Orville Kofoid was born in Portland, Oregon, in 1909. Kofoid graduated from Oregon State College in 1932 with a BS in civil engineering. He worked for the Oregon State Highway Department from 1932 until 1939; during that time, he was assigned occasional projects at Oregon State College. From 1940 to 1946, Kofoid worked for the 13th Naval District Headquarters in Seattle. He returned to Corvallis in 1947 as an Associate Professor in the Civil Engineering Department, a post he held until 1966. Kofoid died in King County, Washington, in 1994.
Images of graduate students studying in the fields of chemical, electrical, and mechanical engineering - departments that had had professional degrees granted in the previous year, 1937.