Wayne Nils Tobiasson

It is a conundrum to write about a person who wanted to publicly thank all the great people who have made his life deeply meaningful instead of talking about his own accomplishments…

“As a small boy, I spent many, many years down in the West Indies” Wayne would start a lecture or speech hoping that someone would chuckle at his Harry Belafonte reference. From there he’d effortlessly slide musical, poetic, or nautical tales into even the driest of engineering subjects or perfectly come up with a song or quote well-suited to the dinner conversion. Wayne actually grew up in Belmont, Massachusetts, the elder of two boys who collected stamps, built model railroads, SCUBA dove, and both made their way into highly specialized technical engineering careers. They were brought up with a strong and influential Swedish immigrant heritage, that brought with it a resolute work ethic, enduring cultural ties, and a set of cousins that Wayne to his last days treasured and stayed close with.

Wayne studied Civil Engineering at Northeastern University (BSCE 1961) and Dartmouth College’s Thayer School (MEng 1974). With the Northeastern Coop program, he had early opportunities to dabble in cold regions projects. He first came to work in Hanover NH in 1958 as an undergraduate, eventually moving there permanently and working at the US Army Corps of Engineers: Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL). He had a rewarding 39-year career with CRREL, retiring in 1997 and continued to consult on his specialty topics in which he provided national contributions up until his death. His work took him across the US with many treks to Alaska, and internationally to Scandinavia, Greenland, and the South Pole. With all his travel, he gathered and created stories and adventures of challenging engineering feats. He and a team came up with a creative way to move a 3300-ton DEW Line Ice Cap early warning radar station building across snow to improve the structures’ foundations as the accumulating snow created instabilities. He helped compile a team from the private sector, the Navy, and CRREL to help identify a structural defect with the geodesic dome that sits on the South Pole and then led the team to repair the dome. His love of cold regions work extended to civilian applications and he was instrumental in the national snow load research and standards design, contributing over 100 technical papers to the field. He attributed his interest and success to key mentors at CRREL and several professional organizations he worked with throughout his career.

Wayne was an invited lecturer at numerous universities and technology institutes in the US and abroad. He regularly spoke at conventions, conferences, and symposia and created numerous short courses on roofing for the Roofing Industry Educational Institute (RIEI). He was awarded the Army Research and Development Achievement Award in 1970 for his concept of moving the DEW line DYE site buildings in Greenland. In 1990 he received the CRREL Technology Transfer Award for developing national snow load design criteria and in 1992 was the US Army Corps of Engineers “Engineer of the Year.” In 1997 he received the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) “CAN-AM Civil Engineering Amity Award” and in 1998 the first William C. Cullen Research Fellowship of the National Roofing Foundation to further studies of roof ventilation to eliminate chronic icing at building eaves. He was a member of the ASCE, Past Chairman of the ASCE Task Committee on Snow and Rain Loads, Past President of the Eastern Snow Conference, 1996 Chairman of the Federal Roofing Committee, and honorary member of the Roof Consultants Institute and a Registered Professional Engineer in the State of New Hampshire.

Wayne married Elizabeth Allen in 1966 and together they raised three daughters who he taught to wield an axe, sing sea shanties, explore the wilderness from the white mountains to the Chilkoot Pass in Alaska, and to pay attention to “the details”. He brought innumerable people and their stories to all of us. In his last day as he reflected on his life, it was those mentors, friends, relatives, and their adventures and lessons that he valued most of all and that he wanted to thank for helping him lead such a great journey. He attributed much of the joy in his lifetime to having Elizabeth by his side for 54 years, combining their creative skills to improve the home, the community, and the world.

He was an engineer who thought carefully through technical requirements all while producing elegant and artistic outcomes that often tucked the engineering out of the way. His design and building skills were with him throughout his life and he kept detailed daily notes, often on three-by-five cards he kept at the ready next to his mechanical pencils in his shirt pocket. As a construction-precocious teen he built a motorboat and sets of water skis for a lake in NH. From practical projects such as creative and space-efficient ways to store nails, to custom-designed furniture, to entire houses, Wayne was a builder. He learned carpentry skills from a family that built most anything. He was often pleased to present a thoughtfully hand-carved plaque to a mentor or friend upon a great accomplishment. The most rewarding of these plaque projects were the series of “Point of Pince” plaques he crafted for annual “Geriatric Adventure Society” cross-country ski adventures in the Dartmouth Grant.

He designed and, with Elizabeth and family members, built a cherished family home in Etna that emerged from the blasted granite of New Hampshire. Never one to waste any material, over the years they formed the excavated rock into winding graceful stone walls that welcomed family and friends to a house of creative angles with sweeping views across the Connecticut River Valley. The custom three-story home built around a central stone chimney and fireplaces with its steady stream of modifications held adventures aplenty for his three daughters and later their own families to enjoy. While Wayne loved the Etna house and the project of constructing with his own hands, the community and the people he met and journeyed with were what he valued most. Neighbors regularly lent a hand to one another, working to make the earth and neighborhood a more hospitable place and celebrated Christmas with local trees cut by hand and hauled out of the woods with an oxen-drawn wagon. He enjoyed learning about how others performed their professions: being gifted with the pen or the scalpel or the Kubota. He flew a flag for the local NH elementary school at the South Pole in conjunction with a program about Antarctica. He regularly looked for an opportunity to share his knowledge and love of the many cold places he explored, to convey the adventures and his appreciation of people he found in these beautiful and harsh environments. To Wayne, the people he encountered were the best part of any journey.

Wayne always loved the sea and the Maine coast with its pink granite, tall straight spruce, soaring ospreys, and historic schooners on the horizon. Wayne’s cabin in Brooklin, Maine was his place of true joy. He designed and constructed it to work functionally with the beautiful coastal surroundings, including a large round window offering a view out to the boat-filled Center Harbor. His meticulous, and often complicated constructions were greatly influenced by the necessary spatial precision of boat builders.

Wayne succumbed to lung cancer though he never smoked. He was fortunate to have been able to enjoy after his diagnosis two ‘additional’ years of life as a result of new immunotherapy drugs. He valued science and innovation – including in these remarkable medical therapies -  and appreciated the thoughtful care he received from his Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center team. He was singing and reflecting with his family to the end and made us all feel that we had each helped make his life more meaningful. Wayne is survived by his wife Elizabeth, their three daughters and their families: Wendy Tobiasson (Raoul Wertz, Brennan, Niles), Becky Tobiasson (Steven Dexter, Heather, Zachary), Kirstin Tobiasson (David Swayze). We will celebrate his life in an in-person way in a post-COVID world. If you would like to honor Wayne, please consider a gift to Maine Island Trails Association (https://mita.org/donate/) or your favorite charity. Please feel free to share remembrances at: mykeeper.com/profile/WayneTobiasson.

Wayne’s heartfelt wish: “Wayne hopes that those who knew him will remember him as that 6’10”, left-handed April Fool who tried hard to follow the Golden Rule.”