Hanns Baumann

October 11, 1930 - May 15, 2022

Hanns was born in Culver City, the son of then San Marino residents Paul and Miriam Baumann, Sr. Hanns graduated from South Pasadena High School in 1948 and received his BS in Civil Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 1953. He was a member of the Sigma Chi Epsilon fraternity.

Hanns joined the Army and served from 1953-1955. He was a company commander serving in the Army Corps of Engineers, stationed in Japan. He received awards for engineering designs while in the service, for bridge design and steel design. Hanns was married in 1953 to Sharon, who traveled to Japan for the wedding. The couple raised two children. In 1961 Hanns and Sharon moved to the community of Emerald Bay in Laguna Beach and more often than not spent their weekends there playing beach volleyball. The couple were avid bike riders, often taking off on their bikes to ride for days at a time. They also hiked and camped in the Sierras of Central California and traveled to Greece, Turkey, Europe, Argentina, Chile, and other countries throughout their married life, often while Hanns was working on projects building housing overseas.

Following his military service, Hanns attended the University of Southern California at night to earn his Master's degree in structural engineering. During the day he worked as a structural design engineer at Robert E Scherrer Consulting Structural Engineering. In 1961, he became a partner in the newly formed Scherrer-Baumann Consulting Engineers. In 1978, Scherrer retired and Baumann Engineering was formed. Eventually, Hanns held structural engineering licenses in California, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, and Hawaii. He was a practicing consulting engineer from 1956 until his retirement in 2017.

In 1981, Baumann followed his love of construction industry product development, forming Baumann Research and Development Corporation, with Baumann Engineering becoming a division of the new corporation. The corporation assisted inventors and other clients with the development of their construction industry products, and Baumann received seven patents of his own, as well as sharing co-inventor status on two others. In 2005 he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Pre-Cast Concrete Association of America. Throughout his career, he formed various partnerships and consortiums to do projects in nearly a dozen countries on three continents, providing low-cost housing using building methods of his own design and others.

Hanns is survived by his son, John, daughter, Kathleen; and one grandchild. Sharon predeceased Hanns in 1997 following more than 43 years of marriage. Hanns' older brother, Paul Baumann '46, who lived in San Francisco, passed away in 2017.

The Orange County Register, July 16, 2022