Distinguished Engineer
Hometown: Parkston
Civil Engineering ,
Merlyn Isaak worked for various firms during his early career years following graduation from South Dakota State College including. Northrop Aircraft in Hawthorne, California, the City of San Diego, Building Inspection Department, the United Technology Center, Division of United Aircraft in Sunnyvale, California and Testing Engineers, Inc., in San Jose, California. He was a consulting engineer to the construction industry from 1990 to 1996. He served as senior vice president of Signet Testing Laboratory, Inc., which performed materials testing and inspection for the construction industry. He was the recipient of the 1997 American Concrete Institute’s Henry L. Kennedy Award. Isaak presented many seminars over the years on the basics of concrete, its properties, proportioning, limitations and the use and quality control of concrete construction. He was involved in the analysis of numerous structural failures to determine cause and assisted in many trouble shooting activities involving field defect evaluations and development of corrective action plans. He has served as an expert witness involving litigation related to structural concrete defects and failures.