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ITD loses Ken Clausen, bridge maestro, March 17

Kenneth Duane Clausen, designer of the new Broadway Bridge being constructed over the Boise River near Boise State, died while driving home from work March 17 at age 56.

Clausen spent most of his life in Idaho. He was born at St. Luke’s in Boise in 1959, and the day after he graduated high school in Canon City, Colorado, he was on the road to Idaho where he worked a summer for the state, painting "Keep Idaho Green" on the highways. After a year at the Colorado School of Mines, Ken returned to Idaho for good, transferring to the University of Idaho, where his father had also graduated. He never left the state to live elsewhere again.

At the University of Idaho he met Wendy Newman. Three weeks after their first kiss, the couple was engaged. As his father before him and his sons after him, Ken worked summers for the Forest Service in Idaho, spending one summer on a Heli-tak crew out of Challis and another on Loon Creek in a Guard Station the year the Frank Church Wilderness was declared.

After graduation, Ken found a job at the Idaho Transportation Department. He started in September 1984 in American Falls as an Engineer-In-Training, working for Resident Engineer Loren Thomas. He spent a short time in Pocatello, where his son Daniel was born, until he and his growing young family moved to Boise. Eric and Katie were both born in St. Luke's, just like their father. He would work at ITD Headquarters in the Bridge Department for the rest of his exemplary career.

Ken was heavily involved in the design and construction of the new Broadway Bridge, recently won an innovation award for his involvement in the Osprey nest on the Dent Bridge, and also had a hand in the design of the Chubbuck Interchange, Del Rio Bridge, I-84 Twin Bridges, the Big Wood River Bridge, and numerous other bridges throughout the state.

“Ken was an important part of the bridge-design community,” said State Bridge Engineer Matt Farrar. “His enthusiasm for bridges and creative way of thinking is reflected in structures all over the state of Idaho. He will be sorely missed by his ITD family and the consultant community.”

An avid hunter, Clausen is shown here in the fall of 2009.