John Augustus Blume was an American structural engineer

Structural engineer

Structural engineers analyze, design, plan, and research structural components and structural systems to achieve design goals and ensure the safety and comfort of users or occupants...

 born on April 8th, 1909 in Gonzales, California

Gonzales, California

Gonzales is a city in Monterey County, California, United States. Gonzales is located southeast of Salinas, at an elevation of 135 feet . The population was 8,187 at the 2010 census, up from 7,525 at the 2000 census. Gonzales is a member of the Association of Monterey Bay Area...

. He first decided he wanted to study Earthquake Engineering

Earthquake engineering

Earthquake engineering is the scientific field concerned with protecting society, the natural and the man-made environment from earthquakes by limiting the seismic risk to socio-economically acceptable levels...

 when he witnessed the Santa Barbara earthquake of 1925. In 1929, he went to Stanford University

Stanford University

The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

where he later received his A.B.degree, his graduate Degree of Engineer and his doctorate.

Blume’s career included major contributions to dynamic theory, soil structure interactions, and the inelastic behavior of structures, earning him the title of the “Father of Earthquake Engineering.” John Blume died at the age of 92 at his Hillsborough, California home on March 1st, 2002.