A memorial patio has been dedicated to Travis “TJ” Good, senior in civil engineering, who died suddenly last spring from bacterial meningitis. The patio was created by friends of TJ who wanted to create something on campus to commemorate everything he gave them during the four years he was at Iowa State.

“He was a very special person to all of us, and I think we’ve really shown that in our dedication to have a mark made on Iowa State’s campus for him,” said Jaclyn Johnson, senior in landscape architecture. “We wanted a memorial that was something that showed how special he was to us, and we really wanted to commemorate him.”

Good died April 13, less than a month from graduation.

“We wanted something special, and in deciding how to do that, we came up with this design,” said Doug Hartwell, graduate student in structural engineering. “We wanted something that could kind of pay tribute to that and wrote out aspects that he would have done.”

Hartwell was the project manager of the memorial patio. He brought in friends of TJ and members from the American Society of Civil Engineers to help with the memorial.

“TJ always had a project going,” Hartwell said. “We wanted to make sure that it would be the kind of quality he would have done and with some of the same design aspects, so that’s what we considered.”

The project brought a lot of people together and wouldn’t have been possible without the group that assembled to work on it, Hartwell said.

The group finished the memorial patio and presented it to TJ’s family, who came to Ames for the dedication ceremony.

“It was very moving,” said Larry Good, TJ’s father. “They did a wonderful job.”

Johnson helped select a site that was close to the Town Engineering Building. The patio is located on the north side of the building, where Good spent many hours at work for school.

“We wanted to pick a place where he spent a lot of his time,” Johnson said. “After picking the site, we went through trying to figure what we wanted to do for the patio and what we wanted to do with the memorial tree.”

Much of the design of the patio was based on TJ’s characteristics and personality.

“The table is very strong like TJ,” said Andrew Barone, senior in civil engineering. “TJ was strong in terms of friendships he had with people and confidence in himself.”

The welding used in constructing the memorial patio was made possible by the knowledge that TJ taught his friends.

“TJ spent a lot of time teaching us all how to weld and do everything that we needed to know,” said Andrew Faust, junior in civil engineering. “After he left us unexpectedly, it was nice to apply what he taught us to remember him by.”

TJ proved to be much more than a student. In many ways he was a teacher and a role model for many students.

“The people who knew him that helped build this table instill those values from TJ,” Faust said. “Hopefully we can pass those on through other people and have a little bit of TJ in everybody.”

Tyler Anderson, senior in civil engineering, took part in the memorial patio project.

“There were thousands of hours that went into this with designing, construction, installing it and working with university officials,” Anderson said. “We were all busy with classes and work, but still to be able to put that much time into a project to build in his honor, I think that speaks to what impact he’s had on our lives and will continue to have on our lives forever.”

TJ was an inspiration for many students in the department of civil engineering.

“He got many students interested in the civil engineering department,” Anderson said. He really dedicated his life in his four years [here] to Iowa State and the civil engineering department. “It’s something for all of us that knew him well and had also spent a ton of time with him in the Town Engineering Building, for us to come back and reflect on that years in the future.”

Many students who didn’t personally know TJ played a part in the construction of the memorial project. About 30 students volunteered to help install the table.

“It still amazes me how many people did come and help out,” Barone said. “A good number of freshmen and sophomores showed up. That just proves to you how much an impact TJ had on this department,” he said.

“People came back from jobs that they graduated to in order to be here for this,” Hartwell said. “It represents the people he touched that came back to work on it and put a lot of time in to it, because it’s a culmination of those efforts.”

To many who knew TJ, he was very social and wanted to get involved as much he could at Iowa State.

“His outlook on college wasn’t just school,” Hartwell said. “It was getting involved as well as getting other people involved and helping other people out. In that way he impacted a lot of students in this department, and everyone he met remembers him some way or another.”

He liked to make people feel good about themselves. He was always positive and upbeat, Good said.

The memorial patio is a place for students to socialize and communicate with each other.

“It provides a place where students can come, meet, have fun and make their own memories,” Hartwell said, “or reminisce the memories they had with TJ.”

“The octagonal shape really fosters that kind of environment and space we created with the memorial tree and the new landscaping. This is a space he would always come out to. That’s what we tried to do,” Anderson said.

“We want people to use it and people to remember that he was a student here, he made a contribution,” Johnson said, “to learn a little about him and what he did for the college.”

Friends and family of TJ know that he will be eternally missed, but the memorial patio they created for their friend and mentor will never allow him to be forgotten at Iowa State.