1908 – 1977
During his lifetime, Bruce G. Marshall was a successful inventor, asphalt testing equipment developer and highway engineer. He made one of the most significant and enduring contributions to asphalt technology-the Marshall Mix Design procedure. “He provided the standard by which we judge the adequacy of asphalt pavement,” stated one asphalt industry spokesman. Another said, “We would not be paving ninety percent of our roads effectively if we did not have the Marshall test.”
In the early 1930s to the mid 1940s, Mr. Marshall worked for the Mississippi Department of Highways. Later, while consulting for the Corps of Engineers, he began developing his method of mix design. During a period with the Flexible Pavement Branch at the Corps of Engineers Waterways Experiment Station, Mr. Marshall helped in the laboratory phases of adapting his method of testing to U.S. Army airfields. After that, he established his own consulting and testing company in Jackson, Mississippi. He continued to operate his company over the next 25 years while perfecting aspects of his testing method. Today his method of asphalt mix design is taught in engineering schools throughout the United States.
For a number of years, Mr. Marshall served as consultant to the city of New Orleans. During the 1950s he was asphalt pavement consultant for airfields in the Azores and in Afghanistan. The Marshall Method of Mix Design was standardized by the American Society of Testing and Materials in 1958 as D-1558.
Mr. Marshall was a native of Mississippi and graduated from Mississippi State College with a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering. He was an active member of the Association of Asphalt Paving Technologists from 1944 to 1969.
Elected: 1992
