The most important thing required to fly is a desire to fly. Pralhad Pant and his wife, Bindu Pant from Nepal, have always desired to travel to the United States for their studies. Unfortunately, they were denied a passport by the autocratic Panchayat government of Nepal. After years of struggle, the Pants met their dream in 1976 and have lived in the US ever since, studying in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and working in Cincinnati, Ohio, and Atlanta, Georgia.
Pant started his teaching career in 1976 as a teaching assistant/fellow at the University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA. Before that, he worked as a highway engineer at the Ministry of Transport, Roads Dept., Nepal, from 1962 to 1975. He received a master’s in public works from the University of Pittsburgh in 1977. In 1980, he received his Ph.D. in civil engineering from the same university, becoming the first Nepali to receive an engineering Ph.D. from a university in the United States. After that, he was also the first Nepali to teach engineering at a university in the United States faculty member.
In 2003, Dr. Pant took voluntary retirement from his job as professor of civil engineering at the University of Cincinnati, where he taught for twenty-seven years. The university recognized him with the title of professor emeritus, an honorary life title. After his voluntary retirement from the University of Cincinnati, Dr. Pant became an entrepreneur with his startup company PDP Associates. He has been the president of the company, a provider of high-tech “smart work zone systems,” for the past eighteen years.
In 2008, Pralhad Pant and his wife, Bindu, started the Pralhad & Bindu Pant Orphans Foundation (a non-profit, 501[c]3 organization) with an endowment fund of $150,000, which has been providing food, shelter, and education to Nepal’s poorest, parentless children. “When my wife and I wanted to assist Nepal’s children, we could not think of anyone other than its orphans, who are deprived of their parent’s love and care at a very early age,” said Dr. Pant.
Pant was the President of ANMA (Association of Nepalese in Midwest America) from 1991 to 1993. In 1991, he founded the NAC (Nepalese American Council), later renamed the NRN NCC of the USA in 2010. He served as the president of the Institute of Transportation Engineers, Ohio Section (1996) and the American Society of Civil Engineers, Cincinnati Section (1991–1992). He was the first foreign-born person to serve as president of these organizations. The contributions of Pant and his wife to the community are indeed praiseworthy and will continue to impact the lives of many who desire to explore the world as they did when they were young.
Pralhad Pant: The First American Professor of Engineering from the Nepali Community
