CHARLOTTESVILLE, July 10 – Joseph S. Cragwall, resident of the Colonnades Retirement Community, Charlottesville, since 1991, died Tuesday, June 24, 2008.

A native of Richmond, born to Joseph S. Sr. and Florence Bristow Cragwall on August 3, 1919, he attended Virginia public schools in Richmond, Petersburg, and Cartersville, Cumberland County, before graduating from the University of Virginia in 1940 with a Bachelor of Civil Engineering degree.

After a year in the engineering department of Allied Chemical at Hopewell, he entered on duty with the United States Geological Survey (USGS) in 1941 as a hydraulic engineer at the agency's Charlottesville district office.

Later assignments of increasing responsibility placed him successively in Marion, Baton Rouge, LA, Washington, D.C., and Reston, where he retired from full-time service in 1980. In the later years (1974-79), he headed the agency's Water Resources Division as Chief Hydrologist before retiring in 1980 from his final assignment as Associate Director of the USGS.

For many years after full time service with USGS, he served as consultant and advisor to that agency and to other organizations in the field of water resources management, including a four-year term, from 1982 until 1986, as a member of the Virginia State Water Control Board.

Cragwall was active in a number of professional and scientific organizations including the American Society of Civil Engineers, the National and Virginia Societies of Professional Engineers, the American Geo-physical Union, and the American Water Resources Association. He was the first nominee of USGS to attend the Federal Executive Institute in Charlottesville as one of its early sessions.

He was a recipient of the Distinguished Service Award of the U.S. Department of the Interior (1976), the Julian Hinds Award of the American Society of Civil Engineers (1985), and the Engineer of the Year Award of the Virginia Society of Professional Engineers (1986).

He was a member Olivet Presbyterian Church of Charlottesville and a previous member of Jefferson Park Baptist Church of Charlottesville and Fairfax Virginia Baptist Church.

Cragwall was married in 1941 to Jane Elizabeth Anderson of Cartersville who died in 1991 shortly after the move to Charlottesville.

He is survived by a daughter, Linda Cragwall Kubistek; son-in-law, James R. Kubistek; grandchildren, Katherine Lynn and James Joseph Kubistek; step-sister, Hart B. Peck of Roanoke; and by a beloved friend, Mary Flippen of Charlottesville.

A memorial service for Mr. Cragwall was held June 29 at The Colonnades located at 2600 Barracks Road.

Donations may be made to Meals on Wheels at the following address: Meals on Wheels, KCRC, 2270 Ivy Road, Charlottesville, VA 22903.