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Finding Aid to the Tudor Engineering Company Records, 1933-2006
BANC MSS 2007/134
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Table of contents
Collection Title: Tudor Engineering Company records
Date (inclusive): 1933-2006
Collection Number: BANC MSS 2007/134
Creators :
Tudor Engineering Company
Extent:
Number of containers: 6 Cartons
Linear feet: 7.5
Repository: The Bancroft Library
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, California, 94720-6000
Phone: (510) 642-6481
Fax: (510) 642-7589
Email: bancref@library.berkeley.edu
URL: http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/
Abstract: Contains records of the major engineering projects of the Tudor
Engineering Company, including work on the Golden Gate Bridge, Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART)
system, Tagus River Bridge and others. The Tudor Engineering Company records also include
reports and statements documenting the history of the company's evolution through financial
records, personnel records, and various promotional brochures.
Languages Represented: Collection materials are in English
Physical Location: Many of the Bancroft Library collections are stored offsite
and advance notice may be required for use. For current information on the location of these
materials, please consult the Library's online catalog.
Collection is open for research.
All requests to reproduce, publish, quote from or otherwise use collection materials must
be submitted in writing to the Head of Public Services, The Bancroft Library, University
of California, Berkeley, 94720-6000. Consent is given on behalf of The Bancroft Library as
the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission from
the copyright owner. Such permission must be obtained from the copyright owner. See:
http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/reference/permissions.html.
Restrictions also apply to digital representations of the original materials. Use of
digital files is restricted toresearch and educational purposes.
[Identification of item], Tudor Engineering Company Records, BANC MSS 2007/134, The
Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
There are no alternate forms of this collection.
Photographs have been transferred to the Pictorial Collections of The Bancroft Library,
BANC PIC 2007.029--PIC Printed materials have been transferred to the book collection of
The Bancroft Library.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the
library's online public access catalog.
Tudor Engineering
Company--Archives
Bay Area Rapid Transit
Merced Irrigation District
Bridges--California--San Francisco Bay--Design
and construction
Bridges--Portugal--Tagus River--Design and
construction
Dams--California--Merced River--Design and
construction
Engineering firms--California
Golden Gate Bridge (San
Francisco, Calif.)
New Exchequer Dam (Calif.)
San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge
(Oakland and San Francisco, Calif.)
Promotional materials.
Newsletters.
Pamphlets.
The Tudor Engineering Company Records were given to The Bancroft Library by Robert
Janopaul on March 12, 2007.
Additions are expected.
Arranged to the container level.
Processed by Bancroft Library staff in 2007.
The Tudor Engineering Company was founded in San Francisco in 1950 by the late Ralph A.
Tudor, a West Point graduate and retired Colonel in the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers. Mr.
Tudor established a nationwide reputation for excellence following his involvement in the
design and construction of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and other bridges in the San
Francisco Bay Area.
The firm's early assignments were the design and construction management of several long
span bridges across the Colombia River between Washington and Oregon and across other major
waterways in the Pacific Northwest. In addition to highway and bridge work, the firm
developed expertise in the water resources field, including a major hydroelectric project in
the Sierra Nevada mountains of California during the mid 1950s.
In the early 1960s, Tudor Engineering played a major role in the design and construction of
the Tagus River Bridge project in Lisbon, Portugal. The firm also undertook a major
hydroelectric project for the Merced Irrigation District in California. It designed and
supervised construction of the Exchequer Dam. Located on the Merced River, it was the
highest concrete-faced rock-filled dam in the United States at the time.
The early 1960s also saw the formation of the joint venture of
Parsons-Brinkerhoff-Tudor-Bechtel (PBTB), which undertook the management of design and
construction and activities for the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system.
Tudor Engineering's role in the joint venture involved civil engineering design and
construction activities, including aerial structures, several underground and above-ground
transit stations, tunnels, bridges, and several train maintenance yards. The PBTB joint
venture also undertook the design of the Caracas Metro system in Caracas, Venezuela, the
first phase of which was completed in the 1970s.
By the completion of the BART and the Caracas systems, Tudor Engineering had developed
special expertise in the design of modern rapid transit systems. Its next major transit
assignment, conducted as a joint venture with Parsons Brinkerhoff (PBT), involved serving as
the general engineering consultant for the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority
(MARTA) in Georgia. The PBT team began work on this project in the early 1970s.
In the mid 1970s, Tudor Engineering was one of the first consulting engineering firms to
respond to the national energy shortage with innovative technology for retrofitting existing
water resource facilities with small hydroelectric power plants. It pioneered this
technology with methodology manuals for the Corps of Engineers, the U. S. Bureau of
Reclamation, and the Electric Power Research Institute. Besides developing new innovative
technology, the firm has had the lead role in the planning, design, and construction
management of more than 30 of these hydroelectric installations through the western United
States.
In 1989 the Los Angeles office moved to Oakland, CA and Tudor Engineering Company merged
with Kaiser Engineering in Oakland.
Scope and Content of Collection
Contains records of the major engineering projects of the Tudor Engineering Company,
including work on the Golden Gate Bridge, Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system, Tagus River
Bridge and others. The Tudor Engineering Company records also include reports and statements
documenting the history of the company's evolution through financial records, personnel
records, and various promotional brochures. The papers are arranged as received.