Bernie wrote this 10 years ago when Bill Hime retired as a principal at Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates; it remains just as moving and timely today, as Hime passed away at 91 on June 6, 2017.
During a time when our industry was undergoing, and had already significantly undergone, a myriad of changes, there was one man who stood up for the past, and readily accommodated the present and the future, William Gene Hime. He and I were associates at the Research and Development Laboratories of the Portland Cement Association and later partners in Erlin Hime Associates, Inc. and the Erlin Hime Associates Division of Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, Inc. (WJE), and always friends during those years and thereafter. Since that was a period that spanned over 50 years, it can be classified as a "golden" association.
But that association was far more than golden for me, since he was a mentor, research comrade, friend, fellow traveler along the rails (and crossties) of concrete investigations, co-author of a number of published papers, confidant, and for several years a golfing buddy until, as he once told Arnold Palmer, "Bernie gave up golfing for sailing", but that is a story unto itself narrated in an article we wrote titled, "Why Arnold Palmer Prefers Golfing Over Sailing."
Bill Hime has a special passion for anything athletic at Northwestern University, his alma mater after Heidelberg College. He faithfully attended most of their major athletic games, and particularly the football ones. He suffered, but always had an optimistic view, during the decades of drought when Northwestern lost almost every game, Big Ten or otherwise. Finally his optimism won out when Ara Parseghian became their first winning coach. That same optimism ruled his life whether it was about his three daughters or golf, where he played every game by the rules, in part because he was shadowed by his wife Nancy, who knew all of the rules.
When we were partners in the early years he had confidence, or was it optimism, that "cash flow" was around the corner even though we would forfeit monthly pay in order to give our staff a Christmas and end-of-year bonus. His optimism always won.
He said he celebrated his 20th anniversary with the Portland Cement Association (PCA) by resigning to join me and form Erlin Hime Associates, Inc. A number of years earlier he had left his professorship at Louisiana Tech University to join PCA, which was fortunate for me some 20 years later. He readily accommodated me, as he did most everyone – there was nothing to accommodate about him because he was forgiving, and overly so, in his desire to help anyone. And when there was a need for analytical work, enthusiastically beamed when he did hands-on "wet chemistry" to get data that more sophistically instrumental methods would miss, or not be as accurate.
Now, one of the greatest chemical and technological minds of our industry is retiring – unbelievable – except for occasional projects and the monthly column we write for Concrete Construction. My associate, business partner, collaborator, co-author, and friend for over five decades maybe has retired, but his legacy – his writings, influences our industry through ASTM and ACI, plus remembrances by the many he helped during decades of service to the concrete and cement industries, mankind in general, and his spirit – these will hang on forever and a day.
It is said that a cat has nine lives, but nothing is said about us – like Bill, who must have had a few lives, perhaps more than most. One was used in California where, during his early years along the Los Angeles seacoast, he was caught in a Pacific Ocean rip tide that almost did him in – but didn’t – for whatever unknown, but for our industry, advantageous reason. A second was during his teens in Dayton, Ohio where his father, a musician, introduced him to some of the musical greats of that time – like Woody Herman – the leader of the Third Herd, Benny Goodman and his licorice stick, Tommy Dorsey and his slide trombone, possibly Louis Armstrong, the great Sachmo, and Artie Shaw who was on the first, or was it second, of his five wives and his Gramercy Five Jazz Group, and others of their vintage, some great and well known, and others of lesser or short-lived fame. It must have been fascinating for him at that time, without realizing the history and legends he was seeing and hearing.
It was during that time he acquired a sore throat that introduced him to diphtheria (2), a killer then and a killer now. An almost second life gone by! But he survived it to later graduate from Heidelberg College (Ohio) – with honors – and to continue his academic career at Northwestern University where he stopped just short of a doctorate – "because", he said, "there was a need to sustain my newly founded family;" his wife Nancy and their three girls Carolyn Sue, Lisa Ann, and Sandra Jean; eventually added were grandchildren Havalah, Maharah, Shalanah, Yatashah, and Max (how did he get in there), followed by great grandchild Anavah. It seems that Bill and family have cornered the market on these almost unknown biblical names.
It was at Northwestern University that he developed the potentiometric titration technique for the quantitative analysis of chemicals; the now backbone method of analysis for chloride that is the basis for ASTM C114 (3), ASTM C1152 (4), and ASTM C1218 (5). And Menses welcomed him into their fold somewhere along the way.
He taught chemistry at Louisiana Tech where, later in time, the great Pittsburgh Steeler and Hall of Fame honoree, Terry Bradshaw, one of football’s great quarterbacks, began his famed career. Then on to the Research and Development Laboratories of the Portland Cement Association (PCA) in Skokie, Illinois where he eventually headed the Chemical and Petrographic Research Group, where his over 60-year career in the cement and concrete industries began, and where he began to actively contribute to the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM), the American Concrete Institute (ACI), the American Chemical Society, and others. Because of his devotion and contributions, he was honored and awarded honorary member to ASTM Committee C1 on Hydraulic Cement, was made an ACI Fellow, and in 2007 was awarded the ACI Robert E. Philleo Award (6) for outstanding contributions to the advancement of concrete technology. He was most pleased about the Bob Philleo award because they were co-workers at PCA. In 2007 the two of us were acknowledged among the most influential people guiding the cement and concrete industries by Concrete Construction. (7) His 75, or more, published papers exemplify some of his devotion to the industry that sustained him.
Back in the 1960s, when he was chairman of ASTM Committee C114 on the chemical analysis of portland cement, he created a new philosophy that allowed any method of analysis providing it met appropriate standards – a true breakthrough in the rigors and time consuming test procedures that were essentially "wet" techniques. As an example, it took about four days to complete a portland cement analysis and, perish the thought, if on the fourth something happened that necessitated a new start – there began another four day trial. Using new qualified, instrumental techniques, it can now be done in about a day. He was, thus, instrumental in the demise of "wet" chemistry for portland cement analysis; but could do it with a flourish of hand-manipulated "wet" chemistry – because he truly was "the last concrete wet-chemist" standing.
He was a bewilderment of activity, a forever sports fan, and a constant practitioner of the sports that he loved so well. They included baseball and especially the Cincinnati Reds; basketball that waylaid him right into the hospital with major foot ligament injuries when he was over seven decades old and testing the skills of several teenagers in their driveway in California during a field survey project; and his major love, golf, that competed with everything else that he did. He was always a game player and loved its challenges.
He played golf throughout the known world wherever a course exists and commemorated each with a golf hat, of which he has over 300. That includes St. Andrews, where his first introduction was in an arm cast that resulted when a sailboat adventure the week before with me went awry and, later, the Latrobe Country Club where golf-great Arnold Palmer learned the sport.It was golf that cost him his third life. He was supposed to leave some town in Iowa after discussions involving a concrete legal case, when he was given the opportunity to play a round of golf that delayed his departure. His scheduled plane crashed on takeoff into a corn-field – without him aboard. Fortunately, he avoided the same fate that took the life of the legendary Notre Dame football coach, Knute Rockne, who in 1931 perished in a similar type crash, but in Kansas – Knute must have used-up his nine lives – and didn't play golf.
He was a kind-hearted and compassionate humanitarian that freely helped anyone in need –anytime. That included a guy that ran out of gas and was stalled alongside the roadway when Bill happened along and stopped to give assistance. He drove him to the closest gas station; found out that he was broke, paid for the gas and five gallon container deposit, drove him back to the stalled car, helped him dispense gas into the tank, and said he didn’t have to pay him back and could even keep the container deposit. And, as he drove off into the sunset, heard the man say, "You must be a Christian!" And he was! He almost single handed sustained his church when its pastor left, its membership dwindled to a handful of parishioners, its funds depleted, and no janitorial staff to maintain the building and its grounds. He kept it going somehow with personal physical and financial efforts – today, it flourishes.
He had an intuition about people and events and sometimes exaggerated – but always with a qualified purpose. He seemed able to read people and adopted a philosophy of accommodation whenever possible or provided steerage, as appropriate. He was an excellent leader of people and of thought. Although always off-key when attempting to sing – nothing rubbed-off from his father musician and the many musicians he met – he was always on-key with the many other things he endeavored to do.His many published papers provides his thoughts and insights, along with his monumental paper on the history of corrosion of steel in concrete and the corrosion dreadnaught, chloride, published in Concrete International (8) along with more than four years of monthly columns in Concrete Construction (9) that we wrote jointly.
His ideas, visions, and foresight linger, perhaps creating a legacy of things to do (2), like his promotion that the sulfate content of portland cement governs the magnitude of sulfate attack, which is less likely nowadays because of much greater amounts of sulfate in modern cements compared to what it was some years ago (10). Today, much, if not all of it (the sulfate, that is), along with the calcium aluminates becomes immobilized as ettringite forms during the formative early few days of a cement's hydration life consuming essentially all of the sulfates and aluminates. That concept leads to a different approach to specifications that help mitigate the potential for sulfate attack. Or flailing the erroneous concept that the sodium and potassium alkalies are the scourges that directly cause alkali aggregate reactions, whereas it is actually their hydroxyl (OH-) partner that does the business. Or his vision of taking on all of the golf courses in the world and getting a golfing cap from each one to complement the 300 others already in his possession. But, to confound him, they keep building courses faster than he can keep up. He has yet to find a way to overcome that handicap.
To date, he has used three of his nine lives. The remaining six linger, perhaps waiting for him to complete another swim, another basketball game, or for another golf course to come along. Whatever the reason, they remain, waiting to be used. William Gene Hime will never be forgotten because of the many accomplishments within his current, very productive, three lives. He leaves a legacy that can never be upset and will be indelibly remembered, forever, because of the articles he wrote and his many so well done deeds. He must be satisfied about his contributions, and content, knowing he did his jobs so well.
References
(1) Erlin, B., Hime, William G., "Why Arnold Palmer Prefers Golfing Over Sailing, "Concrete Construction, Addison, Illinois, January 2006, p 24.
(2) Hime, William G., "Chemists Should be Studying Chemical Attack on Concrete", American Concrete Institute, Concrete International, April 2003, pp 82-84.
(3) ASTM 114, "Chemical Analysis of Hydraulic Cement", Annual Book of ASTM Standards American Society for Testing and Materials, ASTM International, West Conshohocken, PA 19428-2959, published annually.
(4) ASTM 1152, "Acid-Soluble Chloride in Mortar and Concrete", Annual Book of ASTM Standards American Society for Testing and Materials, ASTM International, West Conshohocken, PA 19428-2959, published annually.
(5) ASTM 1218, "Water-Soluble Chloride in Mortar and Concrete", Annual Book of ASTM Standards Ameri-can Society for Testing and Materials, ASTM International, West Conshohocken, PA 19428-2959, published annually.
(6) American Concrete Institute Robert E. Philleo Award, "Annual Awards of the American Concrete Institute", Concrete International, Vol. 29, No. 4, April, 2007, p 29.
(7) Concrete Construction, "The People Who make a Difference Guiding Our Industry", Vol. 32, No. 12, December 2007, p 32.
(8) Hime, William G., " Chloride-Caused Corrosion of Steel in Mortar and Concrete, a New Historical Perspective", Concrete International, May 1994, pp 56-61.
(9) Hime and Erlin/Erlin and Hime, "Hime and Erlin/Erlin and Hime on Concrete," Concrete Construction, Addison, Illinois, January 2004 through December 2007 (an almost monthly series) plus a few more.
(10) Hime, William G., "Sulfate in Cement and Concrete – Let's Start at the Beginning", Proceedings of the 11th International Congress on the Chemistry of Cement, (ICCC), 11-16 May, 2003, Durban, South Africa, ISBN Number 095384085-8-0, Editors Dr. G Grieve and G. Owens.
