Whether he was rescuing hikers in the California Sierras during a snowstorm or figuring out how to keep building facades from deteriorating, Jack Stecich thrived on danger and difficulty.
Mr. Stecich, 52, of Chicago, a daredevil and structural engineer whose expertise guided the refurbishing of facades for the former Amoco Building (now Aon Center) and other famous Chicago structures, died Monday, April 29, in Canada of a heart attack.
Mr. Stecich traveled around the world investigating how to stop building facades from deteriorating or bridges and roads from collapsing.
“People could be working on problems for days and days and days and hours and hours and hours, and Jack would look at it and in his head could do the calculations almost to the hundredth,” said his wife, Rita.
He is most widely known in Chicago for discovering that the Amoco Building’s white marble skin was bowing from the city’s extreme temperatures, and he designed the granite that replaced it in 1990, said Ian Chin, who worked with Mr. Stecich for 23 years. Mr. Stecich also investigated what was causing the concrete facade of the Bahai Temple in Wilmette to deteriorate and devised a way to fix it, Chin said.
“He was a very educated, intelligent person who approached work with a lot of care and professional integrity,” said Chin, a Chicago vice president of Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates Inc., a Northbrook-based architectural engineering firm where Mr. Stecich worked for 23 years.
Mr. Stecich’s job took him all over the United States as well as overseas. Through these travels Mr. Stecich discovered mountain climbing, stunt flying, bungee jumping, sailing and skiing.
One of his favorite activities was exploring Arches National Park in Utah. He loved climbing, and in 1979 he rescued 17 hikers stranded in the California Sierras by a freak snowstorm, getting to them before a rescue team could find them, his wife said. Most recently, he had bungee-jumped and sea-kayaked in Canada.
To relax, he liked to solve complex math equations. But work was never far from his mind.
“We’d be eating dinner at a restaurant, and all of a sudden he’d stop in the middle of the conversation and do a calculation,” said his wife.
He was born on Chicago’s South Side. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Illinois Institute of Technology in 1971 and a master’s degree in 1972.
His career began in 1971 at Chicago Bridge & Iron Co. He spent eight years there before he was hired as an engineer at Wiss, Janney. Most recently, he was a senior consultant.
In addition to his wife, Mr. Stecich is survived by two sons, Eric and Tom; three brothers, James, Daniel and William; and a sister, Marianne.
A visitation will be held from 3 to 9 p.m. Monday in Andrew J. McGann and Son Funeral Home, 10727 S. Pulaski Rd., Chicago. A mass will be said at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday in St. Christina Church, 11005 S. Homan Ave., Chicago.
