Alrene B.

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Clarence L. Mabin, P.E.

President

Professional Experience

Mr. Mabin brings a lifetime of engineering,

marketing and management excellence to the presidency
of Custom Engineering. He is nationally known and
respected for his knowledge in the field of highway
tubular structures and foundations. Mr. Mabin was a
member of Task Force 13 for AASHTO, Subcommittee
on New Highway Materials. A background that includes
engineering on highways and university projects in
addition to his lighting and pole design, gives Mr. Mabin
outstanding skills to head the firm. Mr. Mabin was Project Manager for several road and bridge
projects for the Nebraska Department of Transportation and Project Manager and Designer for
the O. K. Electric Company of Omaha, Nebraska. He was also Director of Design and Plan
Engineering for a West Coast manufacturer of construction products with annual sales exceeding
$35,000,000. Prior to this engagement, he was General Manager of the Centrecon Company,
with total responsibility for all functions including manufacturing, engineering, accounting and
marketing. Subsequent to purchasing the majority stock of Custom Engineering, Inc. in 1993,
Mr. Mabin headed the Marketing Department for several years, serves as mentor for young
engineers, and serves as a general engineering consultant for several large manufacturing
companies. He currently provides pole and pole foundation design for street, outdoor arena and
other outdoor lighting, traffic lights and highway signage.

Biography

Clarence Mabin, a 1961 graduate of civil engineering from the University of Missouri,
recently semi-retired from his position as president of Custom Engineering, Inc., a mechanical
and electrical engineering firm with annual revenue of $1.5 to $2 million. After a rewarding
career, the octogenarian is enjoying leisure time with his family. He said he is especially getting a
kick out of his two small great-grandchildren who love to play basketball.
Mabins happy end-of-career story is not unlike that of many successful MU engineering
alumni, but as an early African-American student in engineering and the first black graduate in
civil engineering, the story of his path to success isnt quite as typical.
If the railroad passenger business would have held up, I probably never would have
gone to school, Mabin said. Like my father, I was a dining car waiter and I didnt have much
of a desire to do anything else. Back then, working as a waiter on the railroad or a job at the Post
Office were about the best two best jobs an African-American man could get.
After graduating from high school in 1949, Mabin worked for the Burlington Railroad as
a waiter in a private dining car. The railroads chief engineer noticed the young mans keen
interest in building plans that three bridge inspectors were examining in the dining car and asked
him if hed ever considered training to become an engineer.
 Mabin had never dreamed of anything like an engineering career, but the casual remark
sparked his curiosity, and two things happened to push him toward engineering. First, schools
were integrated in 1954. Then, one of Mabins friends who worked as a construction engineer at
Lincoln University told Mabin he could get him a job as a draftsman with the Nebraska
Department of Transportation (NDOT) if he went to junior college.
Mabin enrolled in Missouri Western State College now MWSU in St. Joseph, Mo.,
where he did very well. When he went to work for NDOT, his boss asked him why he didnt just
go ahead and get an engineering degree.
I had a lot of ambition, said Mabin, adding that he initially made plans to attend the
University of Nebraska. But when he went to his meeting with the colleges dean, he had second
thoughts.
He offered me no encouragement, and when he found that Id have to work, he said Id
never make it, Mabin said.
So in 1958, the ambitious young man enrolled in civil engineering at the University of
Missouri.
By then, Mabin and his wife, Forestine, had three children. Forestine was operating a
successful beauty salon in St. Joseph, so she stayed behind. Mabin had no car, but tried to get a
ride back at least a couple times a month.
My high school homeroom teacher from Dalton High School [a black high school that
served students from a wide area] had been a teacher in Columbia early in her career, said
Mabin. All of our teachers had a great concern about us, and she knew a fellow who lived there.
She wrote to him about my [financial] difficulties and he invited me to stay with him. That man,
Dorsey Russell, was like a father to me.
Mabin remembers three MU Engineering faculty members who went out of their way to
help him: Karl Evans, William Sangster and Mark Harris.
Dr. Harris caught me on my way out of class one day and told me that if I had any
difficulties to come and see him and hed help me out, Mabin said. But I didnt experience any
difficulties. It was a pleasant experience. My main goal was to get to class and get it done.
As a student, he worked at the Tiger Hotel and also for an architect in Columbia. He
spent summers in a variety of jobs in St. Joe including work as a waiter and worked one
summer with MoDOT.
When Mabin graduated in 1961, he took a job as a member of of NDOTs bridge design
team. He went on to work for the O.K. Electric Co., Inc., and eventually moved into the steel
tubular products business for Valmont Industries a company that designed highway lighting,
traffic, signing and transmission structure and then Ameron Pole Products.
Along the way, Mabin became a nationally-recognized expert in the design of pole
structures for street, outdoor lighting, traffic lights and highway signage. Even in retirement, he
serves as a consultant, reviewing plans for design companies who need an engineering stamp of
approval on their plans.
In 1993, Mabin purchased Custom Engineering and turned the faltering company into an
award-winning, minority-owned success story.
Mabin said his life experiences have motivated him to point more blacks toward the field
of engineering, just as others influenced him.
It wasnt always easy, he said, but its been a good ride.