The Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) yesterday gave a posthumous Golden Road Award to former National Freeway Bureau director-general Shih Chung-kuang (石中光) and the bureau’s former technical division chief, Wu Lin (巫燐), for their contributions to the national highway system.
Shih was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award and Wu the Special Contribution Award.
As Shih and Wu passed away in 2004 and 2010 respectively, their daughters accepted the awards on behalf of their fathers at the ceremony.
Shih was in charge of constructing the Formosa Freeway (National Freeway No. 3) in 1987, at a time when the nation was experiencing a rapid increase in freeway traffic volume due to a booming economy.
He was also responsible for overseeing follow-up projects on the freeway.
Shih also established the National Freeway Construction and Management Fund, a mechanism that allows the bureau to use toll fees for freeway maintenance work and to build new freeways.
He also set up a pavement maintenance and management system, which the bureau uses to determine the priority of maintenance work to be carried out each year.
The bureau said that Wu’s story was an example of how a college education is not the only way to prove one’s ability.
A graduate of a vocational high school, Wu taught himself to write computer programs that would later be used by construction teams to calculate and design bridges and highway routes.
He also taught himself to read Japanese and studied Japanese advanced technology, using the knowledge he gained to teach co-workers with undergraduate or graduate degrees.
Prior working at the bureau, Wu worked for the Directorate-General of Highways on the construction of the Northern Cross-Island Highway.
His involvement on the project was recorded in his journal, which he kept for 60 years and which served as important historical records.
Shih’s daughter, Shih Chuen-yi (石淳益), said that her father worked for 48 years, from the age of 23 to 71.
She said that she remembers watching her father while he talked with other engineers at the bureau, adding that her father taught her about concentration, steadfastness, working hard and teaching those who are less experienced.
Wu’s daughter, Wu Hsuei-min (巫雪敏), said that she rarely saw her father at home before she went to college, because he was almost always at work.
She said that she was not always an obedient child, and it was not until she read her father’s journals two years ago that she realized how difficult construction work is.
“I would probably have been a better daughter if I had read my father’s journals earlier,” Wu Hsuei-min said.
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