Dave Ruby, one of the world’s leading experts on constructability and the founder of Ruby+Associates, a Degenkolb Company, has officially retired from the firm, ending a structural engineering career that spanned more than 60 years.
Ruby is the company's former chair and a founding principal. He started his namesake company in 1984 to fill a gap and provide structural engineering services to the construction industry. He became an internationally known expert in steel construction and constructability in his decades leading Ruby+Associates, receiving numerous awards from industry groups. He earned the J. Lloyd Kimbrough Award in 2022, AISC's highest honor for designers. He became just the 12th person since 1941 to receive it. He also received an AISC Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011.
"Dave built American icons throughout his career and has contributed the knowledge he gained in doing that freely and relentlessly," said AISC President Charles J. Carter, SE, PE, PhD. "Our profession, our industry, and our country are all the better because of him."
Elsewhere, Ruby won the ACEC/Michigan Felix A. Anderson Award in 2019 and was named the Structural Engineers Association of Michigan (SEAMi) Outstanding Structural Engineer of the Year in 2010. He has served as the chair of the Council of American Structural Engineers, a past director of the National Council of Structural Engineers Association, and was past president and founder of the SEAMi. He was a member of AISC's Code of Standard Practice Committee, Committee on Research, and was past co-chair of the Blast & Impact Resistant Design Task Group.
Ruby’s lengthy resume of published work includes AISC Design Guide 23: Constructability of Structural Steel Buildings. He also wrote a six-part Modern Steel Construction series titled "But it Worked in the Model!"
Before founding Ruby+Associates, Ruby worked for the American Bridge Division of U.S. Steel, where he was a structural project engineer for the John Hancock building, Sears Tower, and Standard Oil building in Chicago. He was also the chief structural engineer for John Portman and Associates. He worked on several notable steel stadium projects while leading Ruby+Associates, including Comerica Park and Ford Field in Detroit, State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., Guaranteed Rate Field in Chicago, and LoanDepot Park in Miami.