William (Bill) Connell, age 95, a resident of Huntsville since 1961 passed away on
August 14th. A registered Professional Civil/Structural Engineer and Land Surveyor, he was the son of Lexa and William J. Connell of Chilton County Alabama and was born on July 16, 1928.
Raised in Mountain Creek, Alabama, he attended Marbury/Mountain Creek High School, and Ocean Springs High School in Mississippi. In 1944, during World War II, at the age of 16, he enlisted in the US Maritime Service and sailed as Able-Bodied Seaman in both the Atlantic and Pacific war zones. After the war he completed his high school education in Clanton and in Gadsden, Alabama in 1948.
A graduate of Auburn University, he received his undergraduate degree in Civil Engineering in1952, was commissioned in the US Army, Corps of Engineers and served in the Korean War. He was ultimately discharged honorably as Captain, U.S. Army, COE. Returning to Auburn in 1957, duly registered as Professional Engineer in the State, he served on the Civil Engineering Department faculty while earning the Master of Civil Engineering degree in 1959. In 1961 he joined Brown Engineering Company in Huntsville, Alabama. Deeply involved in NASA’s Saturn 5 Program at both the company’s Huntsville and Cape Canaveral Office, it included NASA’s move to Merritt Island, engineering reports on the Vertical Assembly Building and transportation studies of moving Vehicle to Launch Pad. He ultimately became Manager of the Company’s Equipment Systems Division.
Leaving Brown in 1971 he entered private practice by founding the Engineering/Architectural firm Connell, Bell & Ellis, Inc. As President and Chief Engineer of the firm for 23 years he was Engineer of Record for numerous civil and structural engineering projects in Alabama and Tennessee and Surveyor of Record of land title, geographic and topographic surveys in Alabama. During this period, he was active within his technical and professional societies being elected by his peers President of the American Society of Civil Engineers, ASCE, both State and local sections, the American Consulting Engineers Council, ACEC, Alabama, and the Society of American Military Engineers, SAME, in Huntsville. He retired in 1994.
Mr. Connell’s civic endeavors included 10 years, 1980 to 1990, on the Huntsville Planning Commission as vice chairman of the commission and chairman of the subdivision committee. He also served as the first chairman of the Cummings Research Park Architectural Board. He also served as president of the Mountain Gap PTA and as vice president of the Huntsville Council of PTA’s.
He was an avid sailor serving as commodore of the Wheeler Lake Sailing Association, Rogersville, Alabama and vice commodore of the Point Yacht Club of Orange Beach, Alabama and sailed competitively in local regattas in Alabama and Florida. Other recreational activities included tennis, skeet shooting, flying, hunting/fishing and ham radio.
He was preceded in death by his wife, Nancy (Nan) E. Connell and survived by his daughter, Virginia Connell Green; son-in-law, Damon Green of Huntsville, AL; grandson, Christopher Parsekian; and nephew, John G. Ellis of Florida.
