Norfolk City Virginia USGenWeb Archives Obituaries.....Face, Samuel A May 2, 2001
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Suzy Fleming wardflemin@aol.com April 21, 2013, 7:42 pm

Virginian-Pilot, The (Norfolk, VA) - Friday, May 4, 2001


Deceased Name: CONSTRUCTION INNOVATOR SAMUEL A. FACE JR. DIES

 Samuel A. Face Jr., whose equipment for measuring the flatness of concrete 
floors became widely used in the construction industry, died Wednesday at age 
77 after an illness. 
While one of his companies was pouring a concrete floor for a project in the 
mid-1970s, the customer asked Face how to determine whether a floor in another 
part of the project was level. 
Face and one of his sons, Allen, studied the problem and devised a way to 
measure a floor's flatness. 
Their equipment and numerical system for measuring how level a floor or 
roadway was were eventually adopted by construction companies, testing labs 
and highway departments. 
''He came up with a system that allowed all of us to verify the tolerances'' 
required in construction contracts, said Terry Fricks, president and owner of 
a Fort Worth, Texas, company that installs concrete floors for industrial 
projects. 
Before Face's equipment and measuring system became available, said 
Fricks, ''you never knew whether the tolerances were being met'' until after a 
project had been completed and something went wrong. 
Level floors were increasingly important to owners of warehouses because it 
enabled them to stack materials much higher. 
Face's companies eventually concentrated on manufacturing his measurement 
equipment and providing consulting services. 
Before joining his family's contracting company in Norfolk in 1951, Face 
worked for four years at Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Co., where one 
of his jobs involved making cost estimates for construction of the S.S. United 
States, Brad Face, one of his sons, said. 
The senior Face attended the Norfolk division of the College of William and 
Mary and later earned a degree in marine engineering and naval architecture at 
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 
Face, an avid boating enthusiast, retired as chairman of the Face Companies in 
Norfolk last December. 

Additional Comments:
Elmwood

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