Colonel William F. Roos; Army Corps Civil Engineer, 89, Washington Post
DGH
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/21/AR2008092102290.html
Col. William F. Roos; Army Corps Civil Engineer
William F. Roos, 89, a retired Army colonel and civil engineer who worked on
airport construction and harbor-improvement projects as a member of the Army
Corps of Engineers, died September 14 [2008] of coronary artery disease at
his home in Springfield [Virginia].
Col. Roos was born in Salt Lake City [Utah] and received his undergraduate
degree from the University of Utah before being accepted to the U.S.
Military Academy at West Point, where he received a second undergraduate
degree in 1943. He also received a master's degree in civil engineering from
the University of Iowa in 1948.
Commissioned in the Army Corps of Engineers, he served in the Pacific
theater during World War II.
Shortly after the war, he received his pilot's wings at James Connally Air
Force Base in Waco, Texas, and later went through twin-engine transition and
helicopter school. His career included tours of duty as commanding officer
of the 35th Engineer Combat Battalion at Fort Lewis, Washington, operations
officer with the 11th Engineer Group and service in Germany on the Seventh
Army Staff.
During the 1950s, Col. Roos served on the Army General Staff at the Pentagon
and later was involved in airfield construction for the Strategic Air
Command in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan and North Africa. He also
spent a year above the Arctic Circle in Greenland overseeing airport
construction and served as associate professor of civil engineering at West
Point [New Yokr] for four years.
Col. Roos's final assignment on active duty was as district engineer in
Honolulu [Hawaii], where he was responsible for all Army and Air Force
construction in the Hawaiian Islands and for Defense Department work in the
Marianas and in the Kwajalein and Eniwetok atolls. He received the Legion of
Merit in 1968, the year he retired from the Army.
He then became vice president and senior project manager for McIntire &
Quiros, a Los Angeles-based engineering firm. In 1974, he became senior
project manager for Ralph M. Parsons Co., and lived in Seattle [Washingotn]
and Los Angeles [California] before transferring to the company's Washington
[DC] office in 1976.
He served as regional construction manager for Parsons and was responsible
for managing the design and construction of railway improvements between
Washington and Philadelphia as part of the $2.6 billion Northeast Corridor
Improvement Project.
He retired from Parsons in 1983 to devote full time to several real-estate
ventures. In later years he retained an active interest in military affairs
and traveled extensively.
Survivors include his wife of 62 years, Miriam Kelley Roos of Philadelphia
[Pennsylvania]; five children, William F. Roos Jr. and Elizabeth J. Roos,
both of Arlington [Virginia], Patricia A. Roos of Metuchen, New Jersey,
Marianne L. Roos of Red Lodge, Montana, and Kansas City, Missouir, and
Christine Roos Montague of Ithaca, New York; eight grandchildren; and two
great-grandchildren.
--
Joe Holley