Alan Voorhees facts for kids
Alan Manners Voorhees (born December 17, 1922 – died December 18, 2005) was an American engineer and planner who helped design many big public projects. He was especially good at planning transportation systems and cities. Voorhees was born in Highland Park, New Jersey.
Early Life and War Hero
During World War II, Alan Voorhees paused his studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). He joined the United States Navy as an officer in a special unit called the "Underwater Demolition Team 11." This team was a very early version of today's U.S. Navy SEALs. He spent much of the war mapping shorelines in the Pacific War.
After the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Voorhees' unit was sent to inspect the city. This made him one of the first Americans to see the damage from the bomb. For his brave service, he received important awards like the Silver Star and the Bronze Star.
After the war, Voorhees went back to school. He graduated from RPI in 1947. Then, he earned a master's degree in city planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1949.
Designing Our World: Transportation and Cities
In 1952, Voorhees moved to Washington, D.C. He worked for a group called the Automobile Safety Foundation. While studying traffic in Baltimore, he came up with a smart idea. He created a mathematical formula to guess how traffic would flow based on how land was used. This formula became very important for designing roads and public projects all over the world. He wrote about his ideas in a paper called "A General Theory of Traffic Movement" in 1956.
In 1961, he started his own engineering company, Alan M. Voorhees & Associates. This company grew to have offices in ten U.S. cities. He helped design many subway systems, including those in São Paulo, Hong Kong, Caracas, and Washington, D.C.. Voorhees also helped create the "Y Plan" for Canberra, Australia's capital city. This plan connected the city with new roads and public transport.
Voorhees sold his company in 1967. Later, in 1971, he became a dean at the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle. He also invested in a company called MICROS Systems that made electronic cash registers.
Voorhees designed the street layout for new land in lower Manhattan in New York City. He connected these new streets to very old roads and to the Brooklyn Bridge. He was also one of the first designers of the Interstate Highway System in the United States. He helped decide how these big highways would go through or around cities.
Later Life and Lasting Impact
In 1979, after new rules for airlines, Voorhees helped start Atlantic Southeast Airlines. This airline was later bought by Delta Air Lines.
Voorhees received the first Harland Bartholomew Award for his work in urban planning. In 1998, the Alan M. Voorhees Transportation Center was created at Rutgers University in his honor. He also helped start the Voorhees Computing Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
He was involved with several technology companies. He was chairman of Autometric Corp., an aerospace company. He was also an early investor in Lizardtech, a company known for its digital mapping software. His investment in MICROS Systems was very successful.
Voorhees loved collecting old maps. He gathered over 300 maps, especially ones about the history of Virginia. He gave this valuable collection to the Library of Congress, the Library of Virginia, and the Virginia Historical Society.
Voorhees believed that government could make people's lives much better. He supported the Council for Excellence in Government. He was also very involved with Voorhees College, a historically Black college in South Carolina. He often gave money for campus improvements and student scholarships.
Voorhees and his family helped start the Westmoreland Berry Farm in Virginia. This was a successful family farm.
In the late 1990s, Voorhees started a project to make county government services easier in Richmond County, Virginia. He spent a lot of money to scan old land records and connect them with other important data. This helped make it easier to find information and protect the environment.
Voorhees cared about protecting nature. He donated over 700 acres (2.8 km2) of land along the Rappahannock river in Virginia. This land became the Voorhees nature preserve. His interest in government automation also aimed to help identify sensitive environmental areas.
Alan Voorhees passed away in Richmond, Virginia, at the age of 83.
