Bio: Martin Nahar Kelley

Martin Nahar Kelley is retired vice president and chief engineer of Peter Kiewit Sons’, Inc. of Omaha, Nebraska, and a 1950 Oregon State University graduate in civil engineering.

He was born in New York City on January 1, 1928.  He began his career as a bridge design engineer in Salem, Oregon as an inspector with the city’s Civil Engineering Department.  He then worked for Consolidated Builders to construct the Detroit Dam near Mill City.

In 1954 he was hired by Kiewit.  Their relationship would last until his retirement in 1991 and several years beyond as a consultant.

Early Kiewit field assignments had him working to construct a tube crossing the English Channel (1965).  Also in the 1960s, he served as project engineer on the San Francisco Trans-Bay Tube and Tunnel Project for the Bay Area Rapid Transit System, the world’s longest and deepest immersed tube.  He was appointed chief engineer for Kiewit in 1968 and in 1974 was promoted to the position of vice president.  In 1982 he was named president of Kiewit Engineering Company and three years later became director of the Kiewit Construction Group.

As director, Kelley was responsible for estimating, bidding, and providing construction engineering services for major Kiewit projects throughout the world.  A few of these included: New York City’s 63rd Street Tube and Tunnel Project; Saskatchewan’s Nipawin dam and the eastern tunnel of the Danish Great Belt Crossing off the coast of Denmark.

Martin Kelley has received the two highest engineering honors given in this country: the 1988 Golden Beaver Award for Outstanding Achievement in Heavy Engineering Construction and the 1999 Moles Members Award.  He is only the second engineer in history to have earned both awards.  In 1989 the American Society of Civil Engineers honored Mr. Kelley with their highly prestigious Roebling Award, named after the famous designer of the Brooklyn Bridge.

He has served on the Good Samaritan Hospital Foundation, the Legacy Finance Committee, and the Oregon Coast Aquarium board and executive committee.  He is a former member of the Portland Opera Board and in 1995 received that group’s Aubrey Morgan award for outstanding volunteer service.

Mr. Kelley has been a staunch supporter of his alma mater.  He is past president and chairman of the board of the OSU Foundation and currently serves as a member of the board’s executive committee.  He is also a member of the College of Engineering Construction Engineering Foundation.  In 1990, he made a $5 Million gift to OSU, at that time the largest single ever made to the university by an individual alumnus.  In 2002, he received the E.B. Lemon Award from the Oregon State University Alumni Association, which honors former OSU Students who have significantly contributed to society and whose accomplishments and careers bring credit to the university.

Martin Kelley was married to his first wife, Lora Laslett Kelley, for 43 years before her death in 1993.  They have six children.  In 1994 he married Judith Carlson and the two make their home in Lake Oswego.