Harvey Ludwig’s parents, Rudolf and Emily, made their first home in Burlington, Vermont. The family subsequently moved to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, where their fifth child (of seven children), Harvey Fred, was born on 4th December 1916. In 1920, the family moved to the tough neighbourhood of the San Pedro harbour community in Los Angeles, California. There, as a truly exemplary student, he attended the San Pedro High School and Compton College. Outside of school, however, in this depression era, he was a gang member, and although the accomplishments of many others in the gang included jail sentences, fortunately Harvey did not succumb to this fate. He always believed that his gang life provided an important part of his education. He was to become an outstanding and truly remarkable environmental engineer and scientist; one rich in innovative thoughts and significant ideas.

Harvey Ludwig completed his formal education at the University of California, Berkeley, where he obtained Honours B.S. (1938) and M.S. (1942) degrees in Civil and Sanitary Engineering. He pursued his master’s degree part-time whilst assisting with his Professor’s consulting practice; that Professor, C.G. Hyde, being the founder of sanitary engineering in California, providing invaluable experience. Harvey’s rapid climb to fame was awarded with an Honorary Doctor of Engineering from Clemson University, South Carolina, in 1965, when part of the citation described him as a ‘world-renowned authority on environmental and sanitary engineering’.

In 1942, Harvey joined the US Public Health Service Sanitary Engineering Commissioned Corps where he worked originally in Atlanta, New Orleans and Washington. In this role, initially his energy and enthusiasm required some curbing, but in 1944, he was to move to assignments in the Middle-East and Europe where, particularly post-war, planning municipal water supply and sewerage needs on a national scale was more to his liking. He left the service as a Captain and in 1947 yielded to his entrepreneurial abilities and established, with two of his brothers, Ludwig Bros, Engineers, in Pasadena. A sugar company requiring a new water treatment system provided the first task, to be quickly followed by others and a successful consultancy practice. Seeking more challenges, in 1949, Harvey accepted the invitation to become an associate professor in the expanding Sanitary Engineering Department at Berkeley. Two years later, he was invited to return to the US Public Health Service where as Assistant Chief Engineer in the Division of Water Supply and Pollution Control, the annual budget had, by 1956, risen to $500 million. In this capacity, his versatility enabled him also to initiate both air pollution and solid waste programmes. At this time, concerned about the professional standing of engineers, with others, he helped to establish the American Academy of Sanitary Engineers (in 1955), later to become the American Academy of Environmental Engineers. In 1963, he also assisted in the formation of the American Association of Professors in Sanitary Engineering (now AEESP).

The increasing growth in engineering consultancy influenced Harvey to move back to work of this nature in 1956, and in 1958, Engineering-Science, Inc. was established. This company, in which Harvey was a major partner, acquired a reputation for a variety of innovative practices such as flotation separation and the blending of treatment plants into the natural environment. By 1967, the company employed 140 professionals and had offices throughout USA. International projects were to follow: the first providing a comprehensive water supply, sewerage and drainage plan for Calcutta, pursued by similar urban foreign projects in South America and Africa. By the end of the decade, the firm had a technical staff of 300, mostly with a PhD, and the many projects were too numerous for one man to manage critically. In 1968, the company went public and it was taken over financially with Harvey appointed as Chairman of the environmental concerns. Changes in the company’s directorship in 1972, however, sought to deprive Harvey of this situation and as a result, at an age when many would have retired, he sold his shares and resigned.

Harvey had married his wife Vanida, in Bangkok, in 1969, and whilst devising pollution control strategies for USAID for that city, he decided to move his growing family to that location. With no other local firms providing expertise, at the age of 57, he started anew and launched two companies. South-East Asia Technology International (Seatec International) was subsequently to provide his principal base for operation for the next 31 years! This company serves both private and international clients, such as the World Bank and United Nations organizations, in work in Asia, Africa and the Middle-East.

In 2004, Harvey chose to reduce his managerial and consultancy activities to apply his time to his environmental thoughts and writing. In his lifetime, his academic contributions to the environmental cause have been both important and prolific. With over 230 professional publications and a number of books to his credit, perhaps only a few of those for which he (together with others) received particular acclaim and awards should be noted. These include:

1942. ‘Graphical methods for indicating the mineral character of Natural Waters’, Journal American Water Works Association, 34. (John M. Goodell Prize).

1953. ‘Algae symbiosis in oxidation ponds’, Sewage and Industrial Wastes, 25. (The Harrison Prescott Eddy Medal).

1955. ‘Chemicals and Environmental Health’, American Journal of Public Health, 45.

1955. ‘Flocculation phenomena in turbid water clarification’, Trans. American Society of Civil Engineers, 118. (Rudolph Hering Medal).

1965. ‘Virus hazard in drinking water’, presentation: American Society of Civil Engineers, (Hering Medal).

Harvey Ludwig was both a regular contributor and an active Advisory Board member to The Environmentalist, he won awards for his work in many environmental fields. He strove through his activities to improve the environment in numerous countries worldwide. In more recent years, he became increasingly convinced that potential environmental improvements had to be shown to be economically viable before they would become widely accepted. He has been described by various others distinguished in environmental matters as: ‘a legendary figure’; ‘the most brilliant, creative and progressive consulting engineer in the water field I know’; ‘one of the true original thinkers as well as doers in the Environmental Engineering profession’; ‘one of those rare individuals with vision, plus the energy to see it through’; ‘a visionary pioneer’; and ‘undoubtedly the environmentalist of the last millennium’.

I was fortunate to have corresponded regularly with Harvey; I am sorry we never met, for his views, thoughts and ideas were both original and profound, and his energy always belied his years. He died peacefully on the night of Saturday, 24th April 2010. He is survived by his wife Vanida, his two daughters Wanee and Yingtoy, and two grandsons. Two daughters, Leslie and Lynne, two grand-daughters, Allison and Amanda, and two great-grandchildren survive also from his first marriage.