M. Lee Marsh, Ph. D., P. E.
WSP USA, Inc.
M. Lee Marsh, Ph. D., P. E., WSP USA, Inc., has been selected as the recipient of the 2022 Professional Engineer of the Year Award in recognition of his lifetime achievements in the development and maintenance of seismic design procedures for bridges, his design support of numerous Northwest public agency bridge projects, and his contributions to publication of national bridge design guidelines.
As a design engineer at Berger ABAM, he quickly emerged as the firm’s go-to specialist and helped many internal teams perform seismic design and seismic assessment. He became the company seismic specialist and supported all structural practice groups in the firm – bridge, marine, and buildings with seismic design concerns. His work bridges between academic research and design of actual structures. He led the development and delivery of a National Highway Institute course on seismic design of bridges. This training provides critical skill development for application of modern bridge seismic design provisions. He supported the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials in the development of their performance-based seismic design procedures. In addition, he led a team to develop a fully precast bent system to be used for accelerated bridge construction in high seismic regions. This resulted in a demonstration bridge being constructed over I-5 south of Olympia.
He has served as a key design team member providing seismic design criteria and approaches for numerous bridge projects for Washington Department of Transportation, Seattle Department of Transportation, and Sound Transit. He was part of the team that identified and stabilized the West Seattle High Bridge cracking problem.