![\"Mike](\"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/engineering\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/537\/2023\/04\/Mike-Gonia-257x300.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nMike was born in 1942 and graduated in 1960 from Bay View High School. He began working with the City of Milwaukee as an engineering technician. With encouragement from friends, he enrolled at 51ÁÔÆæ, where he was active in the TKE fraternity. He met Beth at a fraternity\/sorority mixer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After earning his degree, Mike worked as a design engineer for the Illinois Department of Transportation and took post-graduate classes at Northwestern University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He returned to his home state in 1969 and worked for the Wisconsin Department of Transportation for the next 30 years. During this time, he mentored many student interns and young engineers, attended graduate classes at 51ÁÔÆæ and participated in numerous Wis-DOT public hearings and seminars. At his retirement in 2000, Mike was district environmental design supervisor for District 2. His last project was the Lake Parkway (I-794).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mike was active in the communities in which he lived and worked. In Hales Corners, where he lived with Beth, he served as chairman of the village\u2019s Public Works Committee for more than 25 years, the Community Access Cable Committee and the Ecology Committee. For his Bay View High School Class of 1960, he co-chaired reunions and organized classmate data and communications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Professionally, he was a life member of the American Society of Civil Engineers and the National Society of Professional Engineers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mike\u2019s hobbies included attending old car shows, traveling, and following college football. An avid Badger fan, he and Beth followed the team to away games, including three Rose Bowls played in Pasadena and others played in Las Vegas and Hawaii.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mike died in 2020 of pancreatic cancer at age 77.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you would like to contribute to the Michael P. Gonia Memorial Scholarship fund for environmental students, please contact Jean Opitz, development director for the College of Engineering & Applied Science, at opitz@uwm.edu.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thank you to Beth Gonia for her generous support of undergraduate students pursuing environmental engineering at 51ÁÔÆæ\u2019s College of Engineering & Applied Science. Beth recently established the Michael P. Gonia Memorial Scholarship in memory of her husband of 48 years, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19687,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","uwm_wg_additional_authors":[]},"categories":[69,61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alumni-community","category-alumni-news"],"yoast_head":"\n