Michael Lewis
Ignacio Arango was an engineer’s engineer. I first met him in the early 1990s at one of our Bechtel project sites, actually in a bar near one of our project sites. I had never met him previously, but he later told me that he knew me the minute I walked through the door. As I found out, through my later interactions with Ignacio, that ability was telling; the ability to see things others did not. That ability was never greater than our interactions together at a Department of Energy site in the southeastern US. Without going into the details, he had a vision regarding the behavior of aged sandy soil during seismic events. That vision has since been accepted by many and has been the subject of many other researchers over the intervening years.
When I did visit California, Ignacio and Val would invite me over for dinner and invariably the first thing he wanted to do besides ask about my family, was to show me his trains or show me the way he earthquake-proof his house! It was a joy to see him in that environment.
My one regret is that I did not work with Ignacio directly, one-on-one. He was always in California, and I was always on the East coast. It wasn’t until he retired, when I was asked to team up with Ignacio and carry out peer reviews on several large Bechtel projects, that I fully grasped the impact he had on my life. I cherished those interactions immensely and I miss them. I learned so much from him about engineering, professionalism, and how to act with character and integrity. He was, and still is, the one engineer I admire the most, and he was an even greater person.
Rest in peace Ignacio, you may be gone from this earth but never forgotten.
