Bob McDougald was born in 1928 in Auberry, California, just outside of Fresno. In this interview, McDougald describes seeing the Bay Bridge and Golden Gate Bridge for the first time when he attended the 1939 World’s Fair held at San Francisco’s Treasure Island. Before visiting the fairgrounds, McDougald’s family made sure to drive over the entire Bay Bridge – the new paint and rivets catching his eye, the enormity the structure making a mark on his consciousness. McDougald later attended UC Berkeley and he details his experiences taking engineering courses with T.Y. Lin and Boris Bresler. Shortly after graduation, he was offered a job working with what was then called the Division of San Francisco Bay Toll Crossings. McDougald became a junior engineer working on the transformation of the bridge in the late 1950s, making both decks ready to carry automobile traffic following the removal of the rail lines on the lower deck. In this interview, he describes his experiences in assisting the large conversion project. Following that experience, he would continue as a bridge engineer, assisting numerous conversion, maintenance, and construction projects. Bridges discussed in this interview include the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, Golden Gate Bridge, San Mateo-Hayward Bridge, San Diego-Coronado Bridge, Dumbarton Bridge, Carquinez Bridge, Benicia-Martinez Bridge, Antioch Bridge, and two failed proposed crossings: the Southern Crossing south of the Bay Bridge and proposed San Francisco-Marin bridges or underwater tunnels. McDougald was one of the first engineers on the scene following the collapse of a section of the Bay Bridge during the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake.