Eric Gabriel (2 April 1927 – 2015) was a British

mechanical engineer Mechanical may refer to: Machine * Machine (mechanical), a system of mechanisms that shape the actuator input to achieve a specific application of output forces and movement * Mechanical calculator, a device used to perform the basic operations of ...

in the

construction industry Construction is a general term meaning the art and science to form objects, systems, or organizations,"Construction" def. 1.a. 1.b. and 1.c. ''Oxford English Dictionary'' Second Edition on CD-ROM (v. 4.0) Oxford University Press 2009 and come ...

Audrey Stevenson.
Eric Gabriel obituary
" ''The Guardian,'' Tuesday 22 September 2015. and 4th president of the International Project Management Association,IPMA, ''IPMA, 50 years – Building Bridges Worldwide,'' Panama Edition, 2015. p. 110 known for his contribution to the development and professionalism of

project management Project management is the process of leading the work of a team to achieve all project goals within the given constraints. This information is usually described in project documentation, created at the beginning of the development process. Th ...

Biography

Gabriel was born in

Leeds Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by populati ...

in 1927, the son of Louis Gabriel, a tailor, and Fanny (Stone) Gabriel. After attending the

Cockburn School Cockburn School (formerly Cockburn High School) is a mixed secondary school located in the Beeston area of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. The original school on this site was Parkside secondary modern, which was an all-boys school. The he ...

, he obtained his Bsc in

mechanical engineering Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and mathematics principles with materials science, to design, analyze, manufacture, and ...

in 1947 at the

University of Leeds , mottoeng = And knowledge will be increased , established = 1831 – Leeds School of Medicine1874 – Yorkshire College of Science1884 - Yorkshire College1887 – affiliated to the federal Victoria University1904 – University of Leeds , ...

. After his graduation Gabriel served at the

Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers The Corps of Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME ) is a corps of the British Army that maintains the equipment that the Army uses. The corps is described as the "British Army's Professional Engineers". History Prior to REME's for ...

, and afterwards started his career in the construction industry. From 1947 to 1957 he was resident engineer at

Babcock & Wilcox Babcock & Wilcox is an American renewable, environmental and thermal energy technologies and service provider that is active and has operations in many international markets across the globe with its headquarters in Akron, Ohio, USA. Historicall ...

and participated in the construction of conventional

power station A power station, also referred to as a power plant and sometimes generating station or generating plant, is an industrial facility for the generation of electric power. Power stations are generally connected to an electrical grid. Many p ...

s. From 1957 to 1969 he was chief commissioning engineer for The Nuclear Power Group at Knutsford, England, and contributed to the construction of two of Britain's first nuclear power stations: the

Berkeley nuclear power station Berkeley nuclear power station is a decommissioned Magnox nuclear power station situated on the bank of the River Severn in Gloucestershire, England. The ongoing decommissioning process is being managed by Nuclear Decommissioning Authority sub ...

and the

Dungeness Nuclear Power Station The Dungeness nuclear power stations are a pair of non-operational nuclear power stations located on the Dungeness headland in the south of Kent, England. Dungeness A is a legacy Magnox power station consisting of two 250MWe reactors which we ...

. In those days Gabriel was chief commissioning engineer for the Nuclear Power Group (TNPG). In the 1978 he moved to

Foster Wheeler Foster Wheeler AG (formerly Foster Wheeler Inc.) was a Swiss global engineering conglomerate with its principal executive offices in Reading, UK and its registered office in Baar, Canton of Zug, Switzerland. Foster Wheeler was added to the NASDA ...

, where he became cost and planning manager. In 1972 he had been co-founder of the

Association for Project Management The Association for Project Management is a British professional organisation for project and programme management. It received a Royal Charter in 2017, and is a registered charity. It has over 37,500 individual and 550 corporate members, and ...

and became its chairman from 1982 to 1986. From 1985 to 1988 he also served as president of the International Project Management Association as successor of the Danish

Steen Lichtenberg Steen Lichtenberg (1930-2019) is a Danish engineer, Emeritus Professor of Project and Construction Management at the Technical University of Denmark, author and management consultant. He is known from his 1978 textbook on new project management, whi ...

, and was succeeded by the German

Roland Gutsch Roland W. Gutsch (3 November 1925 - 20 February 2009) was a German engineer at the German aircraft manufacturer Dornier, known as co-founder and President of the International Project Management Association,IPMA, ''IPMA, 50 years - Building Bridges ...

. In the late 1980s and early 1990s he was project manager at the construction of the Sainsbury Wing at the

National Gallery The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current Director o ...

, and at the rebuilding of the opera house at

Glyndebourne Glyndebourne () is an English country house, the site of an opera house that, since 1934, has been the venue for the annual Glyndebourne Festival Opera. The house, located near Lewes in East Sussex, England, is thought to be about six hundr ...

. Gabriel was among others awarded the

Freedom of the City The Freedom of the City (or Borough in some parts of the UK) is an honour bestowed by a municipality upon a valued member of the community, or upon a visiting celebrity or dignitary. Arising from the medieval practice of granting respected ...

of London, and a

Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA), also known as the Royal Society of Arts, is a London-based organisation committed to finding practical solutions to social challenges. The RSA acronym is used m ...

Selected publications

* Eric Gabriel. "Access and the project manager." ''International Journal of Project Management,'' Volume 3, Issue 4, November 1985Article cited in: Atkinson, Andy. "Access and the project manager—regulation or education?." ''International Journal of Project Management'' 4.2 (1986): 74–76. * Gabriel, Eric. "The lean approach to project management." ''International Journal of Project Management'' 15.4 (1997): 205–209. * Gabriel, Eric. "The cultural dimensions of project management," in:

Hasso Reschke Hasso may refer to: * Hasso von Boehmer (1904–1945), German soldier and part of the 20 July plot to assassinate Hitler * Hasso Krull (born 1964), Estonian poet, literary and cultural critic, and translator * Hasso von Manteuffel (1897–1978), G ...

& Heinz Schelle. ''Dimensions of Project Management: Fundamentals, Techniques, Organization. Applications.'' 1990. p. 79–84

References

External links

Eric Gabriel obituary
''The Guardian,'' 2015
Project management community pay tribute to Eric Gabriel
at apm.org.uk, 2015. {{DEFAULTSORT:Gabriel, Eric 1927 births 2015 deaths English mechanical engineers People educated at Cockburn School, Leeds Engineers from Yorkshire Alumni of the University of Leeds