Art Deardorff grew up on a cattle ranch in Oregon and developed a strong work ethic. He earned engineering degrees from Oregon State University and the University of Arizona. He had a long career in nuclear engineering, working at companies like Boeing, General Atomic, and Nutech Engineering. At Structural Integrity Associates, he specialized in areas like fatigue analysis, leak-before-break evaluations, and ASME Code development. He contributed many technical programs and papers over his career. He emphasizes the importance of lifelong learning, client focus, and giving back through charity.

1. The Story of Arthur Fleming
Deardorff
Art Deardorff, P.E.
Senior Associate – Kinda Retired July 31
Structural Integrity Associates
San Jose, CA
August 2, 2011

2. and
It’s my story
and I’m sticking to it!

3. Outline
My humble beginnings
Education
My career
How I got to where I ended up
What I have learned and done

4. Outline
My humble beginnings
Education
My career
How I got to where I ended up
What I have learned and done
It has been a great ride!!!

5. In the beginning
Born July 2, 1943 in Prairie City,
Oregon
Grew up on a cattle ranch
~10,000 acres
~400 head of hereford cattle
Went to a two-room rural grade
school – 12 kids in 8 grades
High school had about 100 students

6. Before that even
My great-grandfather Flemming
Byars Deardorff came to Oregon
~ 1852
Across the Oregon trail
Homesteaded 8 miles east of Prairie
City
Near where Deardorff creek enters the
John Day river
My grandfather also homesteaded

7. Oregon

8. John Day valley – Strawberry Mtn.

9. Near the family homesteads

10. Growing up
Learned responsibility early
Fed chickens/gathered eggs
Milked the cows/fed the pigs
At ~13, lived alone on summer ranch
in Logan Valley 30 miles from home
Raised 4H sheep and steers
Letterman in high-school sports
Football, basketball, wrestling, etc.
Rebuilt my first car (‘1949 Ford)

11. My dad – at summer ranch

12. 2 yrs old – at the chicken coop

13. On the horse

14. I had an attitude as well as the horse

15. Early days as a biker

16. Going to milk the cows

17. 4-H Sheep

18. Reserve Grand Champ 4-H Steer

19. Raking the hay

20. Grew up fishing and hunting

21. Riverside School

22. First grade
The whole school
1st/2nd graders
in the first row

23. Prairie City High Football

24. Prairie City High Basketball

25. Prairie High Baseball
Also, wrestling and track (e.g. discus and javelin)
couldn’t run very fast ☺

26. Also in the band

27. My first car in high school
When 15 yrs old
dad gave it to me
It had been
wrecked
I rebuilt it
Engineer
Transmission
Body work
Painting
This, and all of the work
on farm equipment,
had some influence on
my ability to solve
mechanical problems

28. High school senior picture
Class president !!

29. Why did I go to College and
become a mechanical engineer?
My family was not well off ($’s)
My dad worked all the time
And on the ranch I also had to work too much
(too much???? - the thing I inherited from dad)
I learned about machines on the ranch
My uncle had gone to Oregon State and
was chief engineer at Bingham Pump Co.
Thus, I saw college as an avenue to
“escape the hard life” in Prairie City

30. My education
BS Mechanical Engineering at Oregon State
Emphasis on fluids and heat transfer
No computers or calculators
Graduated 1964
Summer jobs
Electrical/motor maintenance at Longview Fiber
(Longview WA)
Chemical plant engineer trainee for Shell Chemical
(Ventura CA)
Offshore oil production research for Shell Oil (LA)

31. My college memories – had fun
But in spite of having fun, I graduated with 3.39/4.00 GPA

32. My second car – Sophomore OSU

33. And, I also developed leadership
Fraternity
House manager (handled finances)
President
ASME
President of student chapter
Thane
College service organization
Graded papers for Dr. Welty
Ht Tx, Mass Tx, Fluids
Had Shell/Longview Fibre scholarships to
support myself

34. OSU graduation

35. My education (cont)
MS Mechanical Engineering from University
of Arizona
Mechanical and Aerospace Engr. Dept.
National Science Foundation Traineeship
Concentrated on heat transfer and fluid mechanics
Assisted with laboratory research
Graduated 1966
Introduced to computer programming using
Fortran
A big big big influence on my professional life!!!

36. My first real job
Boeing Company – 1966-1969
Crashworthiness research
Fire safety – burned up a 727!
Evacuation
Aircraft window design/analysis
Pneumatic system design/analysis
Left Seattle and the aerospace industry to
join the upcoming nuclear industry
In 1969, nuclear plant purchases were booming

37. Famous sign outside Seattle 1969

38. Entered nuclear industry
General Atomic Company 1970-1976
High temperature gas-cooled reactors
Concrete reactor vessel design/analysis
Vessel cooling system
Penetration design (ASME Code introduction)
Core seismic design
Fort St. Vrain reactor integrated leak test
Met some key SI personnel
Pete Riccardella, Dick Mattson and Jim Axline
Plus others that came to Nutech
Left when large HTGR projects cancelled

39. Nutech – moved to San Jose
Joined as employee 15
Company grew to ~600 folks before demise
1977 to 1985
Worked in areas of
BWR Mark I containment redesign
Introduction to management
Group leader, … VP Europe
ASME Code and fracture mechanics
Lived in Spain for a year
Bought my first personal computer (KayPro)
Worked with
Pete, Jim A., Dick, Moses, Dave G., Hal, Nat, Tony G., Stan,
George L., Dave Pitcairn, Fred Copeland, Marie Stager,…

40. Learned to fly
~ 650 hours in the seat (1st plane flown was a 737)

41. Joined SI ~ 1987
SI located at Almaden and Capital
Small office at NE corner
~ 15 people
Shared office with Stan and An-Yu Kuo
1st heat transfer/fluid-mechanics guy
Held several responsible positions
Associate/Senior Associate
VP – Nuclear
Stepped down about 7 years ago
Too much grey hair !!! Nat took over

42. What did I learn at SI
To be a project engineer and key
contributor to technical projects
Responsive to client needs
To get stuff done on schedule/done
right/done cost effectively

43. What did I learn at SI
To be a project engineer and key
contributor to technical projects
Responsive to client needs
To get stuff done on schedule/done
right/done cost effectively
To work with other key people
Get them involved

44. What did I learn at SI
To be a project engineer
Responsive to client needs
To get stuff done on schedule/done
right/done cost effective
To work with other key people
To provide cost-effective practical
engineering solutions

45. What did I learn at SI
To be a project engineer
Responsive to client needs
To get stuff done on schedule/done
right/done cost effective
To work with other key people
To provide cost-effective practical
engineering solutions
To use the computer to provide
solutions to unique engineering
problems

46. Some professional things I’ve done
Worked hard/figured out how to solve
diverse problems
May be a hold-over from growing up on ranch

47. Key professional things I’ve done
Worked hard/figured out how to solve
diverse problems
Maintained technical expertise
Solved problems using basic principles
Kept my books/never stopped buying new ones
When new problems arrived, figure out how to
solve them using
Basics
Internet
Books and reports
Computer

48. Key professional things I’ve done
Worked hard/figured out how to solve
diverse problems
May be a hold-over from growing up on ranch
Maintained technical expertise
Understood nuclear plant reactors
and operations
Know what your client is working on
Working in BWR containment program /
FatiguePro / fatigue issues really helped

49. Key professional things I’ve done
Worked hard/figured out how to solve
diverse problems
May be a hold-over from growing up on ranch
Maintained technical expertise
Solved problems using basic principles
Kept my books/never stopped buying new ones
Understood nuclear reactors/operations
Used computers to develop engineering
solutions
The back of an envelope is BIG today
And, check the results with intuition and simplied
solutions

50. Key professional things I’ve done
Worked hard/figured out how to solve
diverse problems
May be a hold-over from growing up on ranch
Maintained technical expertise
Solved problems using basic principles
Kept my books/never stopped buying new ones
Understood nuclear reactors/operations
Used computers to develop engineering
solutions
Learned the ins/outs of ASME Code
And participated in its development
Developed Code Cases N-480 and N-579
Wrote chapter in ASME Code Companion Book

51. Some of my contributions
Technical leadership
Early FatiguePro – implementing Pete’s/An-
Yu’s ideas for Green’s and transfer functions
Fatigue management (since ~’89)
TASCS and MRP programs for EPRI
Leak-before-break
ASME III/XI training worldwide
ASME Code Cases N-480 and -597

52. Some of my contributions
Technical leadership
Computer programs (to name a few:)
Pipe-TS2, Pipetran, Pipefat, Veslfat, ANSC,
…

53. Some of my contributions
Technical leadership
Computer programs
Many technical papers
ASME PVP
Magazine articles
Code Companion

54. Some of my contributions
Technical leadership
Computer programs
Many technical papers
Have tried to teach others the things
that I do
You will learn more from teaching others
I urge you to do the same

55. Some things I have learned
Work hard to solve clients problems
be responsible
be responsive (meet or exceed
schedule)
Perhaps you need to think outside the
box to innovate a client solution

56. Some things I have learned
Work hard to solve clients problems
be responsible, etc.
If you don’t know the answer to a
problem admit it, but
take the action to figure it out
get the right people as SI involved

57. Some things I have learned
Work hard to solve clients problems
be responsible/responsive
If you don’t know the answer to a
problem admit it, but
take the action to figure it out
get the right people involved
There are two rules to follow
1. The client is #1 and is always right
2. See rule #1.

58. Some other thoughts from my life
Continue self improvement
Read, research, learn new things, …
and read, research, learn new things,
…
The world is changing fast and
you need to keep up.

59. Some other thoughts from my life
Continue self improvement
Read, research, learn new things, …
and read, research, learn new things,
…
Talk to your parents and grand
parents about their history before it
is too late
this is your history and
it will be gone if you don’t ask now!

60. Some other thoughts from my life
Continue self improvement
Talk to your parents and grand parents
about their history
Life has been good, so it is time to give
back – contribute some time and efforts
to charity
there are many folks not so well off as you

61. As stated, I am only kinda retiring
Still available on a limited basis
even though I am cashing out to
retirement
Call if you need help – I really like
to
Help others
Teach
Solve unique problems