Honorary Member since 2005

Michael Darter, former member of the ISCP Board of Directors, has been involved in pavement engineering throughout his entire 50-year career and is an internationally recognized authority in highway and airport pavements. Through his extensive work in research, teaching, and consulting, he has contributed significant new knowledge and has developed widely used pavement engineering tools.

Mike was born in Salt Lake City and helped raise five children. He obtained a B.S. and M.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of Utah. Darter acquired pavement design and materials experience through five years of employment with the Utah Department of Transportation as a pavement and materials engineer. He then studied at the University of Texas at Austin, receiving a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering for developing the design reliability concept and incorporating it into the Texas pavement design system, which was successfully used for many years.

Dr. Darter then joined the faculty of the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at the University of Illinois, where he conducted research and taught courses in pavement engineering for 25 years. He developed the first university class in pavement evaluation and rehabilitation, from which many students have gone on to careers in pavement engineering. Professor Darter served as Principal Investigator on many national and state research projects in design, evaluation, rehabilitation, construction, and management of highway and airport pavements over these years. Upon retirement in 2003, he was named an Emeritus Professor.

Dr. Darter’s career focus has been on transferring knowledge and developing practical tools for pavement engineering. He was a co-developer of the Pavement Condition Index (PCI) method of evaluation, which is used by commercial and military airports worldwide (adopted and standardized by the FAA, USAF, and ASTM). He contributed to the 1993, 1986, and 1998 AASHTO Design Guides. He considers his most important technical contribution as being part of the team that developed the NCHRP Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide (MEPDG). He also developed the ILLINET highway network pavement feedback system, various rehabilitation procedures, and the concrete pavement performance related specifications (PRS). A founder of ERES Consultants, Inc. in 1980, he helped it grow into one of the largest pavement engineering firms in the world (it is now a division of Applied Research Associates, Inc.).

Darter has received many awards for his academic and professional engineering contributions over the years. These include the University of Illinois Outstanding Faculty Award, the Transportation Research Board Grant Mickle Award, the International Society of Concrete Pavements’ Eldon J. Yoder award for Outstanding Paper at the quadrennial international conferences in 1985, 1989, and 2002), and the American Concrete Pavement Association Outstanding Educator Award.

Dr. Darter has participated in international presentations, seminars, and projects in many foreign countries. In 1992 he participated with the U. S. delegation study tour of European concrete pavement highways. In 1996, he was appointed by the Chilean Minister of Public Works to review all of the new and rehabilitated pavement designs for 1500 km of the Pan American Highway. He has conducted major pavement studies in Ontario, Canada, Bogotá, Columbia, and participated in the first design-build highway concrete pavement project in Israel in 1998. Dr. Darter recently gave Keynote Addresses at the 9th International Congress on Concrete Roads (PIARC) in Istanbul, Turkey and at the 8th International Conference on Concrete Pavement Design in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

He has authored or co-authored over 300 technical reports and papers on pavement engineering that have led to new knowledge and many practical implementations. Darter has also participated in many professional activities, including membership on and chairing of TRB committees (including Concrete Pavement Design and Pavement Rehabilitation) as well as ACI Committee 325 (Concrete Pavements).

During the past few years, Mike has spent much time searching and investigating what happened to his older brother, who was shot down over Germany in World War II and has been missing-in-action ever since. He was shocked and thrilled to finally locate several surviving crewmates, and then to identify eyewitnesses on a Dutch island who saw some of the crew and his brother come down just offshore in the Wadden Sea. The compelling story is told in his book “Fateful Flight” recently published by iUniverse Press, Inc.

Dr. Darter continues his research and consulting work for Applied Research Associates, Inc. in Champaign and he also holds a part-time appointment as the Executive Director of the Minnesota Pavement Research Institute-University of Minnesota.

The International Society for Concrete Pavements is proud to have Dr. Michael Darter as an Honorary Member!

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