Mohammed Abdur Razzack
Mohammed Abdur Razzack (May 6, 1928 - November 2007) was born in Hyderabad Deccan. His early childhood days were spent in Hyderabad, Vijaywada, and Aligarh. He attended Aligarh Muslim University as well as Osmania University for his undergraduate studies in Civil Engineering. He graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1951 with a Masters in Civil Engineering.
Professional career
He started his career in the United States with the Bridge Department Of the State of Illinois (predecessor to Illinois Department of Transportation) in 1951 and subsequently with Sverdrup & Parcel in St. Louis, International Engineering Company (IECO) in San Francisco, and Associated Consulting Engineers (ACE) Pakistan Ltd. He worked on massive civil engineering infrastructure and irrigation projects in the United States and Worldwide. During his career he was regarded as one of the foremost engineers of his time in Pakistan and other developing countries.
Some of the projects he has been involved with can be found here 1.
He joined Associated Consulting Engineers ACE (pvt) Ltd. in 1958 upon returning to West Pakistan at the request of Mr. Khwaja Azeemuddin2, who founded Associated Consulting Engineers (ACE) pvt Ltd. that year. He was appointed Technical Director of ACE and positioned in Teheran, Iran to set up a new branch office. He became Managing Director of Associated Consulting Engineers Pakistan[http://www.acepakistan.com]ACE (pvt) Ltd. in 1975. During his tenure, and building upon the great accomplishments of his predecessor Mr. Kwaja Azeemuddin, ACE was ranked as #75 in the Top 200 International Design Firms by the McGraw-Hill construction industry weekly publication ENR in 19773. As managing director of ACE (pvt) Ltd., he procured new engineering and consulting services projects from the World Bank and developing countries for massive irrigation projects, dams, and civil infrastructure projects in developing nations such as Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nigeria, Iran, Sudan, and Libya. This was a major achievement for a company based out of a developing country.
Under his management at ACE, the company worked on various projects for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on the expansion of the Holy Mosques in Makkah and Medina. Mr. Razzack has also had the privilege to have visited the inside of the Holy Kaaba. Upon completion of the project at Makkah, he oversaw the production of the project report for presentation to King Khalid of Saudi Arabia. This publication is available at the Library of Congress in Washington DC in their special Books section. The report is titled "His Majesty King Abdul Aziz Project for the Extension and Construction of Haram Sharif : documents, data, statements and engineering drawings of the project issued during the reign of his Majesty King Khalid Bin Abdul Aziz / prepared by Associated Consulting Engineers"4.
He retired in 1981 after two terms as Managing Director of ACE Ltd. and subsequently served as Managing Director of Sazin Ltd. in Saudi Arabia. He later joined the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Ministry of Aviation and Defense for Hospital Construction in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. He was identified as essential personnel and remained on duty during the First Gulf war in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. He was awarded a medal by the Saudi Arabian Government for his services at the King Abdul Aziz Hospital during the First Gulf war in 1992.
In 2006 he was elected as Chairman of the Board, Associated Consulting Engineers ACE (pvt) Ltd.
He passed away in November 2007 in Houston, Texas.
- List of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign people