Winstead, Ralph D. (Ralph Dimmit), 1894-1949.

Ralph D. Winstead was a statistician and technical editor in the field of construction methods data, materials cost and price, and construction costs.

Winstead was a technical editor, government employee, and union official. His early career was in the construction industry in the state of Washington and in British Columbia. In 1922, he became associate editor of the F.W. Dodge Corporation trade publication, the AMERICAN CONTRACTOR. He became editor of the publication in 1927 only to leave in 1929 to assume the editorship of the Chicago based CONSTRUCTOR. From 1934 to 1936, Winstead was the construction unit chief of the Division of Research and Planning, Industries Studies Section of the National Recovery Administration. Winstead subsequently became a field investigator for the U.S. Senate Civil Liberties Committee (La Follette Committee), 1936-1940; a field examiner for the National Labor Relations Board, 1940-1942; and a national representative of the Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers of America. His last professional effort was as an investigator of the attempted assassination of Walter Reuther in 1948.