Dana, Homer J. (Homer Jackson), 1890-1970

Born at Topeka, Kansas on January 1, 1890, Homer Dana came to the State of Washington with his parents in the early years of the 20th Century. His family homesteaded in central Washington for a time, then moved to the city of Pullman in 1911, where Dana entered the State College of Washington (now Washington State University). He completed a Bachelor's degree in engineering in 1915 and a Master's degree in 1917. For a brief time he was an instructor at the State College, leaving to go into private engineering practice. In the early 1920's Dana returned to WSU and completed a second Master's degree. He was again employed by the College, first as a consulting engineer, and, after 1924, as a research engineer. While the post of research engineer was his major assignment from 1924 until his retirement in 1960, he also taught classes on occasion, participated in the education of graduate students, and served as administrative head of the Engineering Experiment Station after 1945. He was placed on the State College faculty roster in the late 1940's and was designated Professor Emeritus at his retirement.

Although holding teaching and administrative posts, Dana's major work was research. He conceived his research post to be a generalized and wide-ranging assignment and consequently involved himself in work that was often far removed from his "specialty" of instrumentation and electricity. His initial major experimental project was actually a civil engineering problem, consisting of an attempt to determine the effect of heavy automobile traffic on roads and highways. Beginning with the construction of an instrument to measure the "washboard" effect, the project involved the construction and maintenance of highways as well as the construction of automobiles. The tests on roads that Dana carried out for several years in the late 1920's attracted considerable attention and the results were drawn upon by engineers throughout the United States, in Europe and in Asia.

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