Award Year
Graduation Year
Department
Award Category
Biography
Chairman, Sheedy Drayage Co. San Francisco, Calif. Don Russell had two major goals when he was growing up in the Monterey Heights District of San Francisco, Calif. — to become an Eagle Scout and a civil engineer — and he accomplished both quite successfully.Russell selected Oregon State University because of its excellent reputation as an engineering school.
“It was a wonderful atmosphere of learning at a small college and in the small college town of Corvallis,” says Russell. “I enjoyed the lifelong friendships I developed through the classroom and my fraternity, Alpha Tau Omega.
”Russell also spent his college years mustering as a member of the ROTC (Reserve Officers’ Training Corps). Upon graduation, he entered the U.S. Army’s flight school and spent three years on active duty as an aviation officer.
Once he completed his tour of duty, Russell joined Shell Oil Co. while juggling Army Reserve training and night school. He earned an MBA at the University of San Francisco.“I’d always wanted to be involved in the construction industry, so I chose that career path once I got out of the Army,” says Russell.
“I elected to take a job in the crane and rigging industry as an engineer and combined my engineering and business education to pursue business operations rather than day-to-day engineering work.”
While he was going to graduate school, Russell joined Bigge Crane and Rigging Co. as a project engineer involved with heavy hauling and heavy-lift rigging. From there, he moved to Rigging International, a startup with projects throughout North America. When Bigge absorbed Rigging International in 1984, Russell joined Sheedy Drayage Co., a family-owned firm in San Francisco, and propelled their involvement in refinery projects, seismic upgrades, and power plant turbine and generator transport and installation.
“While I was at Sheedy, I developed a unique system to easily lift and set large generators weighing up to 400 tons each into power plants,” Russell says. “This system brought our company positive recognition and was copied by companies all over the world.”
In 1991, Russell became president of Sheedy until his retirement in 2004, when he was appointed chairman of the board. He continues to hold the position.
“I am proud to have run a successful, profitable company for a family ownership for over 20 years,” says Russell. “We expanded operations tenfold during my tenure, expanding throughout California and the Philippines.”
He eventually turned the business over to younger family members, “and they are doing a great job,” he says. Russell doesn’t attribute all of his success to his engineering training at Oregon State University. “Success is based on an equal amount of timing, luck, and hard work,” he says.