Dan Urish built his first dam at age 8. The boy with a quest for outdoor adventure dammed a muddy creek near his Illinois home. One could call the project the first of Urish’s long career as an engineer, Naval officer and URI professor that brought him to every continent but Australia, more than 40 countries and hundreds of research sites.

Urish never planned to become a professor, but after retiring from the U.S. Navy, he held a thirst for knowledge and adventure. In 1975, this led him to the civil and environmental engineering doctorate program at the University of Rhode Island. In 1978, the newly minted Ph.D. became a professor in the department. There, Urish pursued research and teaching until four years ago, when he retired.

“For three decades Dan served as a friend, colleague and mentor – always professional and always inspiring,” says Raymond Wright, dean of engineering. “He had an uncanny ability to turn every moment, inside the classroom and out, into a teachable moment his students never forgot.”

While a professor, Urish taught myriad courses from surveying to water resources and undertook research projects on islands close to home in Narragansett Bay and halfway around the world. The Smithsonian Institution sent him to Belize to study the ecology of tropical coastal islands. Sloshing through the mud and roots of mangroves, Urish set up monitoring stations to measure the temperature, salinity, levels and quality of water. And he would return annually for 15 years to ensure the best data.

The professor would also take research trips over the course of a dozen years to the Azores in the mid-Atlantic Ocean. There, he conducted groundwater geophysical explorations and water quality tests to assist the Azoreans with developing water supply sources.

“Islands are just incredibly fascinating places,” Urish says. “They are self-contained ecosystems. To me they are beautiful places to study so it was always enjoyable to go back, even to remote locations.”

The university career came after 25 years in the Navy. In Vietnam, Urish oversaw the drilling of more than 240 wells that provided drinking water to allied forces during the Vietnam conflict. During the height of the Cold War in 1971, the Pentagon sent Urish to the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia to command 800 Seabees building a communications station and airfield considered crucial to maintaining American influence. Besides overseeing construction, Urish drew on his engineering skills to identify potable water sources that previous research said didn’t exist.

Decades later, Urish leaned on such experiences during his teaching.

“I wanted to teach something that students found useful,” Urish says. ”So I tried to bring everything I did into the classroom.”

Students perked up, intrigued by his clever solutions to unique engineering problems. Urish always turned heads when he told of deploying sharp shooters to protect engineers surveying in the shark-infested Diego Garcia lagoon. Not a procedure found in a textbook, he reminded his students.

And he always emphasized experiential learning.

“A lot of teachers would teach the equation but with Dan he would take you to Narragansett Beach and show the physics and math in action,” says Russell Morgan, a former student and now a principal at GZA GeoEnvironmental Technologies.

Urish was always on a mission. While a master’s student, John Spirito went to East Beach in Charlestown, R.I. with Urish, a man twice his age, to conduct research.

“We couldn’t keep up with him,” Spirito says. “He’d be out there with sledge hammers and surveying equipment putting wells in.”

The work ethic left an impression on Spirito, now a principal at GZA. These days Spirito calls Urish to assist with projects at the company that employs some 550 people.

“We have a lot of Ph.D.s and there’s not many instances where we ask our professors to step in and help,” Spirito says. “It says a lot about Dan Urish that a large firm still relies on him for guidance.”