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HERBERT E. HUDSON, JR.
1910-1983
BY RICHARD HAZEN
HERBERT E HUDSON IR principal engineer and chairman
of the board of Water and Air Research, Inc., cried on Sep-
tember ~ 3, ~ 983. Born in Chicago on September 2 I, ~ 9 ~ 0,
he attenclect Chicago public schools, Crane Technical High
School, and the Northwestern Military and Naval Academy
at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. He entered the University of Il-
linois at Urbana in 1927 and gra(luate(1 in 1931 with a B.S.
in civil engineering (he pursued the sanitary engineering
study option). He ant! Annabelle Woods were married May
28, 1932.
Better than any school for his future career, however, were
Huctson's ten years as an assistant to I. R. Baylis, director of
the Chicago Experimental Filtration Plant. For many years,
Chicago counted on ever longer anc! creeper intakes from
Fake Michigan to provide good water. By 1930, however, the
need for filtration couIcI not be ignored. Baylis was unusually
competent and thorough. With Hudson doing much of the
legwork, the two missed few aspects of water conditions in
Lake Michigan and of the best way to treat them.
Between 1941 and 1942 Hudson worked on the design of
the South Filtration Plant (at 320 megagallons per clay
EmgcI], the largest in the worId) and thereafter became a re-
search associate in the chemistry department at the Univer-
sity of Illinois, working on the removal of chemical warfare
213
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214
MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
agents from water and on the clevelopment of needed ana-
lytical methods.
In 1944 Hudson entered the U.S. Army, serving first in the
Sanitary Corps and then in the U.S. Army Corps of Engi-
neers. He continued his studies on the removal of chemical
agents from water at the Medical Research Laboratory at
Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland. Later, at the Engineering
Research ant! Development Laboratory, Fort Beivoir, Vir-
g~nia, he worked on the clevelopment of diatomite filters for
field use by troops. His final assignment to the Engineer
Section, Combined Intelligence Objectives Subcommittee-
took him to England, France, and Germany to gather infor-
mation on German fielcI-water-purification processes. He re-
mained in the U.S. Army Reserves until 1958, when he re-
tired with the rank of major.
Returning to Chicago, Hudson worked a short time for the
Chicago Department of Public Works before being named
head of the Engineering Subdivision of the Illinois State
Water Survey in Urbana. From 1946 to 1955 he was in
charge of the collection of statewide data on ground, surface,
and atmospheric water resources, as well as the analysis and
publication of official reports on water resources. The expe-
rience brought him a broad base of information on water
resources in the Midwest, information that included both
their development and shortcomings. It also gave him sub-
stantial knowlecige and unclerstanding of geology and
ground-water developments, which he put to good use after
leaving the Water Survey.
In 1955 Herbert Hudson joined the engineering firm of
Hazen and Sawyer in Detroit. He subsequently took charge
of the design of a 200-mg] addition to Detroit's SpringwelIs
plant; the project also involved the specification of the details
of treatment processes and selection of major equipment. In
addition, he provided the technical layout of a 160-mgcl
plant for Wayne County, south of Detroit. (The plant was
subsequently taken over by Detroit and expanded to a capac-
ity of 240 mad.)
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HERBERT E. HUDSON, JR.
.
215
In handing the work at Detroit, Hudson looked to the
universities for two sanitary engineers to spend the summer
visiting the major water plants in the West, looking for good
and bac! features, comparing performance, and so forth. At
the same time, Hudson persuaded the water system manager
at the Wyanclotte, Michigan, water plant to compare the per-
formance of conventional constant rate filters with declining
rate filters, in which the flow through the bed was reduced
as the filters became dirty. The test, which took nearly a year
to complete, demonstrated that the declining rate filters pro-
duced better-quality water and cost less to build. This same
process was later adopted for the two plants in Detroit and
subsequently by the Hazen and Sawyer firm and other firms
throughout the country.
Hudson came to New York in 1957. He became a partner
In Hazen and Sawyer and was named to head the firm's water
treatment activities. He clesignec! new water treatment plants
at Luke, Maryland; Poughkeepsie anti Tuxedo Park, New
York; Point Pleasant Beach, New Jersey; Greensboro, North
Carolina; Danville, Virginia; North Chicago, Illinois; and in
both Call ant! Bogota, Colombia. He traveled to Libya twice
to advise Exxon on water prospects. In addition to these re-
sponsibilities, he participated in the preparation of a report
to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers evaluating the water
resources in the northeast Unitecl States following the 1960
drought. He also wrote reports on the operation of water
plants at Elizabethtown, New Jersey; Bay City, Michigan;
Washington, D.C.; and Bogota and Cali, Colombia.
In 1971 Hudson resigned from Hazen and Sawyer to be-
come president of Water and Air Research, Inc., in Gaines-
ville, Florida. Asicle from managing the firm, Hudson con-
clucted and guided hydrological and ecological evaluations,
provided guidance on the design and operation of numerous
water treatment plants, and acted as a consultant to the
WorIcl Bank, Pan American Health Organization, National
Housing Board of Brazil, and Panama Canal Company..He
was also an adjunct professor of environmental engineering
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216
.
MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
sciences at the University of Florida from 1971 until his
death.
Herbert Hudson was an active member of many technical
societies, but his particular interest was the American Water
Works Association. He held a number of posts: director,
chairman of the Committee on Education, chairman anct sec-
retary of the Illinois Section, and chairman of the Water Re-
sources ant] Water Purification Division. He was also an hon-
orary member of the association. He was elected to the
National Academy of Engineering in 1978 and was both a
member ant! president of the American Academy of Envi-
ronmental Engineers, as well as a fellow of the American So-
ciety of Civil Engineers.
A regular attendant and speaker at societal meetings,
Hudson authored numerous papers. Four outstanding
works are Chapter 5, "Rapid Mixing and Flocculation," in
Water Treatment Plant Design (New York: American Water
Works Association, 1969~; Chapter 7a in Water Quality and
Treatment (New York: McGraw-Hill, 19711; A Handbook of Ap-
pliec] Hydrology, coauthored with Richard Hazen (New York:
McGraw-Hill, 19641; and Water Clarification Processes: Practical
Design and Evaluation (New York: Van Nostrand-Reinhold
Co., 19814.
Unlike most engineers with important technical responsi-
bilities, Herbert found time for other pursuits. He read a
great deal, enjoyed music, (labblecl in photography and art,
ant] enjoyed talking with people from all walks of life in the
United States and elsewhere. He was also a humorist; ad-
ciressing a technical meeting, he would meet his critics with a
smile ant! often disarm them with a joke.
Herbert Hudson is survived by his wife Annabelle ant] his
two sons, Ken and Herbert. According to his son Herbert,
"his work was his life." The accomplishments and influence
of Herbert Hudson in promoting the health and welfare of
millions of people by providing safe water supplies attest to
his status as an engineer who has made a major contribution
to society.
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Representative terms from entire chapter:
herbert hudson
