Manouchehr Vahidi

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Manouchehr Vahidi graduated in 1957 with an MS. degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Tehran, Iran. He worked as a field engineer at Morrison-Knudsen of Boise, Idaho, which was awarded the $76 million project of building the Karaj dam outside of Tehran. Upon the completion of the Karaj dam construction, he became the chief resident engineer of the Shahnaz dam (later Ekbatan dam Hamedan) construction, in addition to the deputy managing director of the Hamedan water authority, a $20 million project.

He left Iran for Philadelphia, USA in 1964 to work with Justin and Courtney, an engineering firm, on designing the Zarine Rood and Doroodzan dams. While in the United States, he obtained a Masters of Civil Engineering degree, along with a minor in Economy, from the University of Delaware in 1967. Upon returning to Iran, he became the Deputy Chief of the Dam and Irrigation section of Iran's National Planning Organization (Sazman Barnameh) and was put in charge of the technical and economic reviews of all water and dam projects nationwide. In 1970, he was appointed to the head of the regional planning department in the National Planning Organization. It was at this time that he pioneered the concept of regional planning by dividing the country into 11 regions and carried out a development plan in those regions with the help of various consulting companies, such as Battelle Memorial Institute. At first, the revolutionary idea of giving local states power in their own planning and resource allocation was met with resistance from the traditional sectoral planning group and the cabinet ministers. However, local planning organizations eventually became a reality in all of the country's states. In 1973, He became the deputy Minister of the Housing and Development Ministry (Abaadaani va Maskan) and he proposed a new bill to change the mission and the name of the ministry from Abaadaani va Maskan to Maskan va Shahrsazi(Housing and Urban development) which was approved shortly thereafter. In this role, he was able to implement a comprehensive plan for Iran's nationwide growing population settlement. During this time, he was also an active member of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme and was chosen by the United Nations to chair the Middle East/Asia committee in their 1975 conference. By working with the United Nations, he was able to open up the first center for building and housing research center in Iran.

Manouchehr Vahidi has written numerous books and articles on the housing and water situation in Iran. His books include Ganats of Iran (in Persian 1964), Movable Dam Engineering (in English 1966), Water and Irrigation in Iran (English 1967), Estimation of Consumptive Use With Scarce Data (English 1967) a method for development plans supervision (1978). He has also been active in publishing and speaking at a number of different international conferences and forums, such as the International Conference On Water For Peace, ECAFE, Hydrology Seminar Of Cento, United Nations Human Settelments Conference, New Technics Of Planning, International Conference On Phsical Planning and the World Bank Economic Development Institute(EDI).

After retiring in 1980, he started a private engineering consulting firm and became the editor-in-chief of the "Building" magazine (1989-1994). He is currently active in research and consulting work in areas of civil engineering, engineering economics and development planing. He lives with his wife of 42 years in close proximity of his 3 children and 4 grandchildren.