EngineerOLE

MIS

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2010

CELEBRATING 110�ears OF OLE MISS ENGINEERING

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20 184 2314

In This Issue

2 FROM THE DEANDean Alex Cheng explains his quadruple convergence theory

4 SPREADING THE WORDExxonMobil veteran recruits students to Ole Miss

6 BUILDING A DYNASTYFour generations follow engineering path

8 PUTTING PEOPLE FIRSTMajor engineering company invests in employees, hires many Ole Miss graduates

10 MAJOR RESEARCH ON A SMALL SCALEGroup’s nanotechnology projects focus on protecting nation’s infrastructure

12 ORIGIN OF OLE MISS ENGINEERSchool’s first engineering magazine was started by a student

14 GOING GLOBALUM chapter of Engineers Without Borders extends services to world community

16 OUTSTANDING SENIORSFour students recognized at honors banquet

18 BY LAND AND SEAMMRI digs deep for data and discoveries

20 ENGINEERING A WORLD OF OPPORTUNITIESHenry Brevard family commits additional $2.5 million to school

On the Cover: Engineering students past and present Archived photo courtesy of Archives and Special Collections, UM Libraries (Ole Miss 1915). Photo of today’s students by Robert Jordan. Eric Summers, designer.

110 years of Ole Miss Engineering

Formally established in 1900, the School of Engineering at The University of Mississippi has a rich history. In fact, the engineering cur-riculum and faculty have been integral parts of the university since its founding. Follow this timeline throughout the magazine to see some of the most impressive milestones the school has reached throughout its 110 years.

Editor’s note: We have done our best to accurately reflect dates. We welcome further information so we can continue to preserve the history of the School of Engineering. To submit comments, e-mail engineering@olemiss.edu or write to The University of Mississippi School of Engineering, P.O. Box 1848, University, MS 38677.

1848 – The University of Mississippi established.

1850s – Renowned civil engineering professor John Millington appointed professor of natural sciences.

1850 – State of Mississippi established State Geo-logical Survey, and UM given prime responsibility for its execution.

1852 – Several UM professors complete the survey, which introduced surveying courses into the curriculum.

1854 – Dr. Frederick A.P. Barnard joined UM faculty as professor of mathematics, natural philosophy and civil engineering (Barnard served as UM’s chan-cellor from 1856-1861). Photo courtesy of Archives and Special Collections, UM Libraries

1861 – UM closed due to outbreak of the Civil War.

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Dear Alumni and Friends,This year, the School of Engineering

at The University of Mississippi celebrates its 110th anniversary.

Although I have been dean of the school for only one year, through nearly a dozen visits to various locations to meet and listen to alumni, and by a series of positive events that took place within a short time, I started to real-ize that the Ole Miss School of Engineering is at a cusp of opportunity that can create a quadruple convergence (to borrow a phrase from Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat). By this convergence of positive forces, the school is on the verge of a tipping point that will enable us to jump to a higher, or highest, plane as an educational institution.

Convergence 1: StudentsA few weeks ago, Skip King, a former MDOT

(Mississippi Department of Transportation) recruiter, dropped by. He told me his observation that the older generation of engineers is more introverted, focusing more on technical matters. He also observed and was amazed that the young engineers Ole Miss supplied to MDOT in the last five years are more extroverted. They are curious, wanting to explore different opportunities. As a result, many of them are taking on major responsi-bilities a few years after graduation, even before they are qualified to take the PE exam to be certified as a Profes-sional Engineer. It seems that the Ole Miss “engineering in a liberal arts university” approach has provided the best environment to nurture students as leaders.

To further broaden such opportunities, starting this year, the school has enhanced its Bachelor of Engineering program to allow students to weave a variety of empha-ses beyond engineering, which include pre-med, pre-law, business and management, public policy, military leader-ship (ROTC) and manufacturing.

Last year, to find out the characteristics of our best students, the school initiated an Outstanding Senior Award competition. We gathered from each department the top academic-record earners. (Among this group of about a dozen students, five of them were awarded Taylor Medals, the university’s highest academic honor, which is a number that the School of Engineering never has achieved before). To understand their characteristics, we asked these students to submit their resumes, write an essay and make an oral presentation in front of a panel of judges. To our amazement, these students not only did well academically, but they also could write and speak well, and their resumes were full of extracurricular activi-ties such as volunteering for charitable organizations.

Among this group we found Scott Haltom, a catcher for the Ole Miss varsity baseball team; Christina Bon-nington, a ballet dancer who finished a B.S. in electrical engineering and this summer was named one of five Tau Beta Pi Laureates in the country; Jesse Pinion, a class marshal at graduation, who is a guitarist and wants to pursue a career combining electronics with music; and Anna Hailey, a Barry Goldwater Fellowship winner, who is pursuing a triple major in chemical engineering, chem-istry and Chinese. So these young engineers are not the stereotypical engineers from your generation!

Among our students, we also found a group that was underprepared in math and science when entering the school. This group of students typically struggled, and a large percentage of them dropped out after a year or so. As a state university, our mission is not to educate only the elite. We are committed to turn every student with potential into a qualified engineer. Last year, we started an intervention program called SUCCESS that gathered a group of underprepared freshmen and gave them spe-cial attention through tutoring and advising. After one

From the Dean

Welcome to the new Ole Miss EngineerWe are pleased to present the School of Engineering’s new annual magazine. The contents of these pages, which celebrate the school’s 110 years, focus not only on the school’s buildings and the programs but also on the people—the students, alumni, faculty and staff—who have made this school great for so long.

This magazine is the latest evolution of the Ole Miss Engineer newsletter, which itself has a long history with the School of Engineering (see page 12 for a complete story on the his-tory of the newsletter).

Please note: We have done our very best to provide accurate dates throughout this pub-lication. We welcome your feedback, and we would love to hear your School of Engineering memories. Please contact us at engineering@olemiss.edu or School of Engineering, 229 Old Chemistry Building, University, MS 38677.

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semester, we found 92 percent retention of stu-dents within the School of Engineering and 100 percent retention for the university; the program is indeed a SUCCESS.

Convergence 2: FacultyWhen I was in D.C. this summer, I had a

chance to meet with Pat Johnson (BSCE 54). Johnson, who also earned an M.S. and a Ph.D. at Stanford University and worked for more than 30 years at the National Science Foundation, said he owed his success to the professors who trained him well. He told of how tough Professor Kellogg’s courses were and how he had to retake a course to graduate. (Dr. Frederic H. Kellogg served as dean of engineering from 1950-1964.) He also said that when he worked for the Port of New Orleans as a design engineer, once his employer realized that he was Kellogg’s student, he was given a Registered Engineer license without taking the examination! The same thing happened when he later applied for Stanford’s graduate program after 10 years of ac-tive duty in the Navy—he only needed to mention Kellogg’s name, and he was immediately admitted!

Others, such as John Prados, former vice president for academic affairs of the University of Tennessee System, Paul Murrill, former chan-cellor of Louisiana State University, and Joseph Cerny, former provost of the University of Cali-fornia, Berkeley, spoke of Professor Frank Ander-son, how he had mentored them when they were students and his lifetime influence on them after they left school.

I’ve heard the same story repeated over and over: how well the faculty had prepared them, how close a relationship they were able to develop with the professors and how their career had benefited from that relationship. These stories were told by alumni of all ages. So the school has maintained this core characteristic for ages.

Convergence 3: Alumni and FriendsBuilding relationships with engineering

alumni and friends also has become a top priority of the school. Accompanied by Joshua Waggoner, the school’s development officer, I have traveled to a number of destinations throughout the coun-try to visit with alums and friends of the school. I have been encouraged, and even amazed, by the level of support we received. They said, “We have

been waiting for you,” and “we have been wanting to help” by donating their time to assist with recruit-ment, to contribute ideas to make the school great and to contribute financially to build the school. So how can we not be a great school with this level of enthusiasm and commitment?

Convergence 4: FacilitiesOver the years, the facilities of the School of

Engineering have not been the greatest, compared to our peer institutions. But this is about to change and, to some degree, has changed. The renovation of a historical building on campus, Old Chemistry, was completed. This pleasantly renovated building is designated as the new Engineering Building. It gives the engineering students a friendly space and the School of Engineering a dignity that we never have had before. The building soon will be named after a benefactor.

Construction also is underway to renovate and add an extension to Carrier Hall, the old engineer-ing building. We also anticipate the completion of the Center for Manufacturing Excellence in spring 2011. With Anderson Hall and the Charles Smith Engineering Science Building, these buildings form an engineering complex on the south side of the Circle, right next to the Lyceum. We hope that with successful fundraising, the school can seek to renovate Anderson Hall and build an Engineering Innovation Laboratory Building.

We at the School of Engineering realize that these convergences of positive forces may be un-precedented! We are excited and ready for action! With your help, we hope to transform the school into a great engineering school to serve the state and the nation.

Alex ChengDean, School of Engineering

Are you receiving our new Monthly Memo via e-mail? If not, please send your contact information to engineering@olemiss.edu, and we will add you to the list.

1865 – UM reopens with chairmanship of physics, astronomy and civil engineering established by Gen. Francis A Shoup and Gen. Alexander P. Stewart (Stewart served as UM’s chancellor from 1874-1886).

1868 – Chair discontinued.

1872 – Chair reinstated; William Henry Calhoun of Memphis becomes first graduate of civil engineer-ing program.

1874 – John Hull Wildy of Los Angeles becomes second graduate of civil engineering program.

1882 – Thomas Edison supplied electricity and electric lighting to Lower Manhattan.

1900 – School of Engineering begins with pro-grams in civil, electrical and mining engineering. Dr. Alfred Hume was the school’s first dean. Hume also served multiple stints as UM’s chancellor, and when he died in 1950, he had served the university for 58 years. Photo courtesy of Archives and Special Collections, UM Libraries

1901-1906 – Sixteen graduated with engineering degrees.

1907 – Civil, electrical, municipal and sanitary engineering programs established.

1908 – The first production of Henry Ford’s “Model T” automobile.

1916 – Municipal and sanitary engineering program dropped.

1923 – UM student chapter of the American Soci-ety of Civil Engineers founded.

ASCE officers, 1928: L.F. Sherman (left), W.L. McMullen, W.H. Booth Jr., W.S. Brown Jr., Photo courtesy of Ole Miss 1929, Archives and Special Collections, UM Libraries

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One fateful day in 1973, David Carroll had a revelation.

A young lady, who happened to be an Ole Miss student ambassador, sang at First

Baptist Church in Newton, Miss., where Carroll sat in the congregation. Afterwards, the two were chatting, and he mentioned his interest in studying chemical engineer-ing and that he wasn’t sure where to go to college. At the time, Carroll didn’t even realize Ole Miss had a School of Engineering, but the fellow churchgoer convinced him to visit Oxford and meet with Frank Anderson, then chair of the chemical engineering department.

“My dad and I set off to meet Dr. Anderson with lots of questions because Ole Miss was compet-ing against some nationally recognized engineering schools,” Carroll said. “Dr. Anderson met us and spent four hours with just my dad and me. He showed us the buildings, the labs, the classrooms and, most impor-tantly, the people. His personal attention is what drove my decision to attend Ole Miss and major in chemical engineering.”

Shortly thereafter, Carroll found himself moving from Newton and attending school in Oxford, gradu-ating in 1977 with his chemical engineering degree, followed up in 1979 by an Ole Miss MBA. He began his 30-year career with ExxonMobil (then known as Exxon) in Baton Rouge, La., before eventually landing in Houston, Texas.

While at ExxonMobil, he has had several jobs, in-cluding operations optimization engineer, design engi-neer, refining economist, and coordinator and supervisor of various maintenance groups in the refinery. He then shifted career paths to human resources with assign-ments in benefit plans, compensation, labor relations, re-cruiting, training and public affairs. Currently, he works in the procurement area, writing and administering ma-jor capital project engineering/construction contracts.

Through all of this experience, he has had the op-portunity to work with the top students from most uni-versities across the United States.

“I’ve recognized that the education I was exposed to at Ole Miss was just as complete as those from much larger schools,” Carroll said. “The unique characteristic about the engineering degree from Ole Miss was the exposure I had to other disciplines such as accounting, law, business, liberal arts and political science, compared to similar degrees from other universities.”

For Carroll, another endearing quality about UM was the closeness of the students and faculty and the opportunity to learn from the professors—not just

academics from a book but about life applications in general. His goal now is to make sure others looking for something more than the “nationally” recognized engi-neering brand get the same opportunities he had.

His involvement with Ole Miss and the School of Engineering is based on his belief that people give back based on the value they have received.

“Giving of my time and money to Ole Miss is a ‘statement’ that what I obtained at Ole Miss was valu-able to me,” Carroll said. “I appreciate and value the op-portunities for growth and development I had at Ole Miss and want to show I mean it through my contri-butions. I’m not satisfied with just giving lip service as appreciation or expressing value.”

John O’Haver, a UM professor of chemical engi-neering who has known Carroll for many years, said

that Carroll not only recruits Ole Miss engineers for ExxonMobil but also works with Ole Miss students on their resumes and interviewing skills, as well as ca-reer decisions.

“David is an incredible example of what alumni can do for their alma mater,” O’Haver said. “He has given back of his time, his money and his knowledge. He is a very valuable asset to the School of Engineering, helping us to move ahead.”

To encourage other future engineers, Carroll has served on the engineering advisory board and partici-pates in college nights at Kingwood High School, near Houston, Texas.

“I have been involved in the college nights at King-wood High School for over 15 years. We have met hun-dreds of high school students and presented them with

Spreading the Word By Rebecca Lauck Cleary

EXXONMOBIL VETERAN RECRUITS STUDENTS TO OLE MISS

David Carroll celebrates with his children, Allen and Alissa, who both graduated from Ole Miss in May 2010. Alissa said she chose Ole Miss because it had become her second home.

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information about Ole Miss. It takes one night per school, and, while demanding, it is another oppor-tunity to present students with the same opportu-nity I was given 38 years ago,” Carroll said.

One of the students he recruited was King-wood, Texas, native Rebecca Bertrand, who was Associated Student Body president in 2005-06 and a member of the UM Hall of Fame, among many other honors.

Bertrand said that Carroll, a former colleague of her mother’s at ExxonMobil, spread the word about Ole Miss across Texas.

“Growing up, my parents hoped we would at-tend their alma mater in Monroe, [La.], but nei-ther of us seriously considered it because David Carroll got to us first,” Bertrand said.

His conversations with both her and her old-er sister, Aimee Bertrand Arrington, led them to enroll at Ole Miss.

“His recruiting strategy for Ole Miss is like the movie ‘Pay It Forward.’ For every family he re-cruited, they recruited another, who recruited an-other. More than a decade later, it’s amazing to see the impact David Carroll made on Ole Miss in the Kingwood area,” Bertrand said. “As a former En-rollment Services employee who recruited Texas, I can say there was a sense of security felt when David Carroll was your alumni volunteer at a col-lege fair or working with a prospective family. He is a pioneer in grassroots recruiting.”

Arrington said Carroll loves showing pro-spective students pictures of the Grove and telling them about football game days. He showcases the beauty of campus and then explains to the students and their parents how they will be welcomed into the Ole Miss family.

“His passion for Ole Miss is undeniable, and his enthusiasm is infectious,” said Arrington,

a public affairs specialist for the Houston Apart-ment Association.

Two other students were even easier for Car-roll to recruit: his own children Alissa and Allen, who both graduated in May with a bachelor’s de-gree in mechanical engineering and music educa-tion, respectively.

“You can easily fall in love with Ole Miss by just visiting the campus and Oxford, but, as my dad will tell any student, by getting involved and building relationships with the wonderful people there, Ole Miss becomes a treasured place in your heart that you can’t wait to come back to, and you can’t help but share with others,” said Alissa Car-roll, who started a job in June with ExxonMobil’s Global Real Estate and Facilities Company in Bay-town, Texas, where she is an operations and main-tenance engineer. “My dad’s real love for Ole Miss shows through whenever he talks to people about it. There was no chance for me to choose anywhere else, not because of any pressure to choose Ole Miss but solely on the fact that my dad’s love and excitement about the school is contagious.”

Carroll said it was good for him and his wife, Celeste, to know their children, who had been home-schooled, excelled at the university and reaf-firmed that while the university has grown since he was on campus, the root family of Ole Miss is still alive and thriving.

“To see our kids grow from shy and some-what timid kids to young adults ready and able to take on any challenge they face is what every par-ent craves, and it is perhaps an affirmation that perhaps we didn’t make so many mistakes raising the kids to prevent them from being successful,” Carroll said.

1933 – Electrical engineering program discon-tinued. UM student chapter of Sigma Theta Phi founded.

1934 – Garibaldi E. del Bosque, recognized as the first graduate of the chemical engineering curriculum.

1937 – UM chapter of Chi Epsilon founded as the 14th chapter in the United States and the first in the Southeast.

1938 – Engineering Sciences Building opens. Photo courtesy of Archives and Special Collections, UM Libraries

1940 – Dr. Frank Anderson joins the university as a faculty member in chemical engineering and works to develop chemical engineering program.

1946 – Geological engineering and engineering administration programs established.

1948 – Department of Chemical Engineering established.

Chi Epsilon officers, 1939. First row: Clifford Worsham (left), Dr. Lee H. Johnson, Terry Suber, A.B. Hargis, John Kirk Adams. Second Row: Dr. Alfred Hume (left), Joe Lauderdale, William E. Rust Jr., Leroy Worsham. Note: An annual civil engineering scholarship is named for Clifford Worsham, who graduated in 1939 and received the Engineers of Distinction Award in 1983. Photo courtesy of Ole Miss 1939, Archives and Special Collections, UM Libraries

David Carroll with Alissa and Allen in the early 1990s on one of the many trips to Oxford for his engineering advisory board meetings, recruiting trips and sporting events.

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Building a Dynasty By Deborah Purnell

4 GENERATIONS FOLLOW ENGINEERING PATH

The late Russell Woodburn might be aston-ished to see how many of his family mem-bers followed in his engineering footsteps.

His son-in-law, three granddaughters and two great-grandsons all graduated from the School of Engineering.

So how does one build an engineering-family dy-nasty? Cindy Wall Rich (BSCE 80) said she is not cer-tain, but she believes her grandfather would have been proud of the family’s continued love of the field.

“When my grandfather left his first career at the Soil Sedimentation Lab [Oxford, Miss.], he immedi-ately began a second career at Ole Miss as a part-time and later full-time engineering professor,” Rich said. “As an engineering graduate from the University of Ken-tucky in 1929 and a member of the Kentucky Alpha chapter of Tau Beta Pi national engineering honor soci-ety, my grandfather said he just felt it was time to pass his learning on to others.”

One of those others just happened to be Rich’s father, Damon Wall, a graduate of Mississippi State University School of Engineering and the U.S. Naval Academy, who joined the Ole Miss electrical engineer-ing faculty in 1966. Wall retired in 2005.

“My dad was proud to have my grandfather as his mentor and not just because he was dating my mom, Laura Ann, Russell’s daughter,” Rich said. “My dad con-sidered his father-in-law one of the smartest and [most] generous men he’d ever known.”

Wells Nutt (BSCHE 62, MS 63), a former stu-dent of Woodburn, agreed.

“I’m not agreeing just because I married Russell’s other daughter, Mary Ellen,” Nutt said. “Russell was very generous with his knowledge, and he was very es-sential to my starting the school’s first engineering magazine, The Ole Miss En-gineer, when I was a student. He was my professor, my adviser and sometimes my sounding board.”

In addition to being one of the first advisers for The Ole Miss Engineer, Woodburn is also credited with helping to bring the Mississippi Beta chapter of Tau Beta Pi to the university in 1969. Every generation of Woodburn’s family has been initiated into Tau Beta Pi, the oldest engineering honor society in the United States.

Before retiring from Ole Miss in 1972, Woodburn saw the third

generation of his family enter the Ole Miss engineering school: granddaughters Rich, Beth Wall Touchstone (BSCS 78) and Patty Wall Bowman (BSCS 83). Rich’s sons Tom (BSCE 06) and David (BSME 09) are the fourth generation.

“My sisters and I came into this field when there were very few females,” Rich said. “When I was a

student and up until I graduated from civil engineering, there were only three females in the entire department. It was not a career for females at that time.

“I honestly think I probably would not have con-sidered engineering if it were not for my father and grandfather. During the ’70s, I found that to be the common theme among all of the female engineering

students. Most of them had some male fig-ure that led them to the field, too.”

Bowman shared a similar opinion of her decision to study computer science in 1979.

“I was good at math, and it was a good fit for me. I simply didn’t consider anoth-er field because I grew up in a household where engineering was a part of who we were. We spent all of our time in Carrier Hall since our dad started working at Ole Miss in the ’60s,” said Bowman, who works at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama (Birmingham).

Rich and Bowman described Carrier

Beth Wall Touchstone (left), Damon Wall, Patty Wall Bowman, Russell Woodburn, Cindy Wall Rich and Neal Rich are captured in a 1980s photo used in The Bent, the official magazine of Tau Beta Pi.

Russell Woodburn (left), Damon Wall and his daughter Beth examine the newly installed Tau Beta Pi information board.

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1949 – Civil engineering program accredited by Engineers’ council for Professional Development (later ABET). First master’s degree in civil engineer-ing awarded.

1952 – Mechanical engineering program estab-lished. Photo courtesy of Archives and Special Collec-tions, UM Libraries

1953 – Administrative engineering program dropped.

1954 – First transistor radio introduced by Texas Instruments. Carrier Hall opens. Chemical engineer-ing program accredited. UM student chapter of Me-chanical Engineers Club, later to become American Society of Mechanical Engineering, founded.

1956 – Jess Woods became first Rhodes Scholar from School of Engineering.

1957 – Electrical engineering program reinstated; Department of Chemical Engineering accredited; Joseph Cerny became first Fulbright Scholar from School of Engineering; UM student chapter of American Institute of Chemical Engineers founded.

1958 – NASA authorized by U.S. Congress.

Members of the School of Engineering on the occa-sion of the Carrier Hall dedication. Seated, from left: Dr. Leland F. Roy, Zachary Sherman, A.B. Hargis, H.B. Kerr, Dr. James R. MacDonald. Standing, from left: Dr. Robert Shaver, Dr. Frederic H. Kellogg, Dr. J.G. Douglas, S.J. Spigdon. Photo courtesy of Archives and Special Collections, UM Libraries

Hall, at that time the only building of the School of Engineering, as their “home away from home.”

“We would come to Carrier after school and sit in one of the classrooms to do homework,” Rich recalled. “I am thankful that our dad shared his love of engineering with us. To have your daugh-ters study engineering was simply not suggested back then, but for us it was a natural gravitation.”

And because Rich met her future husband, Neal Rich (BSEE 81) while studying engineering, she said falling in love with an engineer was natu-ral, too.

“I guess my family just has an attachment to engineering majors,” Rich said. “Neal actually took a class under my father. To this day, he still calls his father-in-law Professor Wall.”

Neal Rich is managing partner of the Asset Company engineering firm in Canton, Miss.

So, when Tom and David Rich decided to study engineering at Ole Miss, their parents rejoiced.

“I was so proud when Tom decided to study civil engineering, my field, at Ole Miss,” Rich said. “And, later, when David came to study mechanical engineering, I cried.”

What’s more, Touchstone’s son, Tyler, is cur-rently enrolled in chemical engineering.

“I know my father is proud of the strong fam-ily he built, and I truly believe my grandfather would be so proud to know that his love for Ole Miss engineering has been passed on to four gen-erations and going,” Rich said.

Four Generationsof Ole Miss Engineers

Russell WoodburnCE Faculty1964-1972

Damon WallEE Faculty1966-2005

Laura Ann Woodburn Wall

Mary EllenWoodburn-Nutt

Wells NuttBSCHE 62

MS 63

Neal RichBSEE 81

Cindy Wall RichBSCE 80

Beth Wall TouchstoneBSCS 78

Patty Wall BowmanBSCS 83

Tom RichBSCE 06

David RichBSME 09

Tyler Touchstonecurrent EE student

Tom Rich (left) is inducted into Tau Beta Pi by former School of Engineering Dean Kai-Fong Lee and Rich’s grandfather, Damon Wall, professor emeritus.

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When Ole Miss graduate J. Gorman Schaffer (BSCE 62, MS 69) couldn’t find a job that peppered task-oriented management with people-oriented

style, he did what any good engineer would do—he built such a company.

In 1983, Schaffer partnered with Vanderbilt grad-uate W. Hibbett Neel to start Neel-Schaffer, Inc.

“We are committed to providing the highest quali-ty services to our clients, but we adhere to a Total Qual-ity Management approach, which means we’re equally dedicated to the continuous professional and personal development of our employees,” Schaffer said.

Today, Neel-Schaffer, Inc. is one of the largest pri-vately held engineering companies in the nation with of-fices in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee and Texas. The company pro-vides engineering, emergency-management, landscape architecture, environmental, surveying, geotechnical, strategic-planning and company-development services.

As executive vice president of Neel-Schaffer, Schaf-fer said the firm’s corporate structure enables it to main-tain a strong commitment to local communities while providing access to exceptional engineering expertise. This structure has contributed significantly to Neel-Schaffer’s success as an employee-oriented firm.

“Neel-Schaffer invests in people. Over the years, we’ve hired a diverse and amazing group of Mississippi-ans, many of whom attended my alma mater, and that’s good,” Schaffer said. “Today, we have about 450 employ-ees in all of our companies, and it’s important to me that many of the jobs available go to Ole Miss graduates.

“I think students who go to bigger engineering schools don’t get ahead as well as Ole Miss graduates. I got a chance to interact with all disciplines and all people, and that’s important in today’s world. It’s so im-

portant that I helped build a company based on putting people first.”

Clark Robinson (BAccy 92), who works at Neel-Schaffer’s Jackson, Miss., office, said a perk of work-ing at Neel-Schaffer is the opportunity to work with a group of the “smartest and friendliest people on Earth,” many of whom, like Robinson, just happen to have at-tended Ole Miss.

“The best part about working at Neel- Schaffer is the comradery of working with a group of engineers from Ole Miss. Even our HR director Herb Keck attended Ole Miss,” Robinson said.

In fact, more than 21 Ole Miss graduates work at the Jackson company.

“I’ve worked at Neel-Schaffer for 10 years, and it’s amazing to see the company invest in Mississippi,” Rob-inson said. “On top of that, Gorman is one of the smart-

est and savviest businessmen ever. To invest in your em-ployees so that they become invested in the job is the key to our success. A lot of people know that, but Gorman put it into action.”

Cindy Rich (BSCE 80) thinks Schaffer’s Total Quality Management business approach makes Neel-Schaffer “more than a great place to work.”

“I started working here part time 18 years ago when working mothers either worked full time or didn’t work at all,” Rich said. “Having a flexible work sched-ule was perfect at that time because I could work and raise my young children. Neel-Schaffer offers the best of both worlds. You know your work is thought of very highly by your clients but also know that the company leaders are also looking out for your well-being as well.”

To make sure Mississippi continues to educate and provide quality engineers, Neel-Schaffer offers a minor-

Putting People First By Deborah Purnell

MAJOR ENGINEERING COMPANY INVESTS IN EMPLOYEES, HIRES MANY OLE MISS GRADUATES

To learn more about Neel-Schaffer, Inc., visit the company’s website at www.neel-schaffer.com

Clark Robinson Cindy Rich

I think students who go to bigger

engineering schools don’t get ahead as well as Ole Miss graduates.

—Gorman Schaffer (BSCE 62, MS 69)

‘’

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ity scholarship at Ole Miss. Many of the scholarship re-cipients have gone on to work at top engineering firms, including Neel-Schaffer.

As the company approaches its 30th year, Schaffer said the company plans to continue to provide the high-est quality services in a responsive manner.

“I take pride in our organization and the clients we service, and we hire people who take pride in what they do,” he said. “We are committed to remaining an em-ployee-oriented corporation, which encourages growth and ownership. This is something I said when we began the company in 1983. It’s something that was true dur-ing our silver anniversary in 2009, and it’s something that will remain true many, many years from now.”

1959 – Mechanical engineering program accredited.

1960 – (approximate) The Ole Miss Engineer, the School of Engineering newsletter, was founded and headed up by then-student Wells Nutt. Wells Nutt. Photo courtesy of Ole Miss 1961, Archives and Special Collections, UM Libraries

1961 – Barbara Kerr Beckmann (ChE) became first woman to graduate from School of Engineering. Barbara Kerr Beckman. Photo courtesy of Ole Miss 1961, Archives and Special Collections, UM Libraries

1962 – James Meredith became the first African-American student at The University of Mississippi.

1963 – Robert Lloyd became first to receive Ph.D. in chemical engineering from UM.

1967 – Sam S.Y. Wang, the longest serving faculty member in the School of Engineering, joined the mechanical engineering department.

1968 – Charles E. Smith joined the electrical engineering department; he served as chair of the department from 1975-2002.

1969 – Electrical engineering program accredited. Edgar Lee Caples (EE) of Jackson, Miss., became the first African-American graduate from the UM School of Engineering.

1971 – Anderson Hall opens to house chemi-cal engineering department and is dedicated to chemical engineering professor and associate dean of the School of Engineering Dr. Frank Anderson. First Ph.D. in civil engineering awarded.

1972 – Bachelor of Engineering degree program established for engineering students not seeking a career in professional engineering.

Dr. Frank Anderson and students in front of Anderson Hall in undated photograph. Photo courtesy of Archives and Special Collections, UM Libraries

Neel-Schaffer, Inc. founder J. Gorman Schaffer

Neel-Schaffer, Inc., est. 1983LOCATIONS:AlabamaFloridaGeorgiaKentuckyLouisianaMississippiTennessee Texas

SPECIALTIES:Civil engineeringEmergency managementEnvironmental engineeringEnvironmental scienceForensic engineeringGeotechnical engineeringLandscape architecturePlanning and community

developmentStructures/water resourcesSurveying servicesTelecommunication servicesTransportation

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Imagine building materials so strong that they could withstand the impact of a terrorist’s bomb. A group in the School of Engineering is research-ing such materials.

The Nano Infrastructure Research Group (NIRG) is studying nano materials that show promise in pro-tecting the nation’s infrastructure and, in doing so, has found a niche in the field of nanotechnology.

Nanotechnology refers to the use of matter on an atomic and molecular scale. Generally, it deals with structures that measure only 100 nanometers or smaller and involves developing materials or even tiny machines within that size. A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter. The nation’s infrastructure includes buildings, bridges, tunnels, transportation systems, pipelines, and power transmission and communication systems.

“Many projects are showing promise,” said Alexander Cheng, School of Engineering dean and a member of the group. “The new structural/building technologies devel-oped from this research can be used to improve the surviv-ability of these structures. The findings, recommendations and tools derived can become a part of the decision sup-port system for local, state, tribal and regional leaders, and emergency responders for better preparedness [against terrorist threats as well as natural disasters].”

The group’s research on “Nano Composites for Blast Protection of Critical Infrastructures” is featured as a suc-cess story on the U.S. Department of Homeland Secu-rity’s Southeast Region Research Initiative (SERRI) web-site, www.serri.org. Cheng said that as a result of success in this project, researchers in the group were invited to serve on steering committees for the Department of Homeland Security. Besides Cheng, other group members include Ahmed Al-Ostaz, Chung Song, Elizabeth Ervin, Chris Mullen and Ge Wang, all professors in UM’s Department of Civil Engineering, and Raju Mantena from the Depart-ment of Mechanical Engineering.

Another NIRG project uses nanotechnology along with other structural, material and geotechnical solu-tions to retrofit flood-protection systems, such as levees in New Orleans, as well as other critical infrastructures in the nation. Nanotechnology in this project is focused on developing a new generation of lighter, stronger and noncorrosive materials to improve the performance of systems in terms of strength, durability and resistance to sabotage.

“This project created a keen interest in using mod-ern nano and biotechnology to enhance the performance and safety of the nation’s infrastructures,” Cheng said.

Before the group began its nano research in earnest,

it started modestly four years ago with weekly study meetings to learn about the carbon nanotube.

“We started molecular dynamics simulations by utilizing free, 30-day trials offered by the software com-pany,” Song said. “As one trial period expired, the next person would check out the software until Dr. Al-Ostaz obtained a NASA grant that purchased the software. Three years later, we were successful in securing more than $6 million in research funds and to make a notable contribution in the field. This helped bring into focus the nano-engineering-related research at The University of Mississippi and in the state of Mississippi.”

During this time, the research group published more than 20 journal articles and employed five post-doctoral research associates and more than 15 graduate students. The professors knew they didn’t have the mon-etary resources to compete with the major nanotechnol-ogy centers, but they identified their existing strength in composite structures research.

“We made two strategic decisions: We would not conduct research in the nanoscience areas that discover and create nano objects as we did not have the facility and resources,” Cheng said. “We would focus on utiliz-ing the existing nano objects and seeking their creative engineering applications. We sought to conduct research with a smaller investment but with a larger return.

“We planned to avoid the crowded fields, such as

electronics, biomedicine and aerospace, at least in the be-ginning of our effort. We focused on a field that hardly received attention at that time, construction and struc-tural materials, because of their traditional image of low-tech. Now we believe we have a firm lead in these fields.”

Since nano materials such as nanofibers and nano-wires are very expensive, the UM researchers also sought out less expensive materials.

“Fortunately, not all nano materials are man-made and expensive,” Al-Ostaz said. “There are abundant naturally occurring and low-cost materials that are at or near nano size, such as nano clay, volcanic and fly ash, cellulose nano whiskers and many carbon- or silica-based minerals.

“Recent study of mechanics at the micro and nano level has confirmed that the material behavior can be controlled by constituents at the nano size. Mixing a small quantity of clay, graphene, POSS and carbon nano tubes with polymers can significantly alter the material strength and other mechanical properties. The strength of cement is strongly influenced by the packing of the calcium-silica-hydrate gel at the micro level. Hence, with the understanding of materials laws at the micro and nano level, it may be possible to design infrastructure materials such as green concrete and building-blast-protection materials such as nano-particle-enhanced polymer spray.”

Major Research on a Small Scale By Benita Whitehorn

GROUP’S NANOTECHNOLOGY PROJECTS FOCUS ON PROTECTING NATION’S INFRASTRUCTURE

Drs. Chung Song (left), Alex Cheng and Ahmed Al-Ostaz are members of UM’s Nano Infrastructure Research Group.

Nathan Latil

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1973 – Computer and information science program established.

1983 – Dr. Martha Williams, among the first African-Americans in computer science in the country—and the first African-American woman in the field—became the first African-American engineering professor at Ole Miss.

1987 – Geological engineering program accred-ited. Tyrus McCarty became the first African-Ameri-can to earn a Ph.D. in engineering from Ole Miss.

1990 – Department of Computer and Information Science accredited.

1996 – Steven Hester became first Goldwater Scholar from the School of Engineering.

2000 – School of Engineering celebrated its centennial.

2004 – Engineering Sciences Building renamed the Charles E. Smith Engineering Sciences Building.

2007 – Bachelor of Engineering graduate William (Bill) Parsons (BE 79) named director of NASA’s Ken-nedy Space Center. Parsons was named to the UM Alumni Hall of Fame in 2009. Photo by Robert Jordan

2010 – Anna Hailey became second Goldwater Scholar from School of Engineering. Old Chemistry building renovation completed and dedicated as an engineering building; Sam Wang retired after 43 years of service. Center for Manufacturing Excel-lence nears completion. 110th anniversary celebra-tion to take place in spring 2011.

Nathan Latil

A s the dean of the School of Engineering cel-ebrates his one-year anniversary at the job, he

sees rewards and challenges ahead.“With a number of inside and outside factors

converging, the school is at a cusp to rise and be-come one of the best engineering schools to meet the challenges and opportunities of the coming decades,” said Alexander H.D. “Alex” Cheng, who became dean on July 1, 2009.

Before assuming the role of dean, Cheng was UM chair and professor of civil engineering. He joined the UM faculty in 2001 after having taught at the University of Delaware, Columbia Univer-sity and Cornell University.

Cheng’s achievements at UM include the 2004 School of Engineering Faculty Service Award and the 2007 Outstanding Engineering Faculty of the Year Award. Previous honors include the Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize from the American Society of Civil Engineers, the Basic Research Award from the U.S. National Commit-tee for Rock Mechanics and the Eminent Scientist Award from Wessex Institute of Technology.

A registered professional hydrogeologist, Cheng has founded two international conference

series: the International Conference on Saltwa-ter Intrusion and Coastal Aquifers, and the Biot Conference on Poromechanics. He served as vice president of the Engineering Mechanics Institute of ASCE and vice president of academic affairs of the American Institute of Hydrology.

Cheng holds a doctoral degree from Cornell University, master’s from the University of Mis-souri-Columbia and bachelor’s from National Tai-wan University. His primary research interests are water resources, boundary element methods, me-chanics of porous materials and nanomechanics. He is the principal investigator and co-principal in-vestigator of several million-dollar research grants on nanocomposites, infrastructure protection and levee protection.

He has written three books and published more than 100 refereed journal papers. He has edited more than a dozen books and more than a dozen journal special issues. He is listed in Who’s Who in the World, Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in Science and Engineering and American Men and Women of Science.

A native of Taiwan, Cheng and his wife, Daisy, have two daughters, Jacqueline and Julia.

Nano NicheThe School of Engineering’s Nano Infrastructure Research Group has established a niche of promi-nence in the national nanotechnology scene by conducting several unique research projects. About $6.5 million of research funding has been secured during the last five years, which includes:• Nanotechnology: Modeling of polymer-carbon

nanotube composites at multiple spatial and time scales, Mississippi Space Grant Consor-tium, A. Al-Ostaz, primary investigator (PI), A. H.-D. Cheng, P.R. Mantena, C.S. Song and E. Jao, $25,000, 2005.

• Dynamic response and simulations of nanopar-ticle-enhanced composites, Office of Naval Re-search, P.R. Mantena (PI), A. H.-D. Cheng and A. Al-Ostaz, $75,000, 2006-07.

• Nano-particle-reinforced composites for critical infrastructure protection, Southeast Region Re-search Initiative, Department of Homeland Se-curity, A. H.-D. Cheng (PI), A. Al-Ostaz, P.R. Mantena and C. Mullen, $1.1 million, 2007-10.

• Blast- and impact-resistant composite struc-tures for Navy ships, Office of Naval Research, P.R. Mantena (PI), A. H.-D. Cheng, and A. Al-Ostaz, $925,000 (from $1 million Congressio-nal FY 07 earmark), 2007-08. FY 08 earmark: $1.6 million.

• Structural, material and geotechnical solutions to levee and floodwall construction and retro-fitting, Southeast Region Research Initiative, Department of Homeland Security, C.S. Song (PI), A. H.-D. Cheng, A. Al-Ostaz and P.R. Mantena, $2 million, 2007-10.

• Nano-enhanced and bio-inspired composite materials for mitigation and protection of TIH (toxic inhalation hazard) railcars and station-ary tanks against high-power impact. South-east Region Research Initiative, Department of Homeland Security, A. Al-Ostaz (PI), A. H.-D. Cheng, C. Song and R. Rajendran, $1 million, 2010-12.

On the cusp: Dean foresees great things to come

11

12

A little over a decade after the School of En-gineering’s golden anniversary in 1950, a student majoring in chemical engineering decided to launch the school’s first engineer-

ing magazine. Wells Nutt (BSChE 62, MS 63), who is now re-

tired and was chief technical officer for Union Camp Corporation in Savannah, Ga., said he came up with the idea after noticing a magazine from the University of Kentucky.

“I was spending a lot of time at [retired engineer-ing professor] Russell Woodburn’s house at the time. I was dating my [future] wife, his daughter [Mary Ellen Woodburn Nutt], at the time,” Nutt said. “Russell was a graduate of Kentucky. I noticed that UK’s magazine had a lot of good articles by students and faculty, plus great articles from experts in the field. So, I decided it would be a good idea for Ole Miss to have the same.”

Nutt didn’t know how much legwork would be re-quired to get the magazine off the ground.

“I immediately recruited B. Jerry Huff (BSChE 61) and got him excited about the project. Jerry said he would be the business manager if I would be the editor. I then spoke to Dean [Karl] Brenkert and told him of my desire and interest to do the magazine,” Nutt said.

“Basically, I told the dean we needed such a magazine and asked for his support. It took several meetings before Brenkert finally gave us his blessing to do the magazine. And, although he did not offer financial support, he did assign an adviser.”

Nutt said the next step toward launch-ing Ole Miss’ first engineering magazine was to come up with story ideas.

“We started looking at magazines from other universities, including Florida and maybe one or two Ivy League schools,” Nutt said. “We studied their content and soon had a sketched layout and short presentation of what we wanted to do with our magazine.”

Nutt decided the magazine would be a professional publication for Ole Miss faculty and students. He and Huff formed a peer-review team for students interested in having their research published in the magazine.

Nutt and Huff soon discovered the “sketched layout” was essential to the second step of organizing a magazine—attracting potential advertisers.

“I didn’t realize what I had allowed Wells to talk me into at the time,” said Huff, who was a senior vice president for re-search and development for Buckeye Tech-nologies, Inc. in Memphis, Tenn., before retirement. “I soon learned that as business manager I had to help raise all the money to get the magazine printed. Wells figured we could raise all the money we needed for the project through advertisers. We noticed a lot of the other magazines were heavily filled with ads from engineering firms.”

Nutt said he and Wells secured a list of potential advertisers from alumni, pro-fessors and “even the Yellow Pages.”

Oxford Electric Company purchased the first ad in the magazine. For several years, the company continued to be one of the biggest supporters, Nutt said.

Naming the magazine was the final and easiest step in the process, Nutt said.

“We had already drawn up the pages for the maga-zine, but we hadn’t settled on a name,” he said. “Because my original goal was to advance Ole Miss engineering

over Mississippi State, the name choice was important. You see, Mississippi State didn’t have a magazine at the time.”

Nutt settled on The Ole Miss Engi-neer as the name of the magazine.

“The name was perfect,” Nutt said. “We could send copies to engineering firms and societies and not have them wonder where it came from. Our school’s name was in the magazine’s title.”

Because Nutt viewed the magazine as an essential student publication, he said he believed it was important for students to provide one or two stories for each edition.

“The Ole Miss Engineer was a great venue for student engineers. It proved

that our school produced graduates who had a journalis-tic style and a great technical education,” Nutt said.

With a “perfect name” and a lot of advertising, Vol-ume 1, Journal 1 of The Ole Miss Engineer premiered in April 1961. The black-and-white edition included a best wishes page from Dean Brenkert, a letter from As-sociated Student Body President Billy Lee and a “slew of

comprehensive articles,” including “Man or Robot: The Modern Engineer,” and “Water and Waste in the Space Age,” Nutt said.

“To make sure that [people other] than engineers looked at the magazine, we also included an article called “The Queen’s Court,” Nutt said.

The Ole Miss Engineer continued as a student-published publication until the 1990s. By the ’80s, “The” was dropped, and today it’s just Ole Miss Engineer, and the magazine is geared not only to students and faculty but also to alumni. School of Engineering Dean Alexander Cheng said he would always be grateful for Nutt’s in-genuity in starting the magazine.

“Since 1961, our school has seen me-dia trends come and go. But, Ole Miss Engi-neer, no matter the changes, continues to be the best source of information about our students, faculty and staff, and a great rep-resentation for the School of Engineering,” Cheng said.

Origin of Ole Miss Engineer By Deborah Purnell

SCHOOL’S FIRST ENGINEERING MAGAZINE WAS STARTED BY A STUDENT

Ole Miss Engineer founder Wells Nutt as a student in 1961.Photo courtesy of Ole Miss 1961, Archives and Special Col-lections, UM Libraries

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The president of The University of Mississippi chapter of Engineers Without Borders-USA has a vision of what the organization will be doing a decade from now.

“We are now considering working in Tamil Nadu, a community in southern India,” said Jonathan Jones, a chemical engineering major from Long Beach, Miss. “Because we will be committed for five to 10 or even 15 years, we are trying to do as much research as possible. We are even hoping to have an external advisory board select the program based upon our research.”

Engineers Without Borders-USA (EWB-USA) is a nonprofit humanitarian organization established to partner with developing communities worldwide to improve quality of life. The partnerships involve imple-menting sustainable engineering projects while involving and training internationally responsible engineers and engineering students.

“We are eagerly working to select a program and begin our projects,” Jones said.

Wei-Yin Chen, UM chemical engineering profes-sor and chapter faculty adviser, has met with profes-sors from National Pingtung University of Science and Technology (NPUST) in Taiwan. They have discussed having Ole Miss introduce environmental and energy engineering projects alongside the Innovgreen organiza-tion in Vietnam.

“Selecting a project will be a pretty important deci-sion for us,” said Chen, who is also looking into the pos-sibility of a long-term EWB collaboration with NPUST and other universities worldwide. “Prior to making the decision, we are raising funds, seeking collaborations and evaluating the project options. There are several leads, but they are all in the initial stage of the development.”

Chen and the School of Engineering expect to in-corporate service learning, especially through the Ole Miss chapter of EWB, into the curriculum. He and Christiane Surbeck, assistant professor of civil engi-neering, gave presentations on service learning during a recent North Mississippi American Society of Civil Engineers meeting.

Other chapter officers include Rebecca Werner, vice president, a civil engineering major from Diamondhead; Nikki Reinemann, treasurer, a chemical engineering major from Batesville; Anna Hailey, secretary, a chemi-cal engineering, Chinese and chemistry major from Muscle Shoals, Ala.; Pablo Mariaca, executive officer, a civil engineering major from Bolivia; Caroline Williams, membership coordinator, a chemical engineer from Pass Christian; and Susie Nguyen, webmaster, a chemical

engineering and biochemistry major from Oxford.“As the EWB-Ole Miss chapter is flourishing, its

roots are spreading out among other organizations at and around the university and to nongovernmental organizations [NGOs] in international communities,” Werner said.

Mariaca, who returned home to Bolivia this summer, has been working with NGOs who have experience with EWB. He is also volunteering in communities in need.

Established a year ago, the chapter has 173 members. In May, chapter members discovered the Isha Outreach group, which partners with the Project Greenhands or-ganization to educate farmers about water conservation methods and to distribute tree saplings across the once-forested area in Tamil Nadu.

“Tamil Nadu is seeing a rapid water table drop alongside a soil with decreasing water-retaining capaci-ty,” Jones said. “Our goals there would be to dig new wells and provide a water-pumping station at the nursery and to build water resource-management classrooms.”

Whatever project location is chosen, group members retain their original mission of going abroad in service.

Chemical engineering alumni John Prados and Lisa Wadlington are elated that an Engineers Without Borders-USA chapter has been established at their alma mater.

“I believe the addition of the EWB chapter at Ole

Miss is an excellent idea,” said Prados, former vice presi-dent of the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. “This provides engineering students not only the opportunity for international exposure and sensitivity, but it also contributes a strong service-learning component to the students’ education.”

Engineers the world over are passionate about solv-ing problems, said Wadlington, who worked on sev-eral oil rigs and platforms and is now working out of Memphis with Nucor, one of the largest steel-producing companies in the United States. “It does not matter the language or cultural differences. We can meet as engi-neering students and professionals to focus on providing the right solution to the task at hand.”

Wadlington said her own career has given her the opportunity to work overseas extensively and would not trade her experiences for anything.

“Education and skills really can make a global dif-ference. It all starts with a small engineering school in the heart of the South combined with a personal desire to make a difference,” she said.

Prados agreed with Wadlington’s observation.“Engineering today has become a global profession.

Many large employers have operations in various parts of the world, and an engineer may well expect to spend a portion of his or her career in assignments overseas,” Prados said. “It is particularly important that engineer-

Going Global By Edwin Smith

UM CHAPTER OF ENGINEERS WITHOUT BORDERS EXTENDS SERVICES TO WORLD COMMUNITY

Members of the 2009-10 Ole Miss Engineers Without Borders organization work on a Habitat for Humanity house.

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ing graduates today be open and sensitive to foreign cul-tures so that they can function effectively in positions outside the United States.”

While engineering students make up most of the chapter’s membership, students from other fields of study are welcome. Chapter members said they are deep-ly appreciative for the support provided by advisers, the engineering school, Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College, Trent Lott Leadership Institute, Croft Institute for International Studies and entire student body.

UM Chancellor Dan Jones, who launched a cam-puswide campaign promoting service as part of his inauguration in April, has expressed a desire to share his experiences in service abroad at an EWB-Ole Miss meeting in either September or October.

“Surely, we students are gaining from the experi-ence,” Jones said. “We have spoken directly and through delegates to leaders in communities abroad. We are learning in each step of the program effective commu-nication and planning. Soon, we will begin putting into practice the technical knowledge we have been learning in our years at Ole Miss.”

And the best part?“We travel abroad, giving others what they desire

so that they can better their own communities,” Jones added.

Dubbed the “Blueprint Brigade,” by Time maga-zine, EWB-USA grew from little more than a hand-ful of members in 2002 to more than 12,000 members today. EWB-USA is working on more than 350 proj-ects, addressing such issues as water, renewable energy and sanitation, in more than 45 developing countries around the world.

For more information about Engineers Without Borders-USA, visit http://www.ewb-usa.org/.

15

While many impressive students are enrolled in the School of

Engineering, four stood out from their peers this year. Scott Haltom, Christina Bonnington and Casey Wilson Pearce were named as outstanding seniors at the annual School of Engineering Honors Banquet on April 15, and Melanie Graupner received the David W. Arnold Engineering Award. During their time at the university, the four—a baseball player, a ballerina, an Honors College student and an international student, respectively—have had eclectic outside interests, but their common thread has been making a significant contribution to the university.

Taylor Medalist also a team playerRidgeland native Scott Haltom has always loved

two things: baseball and academics. As a student at The University of Mississippi, he has succeeded in both by playing for the Rebels baseball team and receiving the Taylor Medal, the university’s highest academic honor for students.

“It’s been great, but it’s been a huge challenge as well,” Haltom said of his time at Ole Miss.

A nonscholarship bullpen catcher, he said he has been thankful to be on the baseball team.

“I don’t get much playing time, but the little that I do is an honor for me,” he said. “I’ve always been more of a student than an athlete, so I’ve always been grateful to even be on the team.”

A member of Tau Beta Pi engineering honor soci-ety, Haltom plans to attend Texas University for gradu-ate school, where he has been awarded both a research assistantship and a teaching assistantship. He plans to major in engineering mechanics.

Ballerina exchanges slippers for circuitsOne student almost chose ballet as a profession be-

fore pursuing an engineering degree.But Christina Bonnington, of Houston, Texas, said

her journey to engineering followed a period of disillu-sionment in her ballet career.

“After spending the greater portion of my life pursu-ing a career in professional ballet, I had become increas-ingly frustrated with my peers, management and daily rigors, primarily regarding a lack of intellectual stimula-tion,” she said. “I decided to go back to school and pursue a degree in electrical engineering.”

Bonnington, who held trainee positions with the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre and Ballet Memphis, said her Ole Miss education has given her the skills she needs to succeed in engineering.

“Determination, perseverance, qualities I learned through ballet, are key,” she said. “Faced with problems that constantly need to be solved in new, more efficient, more advanced ways, one cannot give up.”

Bonnington received a Taylor Medal, the univer-sity’s highest academic honor, this year, and this sum-mer she was named one of five Tau Beta Pi Laureates in the country.

OUTSTANDING SENIORS4 STUDENTS RECOGNIZED AT HONORS BANQUET

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Graduate lands job with ExxonMobilCasey Wilson Pearce is pursuing a career with an

oil company giant.After graduation in May, Wilson started work at

ExxonMobil as a reservoir engineer. While at Ole Miss, she was a member of the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College, treasurer of the Society of Women En-gineers and served as director of the Ole Miss Engineer-ing Ambassadors, a group that visits schools to promote STEM (science, technology, engineering and math).

Wilson also was involved with the Associated Stu-dent Body, volunteered for Habitat for Humanity and the Barksdale Reading Institute, and tutored at Central Elementary School in Oxford. An active member of a local church, Wilson has been on mission trips to South America. She also recently completed a half marathon.

German native receives prestigious honors University of Mississippi senior Melanie Graupner,

an engineering student from Germany, was awarded the David W. Arnold Engineering Award from the School of Engineering.

The award is given annually to the engineering stu-dent who best exemplifies six qualities: service, intelli-gence, character, leadership, creativity and judgment.

She also was the first recipient of a memorial schol-arship paying tribute to J. Robert “Bob” Woolsey, late di-rector of the Mississippi Mineral Resources Institute.

“I grew up in a small town in the south of Germany where I lived until I met my husband a few years ago. He told me he was planning to attend The University of Mississippi, and I decided to study [there] as well,” Graupner said. “I love taking pictures and reading. I speak German, English and a little bit of Mandarin. I am trying to learn more Mandarin.”

Graupner was president of the UM Geology Club, founder of the International Ladies Club and a member of the UNITY engineering group. In addition to teach-ing undergraduate physical geology classes, she worked with the Mississippi Mineral Resources Institute.

Triple major named Goldwater ScholarAnna Kathryn Hailey, a triple major in Man-

darin Chinese, chemistry and chemical engineering, was named The University of Mississippi’s 12th Barry M. Goldwater Scholar this spring.

The Muscle Shoals, Ala., native is the eighth UM student to receive the prestigious award since 2000. Last summer, Hailey became the university’s first exchange student with the Institute for Ther-mal Power Engineering at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China. While there, she joined Chinese researchers in their work on carbon storage and se-questration methods.

“I was very happy and excited to learn I had received the Goldwater,” Hailey said. “This scholar-ship will help pay for my fifth year of college, which I need to complete my three majors. Then I hope the Goldwater will help me gain admission into graduate school so I can continue my studies.”

Already with enough academic credit hours to be qualified as a senior, Hailey expects to complete requirements for her bachelor’s degree with three majors in 2011. Following graduation, she said she plans to earn a doctorate in chemical engineering or environmental engineering so she can continue research on alternative energy sources.

Hailey credited Ole Miss faculty and staff across many disciplines for giving her a solid foun-dation for her future career path.

“I would like to thank Dr. (Debra) Young and the Honors College for encouraging me to apply for this scholarship and Dr. (Wei-Yin) Chen, Dr. (Na-than) Hammer, Dr. ( John) O’Haver, Dr. (Haidong) Wu and the rest of the chemical engineering and chemistry departments for their unwavering sup-port,” she said. “Ole Miss has been so good to me.”

A student in the university’s Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College, Hailey is also a Taylor Medalist and member of Phi Beta Kappa and Phi Kappa Phi. Her extracurricular activities include serving as president of the campus chapter of Tau Beta Pi engineering honor society and as past sec-retary and treasurer of the Society of Women En-gineers. She is the founding secretary of the univer-sity’s new chapter of Engineers Without Borders.

Hailey also has been a member of Gamma Beta Phi honor society, an Associated Student Body senator and an Ole Miss Ambassador. She was a member of the Pride of the South Marching Band color guard and a volunteer assistant in UM academic competitions.

17

After the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster, BP and the federal government committed bil-lions of dollars worth of resources to capping the well and cleaning up the Gulf of Mexico,

but the Mississippi Mineral Resources Institute has been quietly investing in studying those waters for more than a decade.

“We have the only research reserve in the Gulf of Mexico,” said Greg Easson, who became director of MMRI in January. “We have the only spot in the Gulf where you can go put an instrument on the seafloor and leave it long-term.”

The Board of Trustees of State Institutions of Higher Learning created MMRI in 1972 to coordinate mineral-related research in the state. This research covers not only mineral resources on land but also off the Gulf Coast. MMRI is heavily involved in marine research and manages a seafloor observatory in an area of the Gulf called Mississippi Canyon 118, which refers to a tract that is leased for oil and gas. MC 118 just happens to be about 10 miles from the Deepwater Horizon site (MC 252). MMRI’s primary interest in the area is gas hydrates, which are crystalline structures of gas molecules, such as methane, encased in frozen water and that exist only un-der specific conditions of temperature and pressure.

In a deep marine environment, the hydrates are stable. But bring them up and put them on a kitchen table, and they soon turn to a puddle of water and gases, Easson said. Researchers are looking at these hydrates’ stability as well as their potential as an alternative energy source and greenhouse gas. This research is funded by three federal agencies: the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement (formerly the Minerals Management Service), the Department of Energy and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration through the National Institute for Undersea Science and Technology (NIUST), which is headquartered at Ole Miss.

“We’re starting to really understand the hydrates’ sta-bility,” Easson said. “We have instruments that have been down there measuring and quantifying the gases coming out. These long-term records like that are key to really understanding: Are the hydrates changing? Are they re-maining the same? Are they dissociating?”

Researchers also have noticed creatures that hang around the gas hydrates and hope to take video images of them, using the NIUST remotely operated vehicle, and then work with biologists to determine species and classify them.

“We have organisms in an environment down there

that eat methane and live in these methane environ-ments (extreme cold and darkness),” Easson said. “What happens to this oil (from the oil spill) if it settles to the bottom? What will it do to these communities on the bottom? We had a crew that found some of the first indi-cations of oil at depth.”

MMRI’s most recent research cruise to MC 118 took place June 14-26 aboard the research vessel Pelican. One objective of the cruise was to deploy multiple legs of “horizontal line arrays,” which are lengths of cable with acoustic instruments wired into them.

“They’re hydrophones so they detect noise,” said Carol Lutken, associate director of MMRI, who has been on about 20 of these cruises. “When they get a signal, it penetrates the sediments, and that’s how we get an image of what things look like on the seafloor. We’re hoping to get some data like that when we’re not out there. If something changes drastically, if the hydrates suddenly dissociate, we’ll be able to know about it. We also hope to pick up small earthquakes.”

Lutken and other researchers also conducted chemi-cal profiling in the water column and on the seafloor to evaluate natural hydrocarbon discharges at the site and the effects of overprinting from the oil release at the Deep-water Horizon site. According to preliminary reports from geochemists who were on the cruise, some parts of the water column show significant and increased amounts of hydrocarbons. The oil from the spill has the potential to affect the hydrates at the research site, Lutken said.

By Land and Sea By Benita Whitehorn

MMRI DIGS DEEP FOR DATA AND DISCOVERIES

Instruments at MMRI’s seafloor observatory support the formation of hydrates in differ-ent types of sediment. The white “splash” on the steep slope behind the instruments indicates that hydrocarbons actively seep from beneath the seafloor here. Photo courtesy of MMRI.

MMRI staff Brian Noakes (left), mechanical systems engi-neer; Ken Sleeper, project coordinator; Larry Overstreet, electronics technician; Carol Lutken, associate director; and Andy Gossett, mechanical systems engineer.

Robert Jordan

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“If conditions are so altered that hydrates dissociate, fresh water and gases will be released at the seafloor. It is possible that some of the gases will travel to the sea surface and [enter] the atmosphere. This is part of what we have been investigating at MC 118.”

MMRI researchers kept a blog of the cruise, and Lutken’s passage from a blog on June 17 said, “So tomor-row is the big day, when we anticipate actually sending the first 16-hydrophone array down. … We did have to wait for some of the oil-spill clean-up vessels to move out of our area this morning and were warned that the controlled burns would be nearer our site this evening, but so far we are managing to work within the limitations of being so close to MC 252. Again, we are impressed with the volume of debris on the seafloor. All in all, however, everyone is pretty positive about this deployment.”

To read more blogs from the research cruise, go to http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/mmri/programs/cruise_blog.html.

Combining geoinformatics and mineral resource research

As former director of the UM Geoinformatics Center, Easson has not left behind his expertise and experience in remote sensing and mapping. Instead, he is applying it to the marine environment.

For example, one research project focuses on the ef-fect of temperature, light and suspended material on the sea grass beds “where the little fish hide from the big fish” in the Gulf of Mexico. MMRI is using satellite imagery to monitor the health of the sea grass, which directly affects

the health of the fish population. On land, with funding from the Federal Highway

Administration, MMRI is developing mobile applica-tions for transportation such as an app that can warn drivers that traffic is backed up near the Memphis Inter-national Airport, for example, and custom trip tickets that would allow a blues aficionado, for instance, to pinpoint stops along a pilgrimage down Highway 61, Mississippi’s blues highway.

“Another application we’re working on is transit systems,” Easson said. “You’re standing out here waiting for the bus, and you’re wondering where the bus is. Well if you can go ‘star 77’ or something like that and have down-loaded the application, now you see a map on your little screen that says, ‘Oh, the bus is there.’ The fact that Oxford does not have bus shelters means that I can stand inside out of the rain or out of the hot sun because it’s going to be 15 minutes before it gets here.”

The institute is finishing a project on which it worked with the Delta Regional Authority to distribute customized GIS maps over the Internet for economic development in the North Delta Planning and Develop-ment District, Easson said.

“Counties over there are relatively poor, and the tax base is very depressed over there. … Many of these coun-ties need access to good maps to help with their county services, whether it’s trash, fire or school buses. So how do we make it possible for them to get access to this data without having to invest time and resources and a person? We came up with the idea of distributing (the maps) through the Internet.”

The stuff Mississippi is made of Defining Mississippi’s landscape also is part of

MMRI’s job. The state’s main minerals are oil and gas, lignite (brown coal), sand, gravel, clay (a large source of kitty litter) and volcanic ash. (The city of Jackson sits on top of an extinct volcano.)

In one project, funded with state appropriations, MMRI personnel are investigating the geologic condi-tions that may affect development in the area where the Toyota plant will be built. While Toyota already has constructed its facility and conducted a thorough site in-vestigation prior to building, many smaller manufacturers can use MMRI’s geologic data to guide them to a good site for building.

“The (project) in Blue Springs will be a set of maps that can be used to guide economic development when the Toyota plant is up and running,” said Charles Swann, MMRI’s associate director for state programs.

The maps will include geological, engineering, land use, utility, electrical transmission and other information.

“If someone is interested in siting something in that particular area, all the information they need will be at their fingertips,” Swann said, adding that the geological engineering maps will be especially important because a lot of land contains clay that expands and contracts and can ruin foundations. The maps will help builders avoid such areas.

A crew aboard the research vessel Pelican lowers instruments to MMRI’s seafloor observatory in the Gulf of Mexico. Photo courtesy of MMRI.

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Engineering a world of opportunities HENRY BREVARD FAMILY COMMITS ADDITIONAL $2.5 MILLION TO SCHOOL By Tina H. Hahn

Iwould like to shake Mr. Henry Brevard’s hand and say, ‘Thank you for believing in me,’” said Matthew Herring of Oxford, a Brevard Scholar and junior electrical engineering major at The University

of Mississippi.Herring is one of almost 500 students who have

pursued their dreams of higher education at Ole Miss, thanks to Brevard Family Scholarships, and more will certainly follow. A new gift of $2.5 million to the School of Engineering brings the contributions of the Henry Brevard family to $5 million. To honor the family’s trans-formative support, “Brevard Hall” will now be the name of Old Chemistry—a central building in UM’s Engineering Complex adjacent to the historic Lyceum on the Circle.

Believing in students through scholarships, giving critical support to the School of Engineering and provid-ing leadership to the university are defining elements of the legacy Brevard and his family continue to build.

“Brevard Hall will provide constant inspiration to the university community, standing as a testament to the remarkable service of Henry Brevard and his family, all of whom are deeply devoted to their community, their state, and to engineering education and Ole Miss,” said UM Chancellor Daniel W. Jones. “We are profoundly grateful to Beth and Henry Brevard and their family for their generosity and involvement that continue to significantly strengthen our university. This new gift focuses on our engineering students and faculty, whose careers will make important contributions on state, na-tional and global fronts.”

Devotion to EngineeringThe Brevard Family Chair in Civil Engineering has

been established with $1.5 million of the family’s gift and will be used to recruit a new, distinguished scholar to the faculty. Another $750,000 will be directed to the Brevard Family Scholarship Endowment in Engineer-ing, which was begun in 1991, and $250,000 will pro-vide operational funds for Brevard Hall to be used at the discretion of the dean.

“We feel the Ole Miss School of Engineering has made excellent progress over the past few decades and is poised to make even greater progress in coming years,” said Henry Brevard of the family’s gift. “We have always thought that our scholarship endowment was important to help the school increase the caliber of our already gifted student body and to help increase enrollment to a point of more efficiency per student, considering the funding available. Our second purpose has been to make engineer-

ing education possible for deserving and talented students who might otherwise not have the means necessary for that pursuit.”

School of Engineering Dean Alex Cheng said Bre-vard is known for playing an active role on campus from his student days forward. Brevard, a 1943 graduate, has served as president of the Engineering Alumni Chapter and as chair of The University of Mississippi Founda-tion, Engineering Advisory Board and the Woods Or-der. He was inducted into the Ole Miss Alumni Hall of Fame in 1988.

“Mr. Brevard is generous with his financial dona-tions, but he also continues to have an interest and desire to stay involved with what is taking place here on campus,” Cheng said. “In particular, he seems to enjoy hearing and seeing those things that affect students of today’s generation. He takes the time and effort to fol-low up on his gifts to ensure funds are used wisely for the benefit of the school and especially for the students. It would be difficult to put into words the far-reaching impact Henry Brevard has had and continues to have on the School of Engineering.”

Henry Brevard first used his own civil engineer-ing degree as a bridge designer with the Mississippi State Highway Department, and then in 1949, he and his father-in-law, Riley Boozer, became convinced that ready-mix concrete was the wave of the future, offering more labor efficiency than the standard of the day, job-site mixed concrete. The two men founded B&B Concrete Co. of Tupelo, the first transit-mixed concrete plant in North Mississippi. The business has expanded to include 12 other locations in North Mississippi.

Brevard’s son, David, earned an undergraduate political science degree from Ole Miss, where he was a Carrier Scholar. He went on to receive a master’s in busi-ness administration from the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia. After a few years of business experience in New York, he joined B&B Concrete, where he serves as president and chief executive officer.

“Although David did not choose to pursue an en-gineering degree, he has had a continuing interest in the profession and in the Ole Miss School of Engineering because our long-range business success depends on engi-neering talent,” the elder Brevard said. “David is constantly exposed to engineering aspects of the business he leads. This has fueled his interest in and provided perspective for important contributions he brings to the Brevard Family Scholarship selection committee.”

“

20

The Brevard family has created a legacy at Ole Miss through their generous contributions to the university. Now the Old Chemistry building will be dedicated as Brevard Hall in honor of the family’s recent $2.5 million gift to the School of Engineering. At left, Henry Brevard with son, David, at the offices of their company, B&B Concrete in Tupelo.

Kevin Bain

21

Engineering TrainingHenry Brevard was first attracted to Ole Miss by a

relative who had recently earned a law degree here and another who was a rising senior in chemical engineering.

“When I was a student, the engineering school was very small and the faculty was correspondingly small, but the individual faculty members were very able and professional,” the alumnus said. “I was particularly impressed by Dr. Lee H. Johnson, the dean, who also taught a number of classes. He continuously worked on his students to improve their ability to think logically. Dr. Johnson knew engineers needed broad knowledge with some liberal arts education in making appropriate use of the technical.”

During Brevard’s college days, the engineering school occupied the north wing of the Lyceum.

“The students were like one big family, doing their work in the drafting room or elsewhere in the Lyceum,” he said. “Some time was spent looking out the north windows and whistling to the passing parade of pretty coeds going from the dormitories to the old Union or the cafeteria.”

Today, the engineering complex includes Brevard, Carrier and Anderson halls, the Charles E. Smith Engi-neering Science Building and part of Weir Hall, where the Department of Computer and Information Science is housed. Construction on a building to house the Cen-ter for Manufacturing Excellence is nearing completion between Brevard and Carrier halls.

While Brevard, a native of Amory and a fifth-generation Mississippian, enjoyed campus life, his strong academic and leadership abilities were immedi-ately recognized by faculty members. Johnson selected him to serve as student instructor—with little faculty oversight—of the plane surveying course, then fairly pervasive in engineering curricula. For teaching, he was given a small office in the Lyceum’s north wing, a signifi-cant perk in the student’s view.

Brevard was asked to return after graduation as a full-time instructor but chose to serve his country. The U.S. Army second lieutenant was a navigation instructor who flew training missions and later completed training on a B-29 combat crew. When he completed his service in 1946, he married his college sweetheart, Beth Boozer

of Shannon, initiating a partnership he describes as his “best-ever move.”

Beth Boozer Brevard graduated from the Mississippi University for Women and is an honorary lifetime member of the Ole Miss Alumni As-sociation. She was honored in 2001 by her family, when her daughter, Elise Brevard Smith of Ridgeland, joined Henry and David Brevard in endow-ing the Elizabeth Brevard Council Scholarship through the Ole Miss Women’s Council for Philanthropy.

Natural Leaders and Givers“ The Brevard family and Ole Miss are synony-

mous,” said UM Chancellor Emeritus Robert Khayat. “My earliest memories of engineering at this university include Henry Brevard. In his quiet, dignified manner, he has thoughtfully and consistently supported our School of Engineering. In addition, Henry, Beth and their family have participated in many university events and have been quite supportive of chancellors, deans, faculty members and students.”

Ole Miss Alumni Association Executive Director Tim Walsh agreed, saying, “Beth and Henry Brevard are two of the kindest, most generous people I know. Their family’s support to a number of areas at our university has been focused on helping deserving students get a quality education and having a full, well-rounded experi-ence at Ole Miss. The Brevards have a giving spirit that is rarely seen these days. Ole Miss is a better place because of their investments in our campus.”

The Brevards also have played an instrumental role in the university’s Center for the Study of Southern Culture, which has as its mission to investigate, docu-ment, interpret and teach about the American South. The Elizabeth Brevard Council Scholarship is awarded to undergraduates pursuing work in Southern studies.

“The Brevards have been active on our advisory committee and have provided thoughtful guidance to our programs,” said Ann Abadie, the center’s associate director. “They are deeply interested in the larger com-munity and how the center’s work can help preserve and promote understanding of the South’s rich history,

literature and culture. They recognize the importance of an academic center addressing issues that will help move our society forward.”

The idea of service to one’s com-munity—whether it be a university, business, church or neighborhood—is a cornerstone of the Brevard family. Both Henry and David have served on com-munity and area boards of institutions

focusing on health care, senior citizens and young peo-ple. Both have chaired the Methodist Senior Services, a statewide retirement and elderly health-care system. Henry has chaired the North Mississippi Health Servic-es Board of Directors, while David chaired the Health Care Foundation of North Mississippi, an affiliate of North Mississippi Health Services. They also have de-voted time and energy to the Yocona Council of the Boy Scouts of America and served in leadership positions of the First United Methodist Church of Tupelo.

David Brevard has shared his father’s devotion to Ole Miss, frequently becoming involved in the life of his alma mater. His contributions were recognized in 2009 with the overall Alumni Service Award. He has led the national Ole Miss Alumni Association as president and stepped forward as an alumni leader for several recent major capital campaigns that successfully attracted private gifts to help secure the university’s future. He is an active member of the University Foun-dation Board of Directors.

“My parents have always been involved in work-ing together with others and in financially supporting worthy endeavors to improve the quality of life here in our community of Tupelo,” he said. “My parents love and support Ole Miss. I am motivated to support and participate in the life of the university because of their example, but, more importantly, because of my own recognition of the positive influence Ole Miss has had on my life. The University of Mississippi is a stronger school now than when I graduated in 1978. Its reputa-tion as a great public university has grown and spread. For this to continue, private support from me and other members of the Ole Miss family is essential.”

Henry Brevard. Photo courtesy of Ole Miss 1940, Archives and Special Col-lections, UM Libraries

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Foundation for the 21st CenturyENGINEERING COMPLEX MODERNIZES WITH MAJOR RENOVATIONS

The University of Mississippi School of Engineering, the oldest engineering school in the state, is reinventing itself from the ground up.

The school has embarked on building the Ole Miss Engineering Complex, a space on the southern arc of the Lyceum Circle that is cur-

rently undergoing more than $24 million in new construction and renovation. The six-structure complex, once complete, will span more than 240,000 square feet, cre-ating an undeniable presence on the revered Circle.

The Ole Miss Engineering Complex consists of Brevard Hall (formerly Old Chemistry), Carrier Hall, Carrier Hall Extension, Anderson Hall, Charles Smith Engineering Science Building and the Center for Manufacturing Excellence.

The Old Chemistry building was constructed in 1920, and its renovations were finished in June of this year. The building now houses the dean’s office, the Mis-sissippi Minerals Resources Institute (MMRI), the National Center for Computa-tional Hydroscience and Engineering (NCCHE), part of the Department of Geol-ogy and Geological Engineering and part of the Department of Civil Engineering. It is student friendly, with three student lounges and a meeting room for student

organizations. The structure’s well preserved and historical auditorium, complete with refurbished wooden desks, was dedicated in July as Comer Auditorium, in honor of Fulton native and UM alumnus Carl Comer.

Construction on Carrier Hall Extension and renovations of Carrier Hall are scheduled to be complete this fall. Carrier Hall was originally constructed in 1954. The renovation includes state-of-the-art classrooms, conference rooms and laborato-ries for a variety of engineering needs.

Anderson Hall, which is connected to Carrier Hall, was constructed in 1974 and named in honor of Dr. Frank Anderson, a beloved chemical engineering profes-sor. The Charles E. Smith Engineering Science Building was built in 1938 and dedi-cated in 2004 to Dr. Charles Smith, former electrical engineering department chair.

Construction on the 47,000-square-foot Center for Manufacturing Excellence is scheduled for completion in 2011. The center will include classrooms, student work-spaces, lounge areas and laboratories. Additionally, a 12,000-square-foot factory floor will allow students to learn the modern processes of manufacturing.

Brevard Hall

Comer Auditorium in Brevard Hall

Center for Manufacturing Excellence

Charles E. Smith Engineering Science Building

Center for Manufacturing Excellence

Carrier Hall

Kevin Bain

Kevin BainRobert Jordan

Robert Jordan

Robert Jordan

Robert Jordan

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DONORS Thank you to everyone who made contributions to the School of Engineering during 2009. The following list reflects gifts that were made between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2009. Every effort was made to present an accurate reflection of our donors. Please contact Joshua Wag-goner, development officer, at 662-915-1601 or waggoner@olemiss.edu with any questions.

PATRON $25,000+Karen C. Fox IAVOCindy A. Ivey Mississippi Power Education FoundationOliver Productions, Inc.Julius M. Ridgway Robert M. Hearin Support FoundationTami M. and Charles E. Smith Jr.

BENEFACTOR $10,000-$24,999Elizabeth S. Shelton

EXECUTIVE $5,000-$9,999Barbara K. Beckmann Family of Damon WallNeel-Schaffer Inc.Margaret and Clyde C. Porter Jr.Jessica B. Sanders Elizabeth W. and Dale A. Touchstone Sam W. Waggoner IIIEmily F. and Mike E. Williams

ADVOCATE $2,500-$4,999Nancy L. and George G. Byers Carolyn C. and Joseph B. Durrett Becky L. and James C. Harris Pickering

ASSOCIATE $1,000-$2,499Samuel F. Alexander Blair B. and William H. Anderson Krista D. Blackledge Brevard Family FoundationAlexander Cheng Elizabeth R. and John R. Cleveland Cooke-Douglass-Farr-Lemons LtdWilliam D. Dykeman Eaton AerospaceSidney W. Eckert Stephen V. Edge William N. Feidt Damien D. Gibbs Danling Huang and Jing Guo Emily and F. H. Hohenschutz William F. Imre Cindy L. and Michael C. Jurgensen Barry J. Kanuch Debra M. and William E. LeMay Jean H. and Robert R. Marriam Wayne Minor William B. Mixon Jr.Larry K. Montgomery Cindy and R. N. Rich Susan S. and William H. Rigby Jr.Linda B. and Stephen H. Scott Xu Zuo

STEWARD $500-$999Susan E. Argue Barbara D. and David W. Arnold David M. Carroll Mark A. Crawford

Susan W. Dio Jane S. Dowell and Paul A. Dongieux Jr.George D. Dumbaugh Travis G. Ferguson Hubert L. Foley Jr.Elise P. and Allen W. Glisson Jr.Richard W. Hauslein Wing Y. and Pak Ho Karen K. and John M. Holliday Kay N. and William L. Holman Judith T. and B. Jerry L. Huff Shiow L. Huang and Kai-Fong Lee Melissa M. and Jason A. McAfee Allison and Kenneth A. McAshan Becki and David H. Mitchell Nancy W. and Paul W. Murrill Deborah and Bobby R. Pate Greer P. Person Jr.Walter Prince Norma S. and Jimmy M. Reagan Jeff W. Rish IIIArthur J. Rogers Jr.Andrea R. and Brian C. Russell David B. Russell Theodore M. Senften Sophie J. and Rudolph F. Slovick Jennifer S. and Clinton T. Spencer Christy and Anthony W. Stinson Jewel W. and Delmar D. Stover Kathleen L. and Peter C. Sukanek Charles T. Swann James G. Vaughan Christy L. White Dawn E. Wilkins Sharyn and Clint W. Williford Jr.Maxine Woolsey

SENIOR $250-$499Delma B. and Russell E. Aven Luke J. Bartkiewicz Susan M. and James B. Biddy Joe B. Blurton William E. Cameron Jr.Sylvia J. and Michael D. Caples Winfred F. Carter Jr.Ting-Ying Chen Susan F. and Oliver S. Delery Jr.John W. Eadie Richard M. Farrell Sarah K. and Thomas W. Faulkner Audry J. Ferguson Jr.John A. Fox Virginia L. and George R. Goza Carmen M. and Alan B. Haag Theodore B. Hannah Henry W. Haynes Jr.Dorothy B. and Kenneth M. Hayward Robert Heine Dorothy T. and J. R. Hightower Webster J. Hill Jr.Hoyet R. Holder Ryan A. Holmes Dicki L. and John W. King Ian T. Kistler Teresa L. and Kim H. Kreunen Sr.Therese T. and Damon T. Lai

Bessie B. and William H. Lee Jill S. and Kirk R. Lindstedt J. K. Metcalfe Michael G. Metcalfe Judye B. and John H. Miles Sara W. and Melvin Mitchell Bettye F. and William M. Myers Pamela P. and John Ray Meg E. Reese Charles W. Rooks Frances D. and Joe P. Sheffield Jonathan N. Stockett David L. Stockton Jeyakumar Thurairatnam Srinivas Tipirneni Bernice J. and Henry A. Walker Mary M. and John C. Williams Marvin D. Woody Lockie H. and William E. York Sr.

PARTNER $100-$249Pratap Anchuri Thomas S. Austin Jr.Manil Bajracharya Gayle C. Beanland Jr.James W. Beazley IIIJeffery L. Blackwell Allen Bodron Percy R. Boggan Jr.Jennifer R. and Robinson C. Bolt Becky F. and Tom Brackett Shawn S. and David E. Brevard Edmond M. Brignac Jr.Pamela R. Burck William A. Busby IIIEllen and Brian Carroll Ann L. Jones and Michael D. Caulfield Susan and Joseph Cerny IIIShree B. and Sailendra Chatterjee Weiwei Chen Larry A. Clawson Jr.James F. Coats Gregg O. Coningsby H. C. Cunningham Arch Dalrymple IIIMichael A. Dasovich David N. Deleeuw Mattie and James Easter Elwood C. Ezzell Jr.Mi Hyang L. and James L. Faulks Ashley C. and George E. French Jr.John B. Fried George L. Gafford Jr.William B. Genetti Dorothy K. and Ralph W. Gilbert Jr.Ronald H. Godwin Christa B. and Melvin M. Grantham Jr.James M. Gray Walter G. Green Jr.Teresa and H. G. Henley Beverly and Ronnie D. Hicks Shwu-Fen and Joel N. Howell Katherine W. and Brent S. Hudspeth Deborah T. and Daniel E. Johnson Dorothy D. Johnson Paul W. Johnson

Ettie B. and U. V. Jones IIIHarold Kennell Jessica R. King Rudolf G. Kittlitz Jr.John M. Koban Jr.Robert L. Koger Vera W. Koger Jamie P. and Matthew C. Lambert Richard D. Lewis Frank Y. Liao Craig Linn Tammy S. Lum Max E. Malone Deborah K. and Lee G. Martin Doyle W. McCully J. L. McKenzie Margie and Kevin W. McLeod Steve D. McNair Jenan A. and Wayne A. Merrill Freddie R. Miskelly Laurie S. and Richard C. Monteith Kay M. and James E. Orth Melissa M. and Daniel T. Pickering Yvonne C. and Andrew J. Pirnik Jr.Joy F. Portera Pepper Pounds Connie and Norman H. Rahn IIIShahid M. Rana Lytle A. Rather IIIM. D. and Charles L. Ray Lia M. Ricalde Stephen W. Richardson Kristy H. and Randall B. Rowell William W. Rowland Jr.Suzanne and Bruce Senter Benny W. Sharp Wei Feng and Shu Shen Carol C. and Thomas R. Sims Juanita C. and C. E. Skinner Laurie Slattery Susan D. Pedigo and Kenneth G. Sleeper R. D. Smith Andy Szuwalski Hongmei Gao and Lin Tang Lisa C. and William A. Tedesco Carolyn C. Thomas Sidney R. Trevillion Doru Velea Virgil N. Wallace Ruthie and Jeffery G. Warren James C. Watkins Judith L. and Carl A. Weber Sheila Whincup Jerry W. Whittington Keith J. Wiggins Jack Woolfolk Kenaz S. Worthem Te-Kao Wu Yahoo Matching Gift OfficeFrank C. Yao Cuihua and Yang Zhang

FRIENDS $1-$99Lillian and Kenneth Anders Chester Anderson Brian L. Barfus

David J. Bockelmann Roberta K. and James E. Bodamer Betsy and Charles Bodin John L. Boling Judy R. and A. B. Brawner Paul S. Breitzman Jenee’ M. Briggs Bonnie Brown Drenett A. and Timothy M. Burchfield Anna M. Burnham Margaret Carroll Tina and Jerry S. Cliburn Brian K. Cobb John B. Davidson Janet and Donald J. Deaton Kathy M. and Terry W. Dillard Cyril J. Fayard Alma J. Flowers Shirley H. and John H. Geary Timothy E. Gentry George D. Gibson Helen P. and Jason G. Hale Gerald G. Harper Rita and Delvin D. Hawley Rachel S. Henry William C. Hirt Carl H. Hobbs IIIBonnie S. and Thomas E. Horton IIIChih-Ming Hsiao Rong F. Huang Rhonda G. and Chris B. Jackson Patricia Jobe Lynda M. and Ernest B. Lipscomb IIIAnita and Morris C. Lovelady Faye and James Lucas Carol B. and Thomas C. Lutken Kathleen M. McGrew Rolf W. McHenry Marshall F. McLaughlin Charles R. McRae Claudia S. and Joe R. Morris Betty R. Nester Joe N. Nester Kenneth W. Owen Clarence J. Profilet IIIKathryn A. Quiriconi Kaci A. H. and Andrew M. Richardson Alexander D. Ruxton Herbert C. Sanders Anthony J. Shelton Annie M. and John A. Sill Whitney C. and Jason C. Simon Margaret and Winston A. Smith Melinda M. and L. A. Smith Kristie K. and James Sochovka Linda P. and Eugene W. Sullivan Sarah M. and David G. Tidwell Paula Q. and Tommy B. Turner Madappa Vrishabhendra Joyce M. and Craig F. Weeks Andrea L. and Joseph Wesley Ellen and Charlie Williams Jianrong Yu

24

Support Future Generations of EngineersHOW CAN YOU MAKE THAT HAPPEN?By choosing to support The University of Mississippi

School of Engineering and joining the 1848 Society

WHAT IS THE 1848 SOCIETY?Established during the 150th anniversary year of The University

of Mississippi, the 1848 Society comprises generous alumni and

friends who have made provisions for the School of Engineering

through estate planning.

HOW SIMPLE IS IT TO MAKE AN IMPACT AND LEAVE A LEGACY?While there are many vehicles to help you accomplish your goals

of supporting the future of engineering at the university, one of

the easiest ways is to include the school in your estate plans. A few

sentences in your will or living trust complete the gift.

To better understand how you can support the future of the School

of Engineering at The University of Mississippi or if you have

questions, please contact us:

PHONE: 1-800-340-9542 E-MAIL: umf@olemiss.edu ONLINE: www.umfoundation.com

RETURN SERVICE REQUESTED

Nonprofit Org.U.S. Postage

PAIDPermit No. 6

University, MS

WE SEE THE ENGINEER IN�ou

School of EngineeringP.O. Box 1848University, MS 38677