HANNS U. BAUMANN, S.E.

Hanns U. Baumann, S.E. was born in 1930, the son of Paul Baumann and his wife, Miriam, of San Marino, CA.  Paul Baumann was the Chief Engineer for the Arrowhead Lake Company during the development of the Lake Arrowhead resort (his wedding to Miriam was the first wedding ceremony held in Lake Arrowhead), and later, was the Assistant Chief Engineer of the Los Angeles County Flood Control District from 1934 to 1959.  In the 1930s, he developed a new design method, and the paper describing it, “Analysis of Sheet-Pile Bulkheads,” received the James Laurie Prize from the American Society of Civil Engineers.  In 1943, he published a paper entitled “Design and Construction of the San Gabriel Dam No. 1” which was awarded the Society’s Thomas Fitch Rowland Prize for that year.  Paul Baumann was, himself, the son of a Swiss Contractor/Engineer, Freidrich Baumann, who passed away in 1910.  And his brother, Erwin Freidrich Baumann, was an architect and sculptor of some renown. Commissioned in the 1940s by the Swiss government to design a monument in tribute to 700 years of Swiss independence, he designed a 35’ tall eagle made from granite blocks.  It still stands today at the Simplon Pass in Switzerland.

Hanns Baumann continued the family tradition of innovation in the structural design field, and received his Bachelor’s Degree in Civil Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 1953, and his Masters Degree in Structural Engineering from the University of Southern California in 1963.  In the interim, stationed in Korea and Japan, where he served in 1954 as a company commander in the US Army Corps of Engineers at the age of just 23.  Upon his return to the United States, and after his discharge, Baumann began as a structural design engineer in Orange County, CA for Robert E. Scherrer Consulting Structural Engineering.  In 1961, he became a partner in the newly formed Scherrer-Baumann Consulting Structural Engineers. 

In 1978, his partner Robert Scherrer retired, and Scherrer-Baumann became Baumann Engineering.  In 1981 he formed Baumann Research and Development Corporation, and made Baumann Engineering a division of BRD Corp.  BRD Corp. was formed to focus on the development of products, specializing in the construction industry, and Baumann Engineering continued providing consulting structural engineering services in a variety of disciplines.   In 1986, he formed Baumann International Inc., which was formed for the purpose of marketing products that had been developed by BRD Corp.  In 1999, Baumann International was renamed BauTech, Inc.  Baumann currently is 100% owner of BRD Corp. and Baumann Engineering, and 95% owner of BauTech, Inc.. 

Mr. Baumann is a licensed engineer in four states. 

Mr. Baumann and his firm have been recognized and awarded in several areas of engineering, including slope stabilization, steel construction, bridge design, and reinforced concrete, by organizations as varied as the Civil Engineering Research Foundation, Construction Innovation Forum, the Portland Cement Association, American Iron and Steel Institute, the California Geotechnical Engineers Association, the American Society of Civil Engineers, and more.

Mr. Baumann has been a featured speaker at numerous industry conferences and seminars, including Structural Faults and Repair Conference in London, England, 2003, and the Structural Engineers World Conference in Yokohama, Japan, 2002, and is scheduled to speak at the 2004 Concrete Bridge Conference in Charlotte, North Carolina in May. He was also the Keynote Speaker at the Annual NOVA Awards Presentation Dinner in 1998.

Mr. Baumann has lived in the community of Emerald Bay in Laguna Beach since 1961, and frequently spends his weekends there playing beach volleyball.  In fact, he has won six gold medals in two-man beach volleyball in the Senior Olympics and is currently a member of the reigning, undefeated California state champion Senior Olympics two-man volleyball team.  His wife Sharon passed away in 1997.  Baumann has one son, John, a teacher, who lives in Newport News, VA., and a daughter, Katie, who lives with her husband and Baumann’s only grandchild in Sierra Madre, CA.  He has one brother, Paul F. Baumann, who is retired and living in San Francisco.