Joseph A. Caliendo
Remembering a good friend to PDCA
By Jill Harris, Lester Publications, LLC
Ask Joseph Caliendo about what he considered to
be his greatest achievement in life, and his answer
likely would have surprised you: a sandwich. The
open-faced “Marv n’ Joe” sandwich, as it’s known at Utah State
University (USU), where he was a respected professor, was
co-created by Caliendo and his colleague, Marvin W. Halling.
Caliendo was a fan of showing off the menu item to university
students and visitors and told PileDriver magazine at the beginning
of 2019 that it was his “claim to fame.”
“This is probably the single most significant accomplishment
of my career here at USU,” joked Caliendo to The Utah
Statesman in 2006, and repeated that sentiment during various
media interviews throughout his career.
As much as Caliendo’s good humored and humbled response
demonstrated the type of person he was, it was not reflective
of his important role in the engineering community and his
impressive career.
Caliendo grew up in the Detroit area and earned a bachelor’s
degree in civil engineering at the University of Detroit. He then
enlisted in the Navy, where he was a diver on an underwater
construction team. Working in the water sparked an interest in
oceanography, and after leaving the Navy pursued a degree at
Humboldt State University in California.
However, while he was there, he noticed a technical elective
course in foundation engineering.
He contacted a friend and mentor he had met at Humboldt,
Loren Anderson, who had since taken a faculty job at Utah State
University. Caliendo enrolled there, obtained his Master’s in
civil engineering and followed that up with a job at McClelland
Engineers in Houston, Texas.
However, the academic lifestyle called to him; he returned
to Utah State to pursue his Ph.D. in civil engineering with
Anderson. As a Ph.D. student, he had the opportunity to teach
several undergraduate classes.
Post-doctoral degree, he worked for the Florida Department
of Transportation as its state geotechnical engineer.
“That’s where I really got my experience in deep foundations
and pile foundations in particular,” he told PileDriver.
In 1992, Caliendo was offered a faculty job at USU and took
it. He never looked back, serving as an associate professor in
the university’s civil and environmental engineering department
and teaching both undergraduate and graduate deep
foundation courses. He was quick to talk about how much he
enjoyed teaching and interacting with his students and that his
best friends were his colleagues at USU.
In 2013, he told PileDriver magazine that he had “the best
job” of anyone he knew.
“One of the best things about my job is that I am always with
young engineers,” he said. “This helps me keep a young perspective
on life.”
Joe Caliendo (center) lending a helping hand at a PDPI program
Steve Hall
Steve Hall
Joe Caliendo (far right) at a Friday dinner during a PDCA program
with students and instructors
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