Bruce K. Donaldson was first exposed to aircraft inertia loads when he was a carrier-based US Navy antisubmarine pilot. He subsequently worked in the structural dynamics area at the Boeing Company and at the Beech Aircraft Corporation in Wichita, Kansas, before returning to school and embarking on an academic career in the area of structural analysis. He became a professor of aerospace engineering and then a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Maryland. Professor Donaldson is the recipient of numerous teaching awards and has maintained industry contacts, working various summers at government agencies and for commercial enterprises, the last being Lockheed Martin in Fort Worth, Texas. He is the author of Introduction to Structural Dynamics, also published by Cambridge University Press.