Birth date: Jan 12, 1940 Death date: Aug 24, 2024
James Patrick “Papa” Heaney, a devoted husband, father, and grandfather, passed away peacefully on August 24, 2024, at the age of 84. James was primarily known for his unwavering love for family, his kind heart, and his gentle spi Read Obituary
found another Diane and Jim Heaney image in my wifes collection.
This is from a party in 1981 based on the baby in the images. I got this from an album of my wife's—the photos are really her remembering Diane Heaney. The other people are just there in the background. A few people on this thread are included—I will scan this better in the future. These are iPhone images of the actual photo.
I am devastated to learn of Jim Heaney's passing - I am mystified as to how I didn't hear of it earlier. Jim was my MEng and PhD advisor in mid-70s and early 80s at the University of Florida. Through his kindness, persistence, wisdom, and toughness he set me on a career path I would have never dreamed of. I owe him so much. We stayed in contact over the years, including his last few years in Gainesville. In fact, we were trying to set up a lunch date earlier this year. I will miss him dearly. My deepest condolences to the family. Remember the good man that he was and all the great memories.
Jim was one of the earliest to become captivated by the possiblity of Lorus 123 for solving engineering problems. He would have loved the current AI environment. As a start I copied his google Scholar page for a space AI on Perplexity that uses OpenAI. It is sharable so I hope others can use it. You can use it ask questions about the 253 citiations. I do not have the actual text yet but I will add some of them over time. Here is the link if you want to use an AI for his many papers - https://www.perplexity.ai/collections/james-heaney-citations-9ciclWInTBGLzFjHTRdtgA
Just because he did not get an extended chance to use AI i wanted to say that he is very findable in any of the AI's Here is a sample:
Based on the citation counts shown, James Heaney's most cited paper was "Robust water system design with commercial intelligent search optimizers" published in 1999 in the Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering, with 144 citations1. This paper, co-authored with I Lippai and M Laguna, focused on optimization techniques for water system design.
Jim: Best Friend, Best Colleague, Best Man.
It’s been 57 years since our beginning at the University of Florida in 1967. Immediately we formed an enduring friendship and team for urban stormwater and Florida water projects, while incidentally creating stormwater software that remains current today, nearly 60 years later. We started on the large IBM mainframes on the UF campus and eventually shifted to the desktops that we have today. We were fortunate to be able to attract many excellent students to enable this work for so many years, both at UF and the University of Colorado. We were the H&H team! Your passion for Lotus 1-2-3 led to tools that any engineer could employ. You introduced the tools of systems analysis to water resources projects that greatly expanded the usefulness of our and other water software. You were a leader, an idea person, and collegial advisor to students and colleagues (e.g., me). Your many awards from ASCE and elsewhere attest to your respect within the profession.
We had good times, professionally and personally. You and Diane famously hosted student gatherings in your pool. We enjoyed times with our families at the coast, and with students at meetings. You were fun! I will always remember and be grateful for the understanding and generosity with which you and Diane helped me during some difficult times along the way. You and Di were there to support me in a different, joyful manner while serving as best man at my marriage to Nancy in 2010. Our grandkids remember you as “the guy who made us sing” at our rehearsal dinner! Your strong Chicago Irish background kicked in, in all aspects of your life, most clearly in your love of family near and far. Your friendship meant everything to me.
It is with sorrow that I write this but also with appreciation for a life fully lived. I salute you in loving memory. Wayne
Photo: Wayne and Jim in Portland, 2002
“Dear members of the Heaney family: My deepest condolences regarding the passing of Jim Heaney, I was very saddened by the news. He was my PhD dissertation co-advisor with Wayne Huber at the University of Florida. I was indeed privileged to be mentored by that great team as a student. Subsequently, after receiving my degree in 1976, I was appointed to the faculty of Civil Engineering at Duke University. Jim then became a trusted and highly respected faculty colleague and friend, providing excellent advice and encouragement throughout my entire professional life.
I attended his retirement celebration in Gainesville: this was one of many very fond memories of Jim and his wife Diane. Warmest regards, Miguel A Medina”
Thanks, Miguel
Dear Heaney family: My deepest condolences for the passing of Jim Heaney. He was my PhD dissertation advisory committee co-chair at the University of Florida. I was one of his first students when he arrived in Gainesville. I got my degree in 1972. He always encouraged me all-along, while I was a student and later in my professional life. I will always have fond memories of Jim and his wife Diane. Best regards,
Armando I. Perez
I first got to know Jim when I started my career at Woodward-Clyde Consultants (WCC). WCC was the lead contractor on the Nationwide Urban Runoff Program (NURP in the later 1980s) and Jim was part of that team (before my time). When I joined WCC after NURP, I had the pleasure to work with Jim on a similar Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) project to put together a database on highway runoff water quality and make some sense of the data and produce some tools to predict impacts. Jim was awesome to work with! Always great ideas and thoughts, etc. I have been blessed to work with people like Jim in my career. After that, there were some more work collaborations, but more collaborations with the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Urban Water Resources Research Council (UWRRC) which were awesome.
These photos are from the 9th International Conference on Urban Drainage (9ICUD; we engineers love our acronyms!) conference that was held in Portland in 2002. Jim, I believe, was the Council Chair at that point. I had the pleasure to be with him and his wife, Dianne at many national and international conferences over the years. A great person and so very humble and thoughtful. I am blessed to have known and worked with him. He was one of the pillars in our field and was one of the nicest people you could ever meet. Jim and Wayne Huber were an awesome “dynamic duo” at University of Florida. Must have been great to be a student with them. A life well lived.
My sincere condolences to his family,
Eric Strecker
Group Photo from Left: Wayne Huber, Jeff Bradley, Jauques Dellur, Richard Field Jim Heaney, Jiri Marsalek (Canada), Bernard Chocat (France), Larry Roesner, and Eric Strecker,
