Dr. Hart joined ASCE in 1964, when he was a student at USC, and has received many awards from the organization throughout his career.

Los Angeles, CA – During its annual Life Member brunch on March 6, 2010, the Los Angeles section of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) showcased the professional accomplishments of Dr. Gary Hart, managing principal of the Southern California office of Weidlinger Associates, and granted him “the esteemed ASCE grade of Life Member.”

Dr. Hart had previously earned two of ASCE’s most prestigious national awards: the Ernest E. Howard Award for a “definite contribution to the advancement of structural engineering” (in 1993), and the Walter L. Huber Award for “notable achievements in research in civil engineering” (in 1981). The latter was for his study of “Probabilistic Structural Dynamics and System Identification.” In 2008, he was technical session chair of ASCE's Structures Congress in Vancouver, Canada.

“I am especially pleased to receive this honor from the organization that made my career in engineering possible,” said Dr. Hart. “In 1965, I received an ASCE scholarship, which enabled me to go to obtain my master’s degree at Stanford. Without ASCE’s support, I never would have been able to go to graduate school.” Dr. Hart joined the ASCE Student Chapter of the University of Southern California (USC) in 1964; he also served as student body president of USC’s Engineering School, which he calls one of the “most gratifying positions” he has ever held.

Dr. Hart received a Ph.D. in structural engineering from Stanford University in 1968, and he was a professor in the Department of Civil Engineering of the University of California, Los Angeles, from 1968 to 2001 (professor emeritus since 2001). He has had an active career that included serving twice as president of the Los Angeles Tall Buildings Structural Design Council. He was also a member of the boards of the Masonry Society, the Structural Engineers Association of Southern California, and the Consortium of Universities for Research in Earthquake Engineering.

During the past 25 years, Dr. Hart has testified as an expert witness in many federal and state mediation, arbitration, and court hearings. The cases included litigation concerning the World Trade Center collapses and the largest construction defect suit tried in the United States courts. He heads Weidlinger’s Los Angeles office, which specializes in seismic and wind investigations, and structural engineering design and retrofit, in addition to forensic engineering.