Nichol

 

Born in Portland, Oregon in 1931, Bob Nichol moved with his family to Long Beach at the outset of World War II, where his father Frank and business partner John Moffatt started the Moffatt and Nichol engineering firm in 1945 with work for the U.S. Navy. While a student at Woodrow Wilson High, Mr. Nichol worked weekends providing surveying services for the company and spent his summers working on farms and cattle ranches.  He told his father he wanted to be a rancher and enrolled at University of California, Davis, where he received a degree in Animal Husbandry in 1953. After serving two years in the U.S. Army in South Carolina and Germany as a First Lieutenant, he decided to follow his father’s footsteps as an engineer, earning a degree from the University of Minnesota in Civil Engineering in 1959. Bob said that was one of the best decisions he ever made because it was in Minnesota where he met his wife Georgia.

Bob and Georgia Nichol settled in Long Beach where they raised their sons, Douglas and Eric. However, Bob’s work with the company took him around the world as a project manager for major water and transportation jobs in Sudan, Guam and Montreal, where he moved his family for a year as he developed Nuns Island, a new planned community in the middle of the St. Lawrence River.

In 1975, Bob, after his father’s death in 1971 and upon the death of John Moffatt, was elected President of Moffatt & Nichol, leading the company for the next 30-plus years as its 2nd President, CEO and Chairman of the Board. Under his guidance, the firm went on to lead major projects for the Port of Los Angeles and Port of Long Beach, as well as the City of Long Beach, and later, public and private clients worldwide. Even as the company grew and his leadership role expanded, Bob maintained an active role on landmark projects such as the Alameda Corridor in Los Angeles, one of the largest public infrastructure projects in the United States, as well as the newly designed east span of the Bay Bridge in San Francisco. Moffatt & Nichol has now over 650 employees operating from 35 offices throughout North American, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and the Pacific Rim. Headquartered in Long Beach, California, the firm serves a variety of public and private entities worldwide in several primary areas – marine terminals; coast, water and environment; waterfronts and marinas; transportation; inspection and rehabilitation; and energy.

Until his retirement in 2006, Bob directed the firm’s steady growth, building a reputation for innovation and integrity while positioning the firm as the premier waterfront consulting engineer firm in the marketplace. Bob was a Commissioner of the National Commission of the U.S. Section at the Permanent International Association Navigation Congress (PIANC). He was a member of the National Academy of Construction (NAC 2008), served as a member of the National Research Council Commission on Engineering and Technical Systems and is a Fellow of the Society of American Military Engineers. He was conferred the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Distinguished Member Award (2011), Outstanding Projects and Leaders Award (OPAL) Lifetime Achievement Award for Management (2010), and ASCE California Lifetime Achievement Award (2013). He also received the 2005 Golden Beaver Award for Engineering from The Beavers, a heavy construction organization.

Bob’s son, Eric Nichol, was elected as Moffatt & Nichol’s 3rd President in 2006 and continues to lead the company’s day-to-day business activities as President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board. He says his father will be deeply missed, but he will be remembered for his many professional contributions to the industry and will live on in the enduring culture that he established at Moffatt & Nichol.

Port of Long Beach quote, “Bob’s relationship with our Port has been about more than just the work. He really cared about us and our success and what that would mean for the community where we all live.

In a 2004 article that appeared in the Long Beach Business journal, Bob told the paper that “what you do for that client, for that job, at that time is what is important” and that “you have to care about the people you serve and the product you produce.” This is the reason we have all chosen to work with Bob and his company for the number of years that we have. He has forever left his mark on our Port and our staff and we will truly miss him.”

Robert Nichol is survived by his wife of 58 years, Georgia, their son Eric (President and CEO of Moffatt & Nichol) and son Douglas (a Grammy award-winning filmmaker), daughters-in-law Goska and Sarah, and his grandchildren, Max and Genevieve.  He was 84 years old.

-Mike Johnson, 2016