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Steve Pryor
Structural Engineer and Project Collaborator, Simpson Strong-Tie
Steve Pryor, P.E., S.E., joined Simpson Strong-Tie in 1997 and is the Building Systems Research and Development Manager for Simpson Strong-Tie. He manages the company's Tyrell Gilb Research Laboratory in Stockton, California, which features state-of-the-art testing equipment. The lab's test rigs simulate earthquakes, high winds and other natural disasters in order to analyze building performance, which ultimately results in new product solutions.
Steve's other responsibilities include developing advanced nonlinear time history and finite element analysis tools to support research and development and oversight of products relating to the lateral load path in a structure. He also provides sales support and training relating to these issues.
Steve is considered a subject expert in structural building design and has authored several papers presented at national and international conferences on wood and seismic engineering. A member of several national building code committees, Steve earned his BS in Civil Engineering (Magna Cum Laude) from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, Indiana.
John van de Lindt
Professor and Project Lead, Colorado State University
John van de Lindt is a civil engineering professor in the College of Engineering at Colorado State University. Since joining CSU in 2004, he has led numerous projects funded by the National Science Foundation. In 2005, he received a four-year, $1.24 million grant from NSF to develop a new design approach for taller wood-frame buildings in earthquake-prone areas in collaboration with several other major universities, which led to the capstone test in Japan.
After Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, he led a team of scientists from around the country to examine how building codes in Louisiana and Mississippi contributed to the massive destruction left by the hurricane.
In 2007, Van de Lindt also collaborated with Oregon State University to study the effects of the force of hurricane-strength waves and their damage to wood-frame residential buildings.
Van de Lindt also has worked under an NSF grant with Bogusz Bienkiewicz, a wind engineering professor in CSU's civil engineering department, to connect a state-of-the-art wind tunnel with a large structural load frame to simulate the effect of wind on structures. They built a connection in "real time" over the Internet 2 backbone--a faster Internet used primarily for research purposes.
Before joining Colorado State, Van de Lindt worked as an assistant professor at Michigan Technological University. He obtained his master's and doctoral degrees from Texas A&M University.
