Civil engineers who excelled in other fields - Part 2: Sports, Business and Politics

In our previous article we saw some cases of civil engineers who excelled in other fields of science and engineering. We will now look at some cases of civil engineers who moved even further away from their field of study and distinguished themselves in sports, business and politics.

Sports:

William Fairhurst

British bridge designer William Fairhurst was also an international chess master. He was appointed a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his services to engineering, and he was several times chess champion of Scotland, gaining the title of International Master in 1951.

Dick Fosbury

Fosbury graduated from Oregon State University in 1972 with a degree in civil engineering. What he became most famous for, however, was inventing a new "back-first" technique of high jumping, which is named after him (Fosbury flop). Using this technique, he won the gold medal in the high jump at the Mexico City Olympics in 1968. This new technique was later adopted by almost all jumpers worldwide.

Manuel Pellegrini

Manuel Pellegrini is a Chilean professional football manager and former player. As a coach, he has managed teams in Spain, England, Argentina, Chile, China, and Ecuador, including football giants like Real Madrid and Manchester City. Pellegrini has won national leagues in four countries. He attended the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile in Santiago, where he graduated in civil engineering in 1979.

Business:

Carlos Slim

Slim's corporate conglomerate spans numerous industries across the Mexican economy, including education, health care, industrial manufacturing, transportation, real estate, mass media, mining, energy, entertainment, technology, retail, sports and financial services. From 2010 to 2013, Slim was ranked as the richest person in the world by Forbes business magazine. He holds a civil engineering degree from the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

Florentino Pérez

To football fans he is known as the President of the "Queen" Real Madrid. Florentino Pérez is a civil engineer from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and the Chairman and CEO of Grupo ACS, a civil engineering company.

Politics:

The list of important political leaders who were civil engineers is long. Notable names in this list include; Boris Yeltsin (President of Russia, 1991-1999 (pictured)), Hu Jintao (general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), 2002-2012), Sadi Carnot (President of France, 1887-1894), Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (president of Iran, 2005 to 2013), Alexis Tsipras (Prime Minister of Greece, 2015-2019), José Sócrates (prime minister of Portugal, 2005-2011), Fidel V. Ramos (President of the Philippines, 1992-1998), Sukarno (President of Indonesia, 1945-1967), Gabriel Narutowicz (President of Poland, 1922), Yasser Arafat (president of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), 1994-2004), Pierre Tirard (Prime Minister of France, 1887-1888 and 1889-1890), and Juan Carlos Wasmosy (president of Paraguay, 1993-1998).

Honorable mention goes to Herbert Hoover (pictured). Hoover was not a civil engineer per se (instead he was a mining engineer), but he was the only US President who was an engineer and also left an indelible mark on civil engineering by starting the construction of the colossal concrete arch-gravity dam that bears his name (Hoover Dam).