Passion. Smarts. And more memory than a terabyte hard drive. These are just a few of the qualities that come to mind when thinking of Fred Schott. Fred is more than a local structural engineer with a reputation for doing things with military-like precision, he is an institution. What is more, Fred certainly isn’t afraid to express his views on life and the engineering industry as a whole.
Want to learn from a legend? Talk to Fred. With a Bachelor’s of Science in Civil Engineering and a Master’s in Structural Engineering from Cal Berkley, Fred’s educational background speaks to his extensive knowledge and passion for continual learning. In fact, Fred was a structural engineering instructor at Cal Poly before the college even offered a Civil Engineering program. As an instructor and industry leader for more than 50 years, Fred takes a lot of pride in the successes of his former students and employees. His eyes twinkled as he relayed a story about a convention in San Diego. While there, he was pleased to see that five of the seven speakers were former students of his.
When Fred stopped full-time teaching at Cal Poly to open an office in San Luis Obispo in 1966, he was the only structural engineer between Monterey and Santa Barbara. His time teaching gave him a passion for young professionals, and a respect for seasoned peers which continues to this day.
For those just starting out in the profession, Fred asserts that it is critical to understand the importance of engineers in the world and the work that we do. He used the example of a doctor and an engineer talking. The doctor says: If I screw up, I may lose a life. The engineer says: If I screw up, I may lose thousands of lives.
On the other side, for those 20 years into the profession, Fred recommends finding a portion of the engineering field that is interesting, but needs further development. Once that area is defined, Fred suggests that you try to become an expert in the subject. Fred’s suggestion? Find out more about base isolation and dampers. He sees this as an area of structural engineering that will become more and more important in time. His professional experience speaks to this expertise of foresight.
Over the years, Fred has helped develop the Central Coast into what you see today. You name it, he’s done it: the Santa Maria Airport Terminal Building, Kon Tiki Inn, seawalls, Airforce antenna structures for VAFB, housing developments in Santa Maria, movable rocket launch facilities at SLC-8, even assisting with the original construction of SLC-6 at VAFB. When discussing these projects, it doesn’t take long to realize the vastness of Fred’s capacity to remember details. In fact, he described in fantastic detail the antenna structures and the piles that were 3 foot diameter by 25 feet deep with the 2 foot thick by 60 foot diameter pad for the equipment. And if that’s not enough, ask him about the 30 foot square doors that hung 100 feet up on the face of the movable tower where the door hinge was an 18-inch diameter pipe with an actuator torque capacity of ½ million inch pounds. Phew!
This passion for detail and the profession drives Fred to rise to the challenge of doing the best he can every day. One concern that he has is that people get into engineering not because of a love of engineering, but for a paycheck. He believes that to be a good engineer, you have to want to stay up to date on codes that change every three years, and that you have to understand the theory behind analyzing and designing a structure – and not simply have the ability to plug numbers into a computer program. You have to have a passion for learning.
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