Richard Dague, professor of civil engineering at Iowa State, died on Oct. 16 at the age of 65 while out of town.

Dague, who worked at ISU for 12 years, suffered a heart attack while in Greece at a conference, said Lowell Greimann, chair of the Civil and Construction Engineering Department.

Greimann was Dague’s associate chair and said he learned his duties as chair from Dague.

He said Dague was very helpful in making sure Greimann understood the position of chair.

Dague served as chair of the Civil and Construction Engineering Department from 1985 to 1990. Dague received his B.S. in civil engineering from ISU in 1959 and his MS in sanitary engineering in 1960.

He went on to get his Ph.D. in environmental health engineering from the University of Kansas in 1967.

Greimann said Dague was a super enthusiastic guy who was excited about getting engineering into practice.

“He loved teaching. He was a good teacher who did well,” Greimann said.

Dague was a civil engineering educator in environmental engineering for 27 years and taught at Kansas State University and the University of Iowa.

In addition to teaching, Dague had 13 years of practical engineering experience, including the U.S. Navy, Senior Environmental Consultant for Henningson, Durham & Richardson, Inc., and principal engineer in his own consulting firm, according to a press release.

Tim Ellis, assistant professor in civil and construction engineering, knew Dague from the start of his ISU career. Dague was the head of the search committee that brought Ellis to ISU last year after graduating from Clemson University.

“He was a very personable and enthusiastic person and his enthusiasm was contagious,” Ellis said.

Ellis said Dague had a group of 16 graduate students working with him. “He really took good care of them by taking a personal interest in their lives and their research work.

“After attending a recent professional meeting in Dallas with Dick, I was amazed to see the number of his former students that came to see Dick and express their appreciation for all of the help that he had given them over the years,” Ellis said.

“He had a good nucleus of graduate students and kept them busy working on different aspects,” Greimann said. A press release stated that Dague had supervised 77 graduate students through their advanced studies.

“Dick was always glad to help and glad that his students had accomplished so much,” Ellis said.

“I think it was this pride in his students that made him the eternal optimist that he was.”

A visitation will be held from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. tonight at the Adams Funeral Home. Services will be held at Bethesda Lutheran Church in Ames at 10:30 a.m. on Thursday with the Rev. Christa von Zychlin officiating.

The family requests memorials be sent to the Dr. Richard R. Dague Scholarship Fund, care of First National Bank in Ames.