brig. Gen. Gerry Galloway entered West Point with Hatch, served with him for $35\text{years}$ , and is currently the Glenn L. Martin Institute Professor of Engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park. He said “Hank was way ahead of his time and was seen as a ‘futurist.’ He wasn’t trying to fight the last war or build things the way we used to. He was always looking for ways to get the Corps of Engineers into the future. He saw nation building as a significant role for the Corps since it not only provided developing nations with access to the immense talents of the Corps, it also introduced the United States to other countries in a favorable manner. Among his many farsighted proposals was solving water issues in arid places like the Middle East” (Fig. 2).

After his career with the government, Hatch became a senior officer with two of the country’s largest international companies that specialized in the management of environmental cleanups: a consulting engineering company and a design/build construction firm. Following these two private-sector assignments, Hatch served as chief operations officer (COO) for the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).

In all of these leadership positions, Hatch exemplified the concept that great leaders are not just bosses, they are stewards of their employees and of their clients’ money, needs, and interests. About such stewardship of service, Hatch says, “Engineering leaders need to embrace the concept of ‘followership’—the willingness to subordinate oneself to a higher calling, mission, or set of principles. Those we seek to lead will more willingly follow a leader who himself follows a selfless cause, purpose, or vision. And as the boss or leader, you must always walk the talk. Lead by example.”

Galloway, who was dean at West Point while Hatch was chief of the Corps, said of their parallel careers beginning in 1953, “Hatch was a leader in our class at West Point, commanding one of the two cadet regiments, and has remained a leader throughout his career. He was the guy we looked to for what was right. He was always a team builder, whether as a lieutenant or a general. When most of us were colonels, Hank had risen to the rank of lieutenant general. We were all proud of his accomplishment and happy to see him in a position of such importance. That’s not always the case with the rapid rise of associates, but Hank’s abilities and qualities of leadership made it obvious to us that his selection for accelerated promotion was good for the army and the nation.”

Hank was born on August 31, 1935, in Pensacola, Florida, into an army family. His parents were Melton Adams and Virginia (Wise Fuller) Hatch. His father graduated from West Point in 1918, served in both World War I and World War II, and retired as a colonel in 1954. His mother was a housewife. Hank’s early education was in various schools in North Carolina, Japan, Texas, South Carolina, and Illinois. While in high school, he lettered in track, wrestling, and football, and made lifelong acquaintances.

Said Hatch, “As an ‘army brat,’ I did see more moves than most youngsters. Rather than causing problems, that experience exposed me to more in life than if I had lived in one or fewer places. I did develop lasting friends along the way. For example, last month, I attended a small reunion of my 1946–47 Yokohama American School sixth grade class. Six of the nine boys in that class went to West Point and four of us graduated from there in 1957.”

After graduating from Champaign High School, Champaign, Illinois, in 1953, Hank entered the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. There, when he was $20\text{years}$ old and a first classman (senior), he decided to become a civil engineer. Said Hatch, “Because the Corps of Engineers was my preferred branch, I was attracted by the dual roles of army engineers as combat engineers, and design and construction managers. Additionally I realized, with some convincing from my father who had just retired, that civil engineering would be a profession that offered more after a military career than any other field.”

While at West Point, Hank lettered in wrestling and earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering, ranked 41st in a class of 547 cadets. His military career began immediately after graduation in 1957. Commissioned a second lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers, he became a paratrooper and a Ranger, and was assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division.

After a second airborne assignment in Okinawa, he earned his master’s degree in geodetic science from Ohio State University in 1964. His following assignments included teaching at West Point, commanding the engineer battalion of the 101st Airborne Division in Viet Nam, serving as a staff officer in the Pentagon, commanding the Nashville District of the Corps of Engineers, the Support Command of the 2nd Infantry Division in Korea, and the Corps’ Pacific Ocean Division in Hawaii.

After a tour in Heidelberg, Germany, as the engineer for the U.S. Army in Europe, he returned to Washington, D.C., as the assistant chief of engineers responsible for programming, budgeting, and testifying before Congress regarding the army’s construction, maintenance, environmental, and housing programs. Hatch then served three years as director of civil works responsible for the Corps’ water resources program. In 1988, he was appointed the U.S. Army chief of engineers, and the commander of the Corps of Engineers.

His salient accomplishments as the “chief” were strengthening project management, developing a more effective environmental program within the Corps, developing and fostering “partnering” with customers and contractors, championing alternate dispute resolution, and conceiving and promoting new concepts for peacetime roles for the army.

His project management initiatives greatly benefited the Corps and its customers by improving life-cycle management of the Corps’ work. Partnering and alternate dispute resolution dramatically reduced litigated claims on Corps projects. The Corps’ efforts in sustainability led the Department of Defense (DOD) into an era of environmental stewardship. Beyond the military, he successfully inspired universal efforts encouraging adoption of policies and programs supporting sustainability throughout the engineering community in the United States and internationally.

With regard to use of partnering for building stronger team relations among clients, designers, and builders, Hatch said, “Its essence is promoting a cooperative attitude and the active pursuit of common goals by all parties involved. It’s the best way to meet today’s complex design and construction needs.”

Starting in the mid-1980s, under Hatch’s watch, the Corps’ partnering efforts between owners and the design and construction team members made major strides forward. The results were improved relationships among clients, designers, and constructors, and enhanced government projects with more value for the taxpayers’ dollar. The partnering policies promoted by the Corps have spread over into both the public and private sectors and are widely used today.

Hatch-instigated policies, such as using effective partnering tenants, helped shape a new, innovative post-cold war role for the army in the late-1980s and early-1990s that laid the groundwork for on-going military stability operations, which DOD now describes as being as important as combat operations. Implicit in this new direction for DOD is capacity building and the promotion of security, stability, and sustainability—what Hatch refers to as “the keys to enduring peace.”

Hundreds of major construction projects, military and civil, in America and overseas, were completed under Hatch’s direction. As an example, while district engineer in Nashville, Tennessee (1974–77), he headed up the design and construction of the world’s largest twin-lock navigation structure: two $\mathrm{1,200}\text{-}\text{foot}$ locks at Smithland, Kentucky, on the Ohio River (Figs. 3 and 4).

Later, as head of the Corps (1988–92), he oversaw the construction of a new base for the Army’s 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum, New York. The division reached its zenith in 1989. Between 1986 and 1992, 130 new buildings, $35\text{miles}$ of roads, and 4,272 sets of family housing units were built at a cost of $1.3 billion (Figs. 5 and 6).

In recognition of his accomplishments, Hatch has received numerous noteworthy military awards and decorations including two Distinguished Service Medals (the army’s highest peacetime award), the Legion of Merit, two Meritorious Service Medals, two Bronze Star Medals, and three Air Medals. On March 17, 2008, the West Point Society of D.C. presented him with its prestigious Castle Memorial Award (Fig. 7).

After retiring from the military in 1992, Hatch joined Law Companies Group, an international engineering and environmental services company in Atlanta, Georgia. He served as the president and later as the chairman of the board. In 1995, he moved to Fluor Daniel, Inc., where he assembled a successful multi-company team for a $5 billion contract to manage the Department of Energy’s Hanford site in Washington State. While with the Fluor organization, Hatch served as president and chief executive officer of Fluor Daniel Hanford.

In 1998, when Hatch accepted the COO position with ASCE, he returned to the Washington, D.C., area and immediately began immersing himself in the duties and objectives of the engineering Society.

Later, after leaving ASCE, Hatch became involved with numerous top-level volunteer activities on behalf of ASCE and the engineering profession in general. In 2002, he was the national chairman of National Engineers Week. For ASCE, he served on the first board of the new Building Security Council and currently serves on the Committee on Sustainability. He is also chair of ASCE’s International Activities Committee. In 2007, he was elected to ASCE’s Board of Direction.

Hatch also volunteers his time and expertise to the National Research Council, the Society of American Military Engineers (SAME) for which he is a past president, and the Engineering and Technology Exploring Program of the Boy Scouts of America. He chairs the Natural Sciences and Engineering Committee of the reestablished U.S. National Commission for UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). Today, his volunteer emphasis is on building engineering capacity in Iraq and Afghanistan and on helping the U.S. engineering community strengthen UNESCO’s engineering programs. He leads the U.S. engineering community in these efforts with strong support from the White House, the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the Corps of Engineers.

He continues to chair the Board on Infrastructure and the Constructed Environment and was previously vice chair of the Board on Army Science and Technology, both of the National Research Council. He is a past chair of the International Activities Committee of ASCE and chairs the International Activities Committee of the American Association of Engineering Societies (AAES). In these latter two roles he is an avid proponent for capacity building in the developing world in support of stability operations.

Motivational and inspiring, Hatch is an internationally sought-after speaker and the author of numerous papers on environmental and engineering issues, as well as transparency and anti-corruption in contracting. Included among his seminal writings are:

In addition to his numerous military awards, Hatch has been recognized throughout the profession for his engineering and environmental leadership and is the recipient of countless industry honors including ASCE’s President’s Medal (1991) and Presidents’ Award (1998), the Natural Resources Council of America Chairman’s Award (1992), the American Public Works Association’s Top Ten Public Works Leader Award (1990), the American Council of Engineering Companies’ Distinguished Award of Merit (1999), the SAME Academy of Fellows’ Golden Eagle Award for his service to the nation (2003), and the AAES Kenneth Andrew Roe Award for promoting unity among engineering professional societies (2004). In 2006, he was presented with ASCE’s Outstanding Projects and Leaders (OPAL) Award for lifetime achievement in government.

Hatch is a registered professional engineer, a member of the National Academy of Engineering, and a Distinguished Member of ASCE.

Looking to the future, Hatch believes, “Whatever you call it, pursuing our professions and businesses in ways that can be sustained without denying future generations their opportunities must become a bedrock principle. Today, nearly every U.S. and international professional and industry organization involved with the built environment has prominently included sustainability among its strategies, mission statements, or ethics. From presidential Executive Orders to a plethora of volunteer associations such as the rapidly growing U.S. Green Building Council, environmental, economic, and social sustainability is gaining momentum as the driving set of principles for our industry in this new millennium.”

To Hatch, engineering is a vocation not merely a job or occupation. He fervently believes in its importance to improving society, “Engineering is not only important, it is essential to the health, safety, and welfare of all. Its importance will only increase as we face population, climate, economic, and other pressures at home and abroad. For me, it has been the most satisfying and rewarding career I possibly could have chosen. With three phases on mine: military, private sector for profit, and lastly non-profit, I found absolute joy in serving society and solving problems. I’ve heard that happiness is having someone to love, meaningful work, and something to hope for. My engineering careers gave me the latter two; I took care of the first one on my own!”

For young people seeking careers in engineering, Hatch says, “Start with the basics—math and science, but don’t ignore English and other subjects that will help you be an effective team member and… an articulate communicator. Mix practical experience with schoolwork. Take jobs in the summer that expose you to the real world of engineering and don’t just rush through school.”

A cancer survivor (recurrent malignant melanoma) for $36\text{years}$ , Hatch became seriously interested in running in 1978. To date, the avid runner has completed more than $\mathrm{60,000}\text{miles}$ and competed in fifty-two $26.2\text{-}\text{mile}$ marathons and over a hundred other races, often winning competitions or placing high within his age group. He remains a loyal, enthusiastic army football fan, rarely missing the annual Army-Navy game.

In 1978, Hatch married the former Shelley Hollister. His children from his first marriage are Cynthia “Cindy,” Henry “Hank,” Jr., and Robert “Rob.” He has 11 grandchildren.