Civil and military engineer William James Reinhold was born on 6 November 1889 in Brisbane. After graduating from the University of Queensland with a Bachelor of Engineering (Civil) in 1916, he was selected with nine other Australian engineering graduates to serve with the Royal Engineers in World War One. After the war he returned to Queensland, serving simultaneously as Northern Engineer of the Public Estate Improvement Branch of the Department of Public Lands from July 1919 and the first Supervising Engineer for the Main Roads Board in North Queensland. In 1923, Reinhold commenced practice as a consulting engineer, his work closely linked with the Main Roads Board and many local authorities. In 1943 he directed construction of the 110km Bulldog-Wau Road over the Owen Stanley Range, described by the late General Sir Thomas Blamey as one of the greatest feats in army engineering history. Built between January and August 1943 under extremely difficult conditions, this road construction was described in detail by Reinhold in the John Thomson Lecture for 1945. Colonel Reinhold was awarded a military OBE for his work in New Guinea. After being invalided out of the army in 1944, Reinhold returned to private practice where, in the post-war years, the backlog in water supply and sewerage schemes in country towns and the demand for improved roads ensured a continual supply of work. Reinhold died in 1966.