While still recuperating from a bout with pneumonia a few months ago, Kolbjorn Saether wasted no time getting back to work at the structural engineering firm he founded in Chicago 50 years ago, his colleagues said.
“I walked into his office, and there he was busy at work with an oxygen tank hooked up to him,” said close friend Ken Nizamuddin, a former employee of Kolbjorn Saether & Associates and now a senior project engineer with Halvorson & Partners in Chicago.
An innovative engineer and the designer of many high-rises in downtown Chicago and along Lake Shore Drive, Mr. Saether had the ability to produce engineering solutions for projects nobody else wanted to touch, family members said.
“He was an exceptional talent who not only welcomed a good challenge but had the competence and know-how to back it up,” said his son, Erik.
Mr. Saether, 81, of Wilmette, a leader in structural engineering and former president of the Structural Engineers Association of Illinois, died of congestive heart failure Thursday, May 3, in Evanston Hospital.
Mr. Saether, who was born in Trondheim, Norway, received a master’s degree in civil engineering from the University of Zurich in 1949. He worked as a structural engineer in Norway and Sweden and for the Norway air force’s building department before moving to Canada, where he was employed for one year as a structural designer at J.T. Hepburn in Toronto.
From 1952 to 1955, Mr. Saether worked as a structural designer for DeLeuw-Cather & Co. in Chicago. He then worked as a research engineer for Portland Cement Association in Chicago and as the chief structural engineer for Case Foundation Co. in Roselle before starting his own firm in Chicago in 1957.
The holder of more than 20 patents in the structural engineering field, Mr. Saether was the inventor of the Sky-Fork and Staircast Stairs, both material-handling systems used to facilitate and reduce costs in the construction of high-rises.
“He was very creative and a giant in the structural engineering profession,” said Bob Johnson, a structural engineer with Bowman, Barrett & Associates in Chicago.
Over the years, Mr. Saether and his firm were the recipients of numerous design awards, including the Best Structure Award in 1988 for design of The New Yorker high-rise on North Lake Shore Drive. He also held the post of president of the Structural Engineers Association of Illinois from 1980 to 1981.
Mr. Saether’s other professional memberships included the American Society of Civil Engineers, the Illinois Society of Professional Engineers, the American Concrete Institute and the Norwegian Society of Civil Engineers.
In addition to his son, Mr. Saether is survived by his wife, Marika; two daughters, Eva and Linda; and two granddaughters.
Services have been held.
