February 27, 2009

College of Engineering honors 9 alumni

"These alumni have distinguished themselves in wide-ranging careers that demonstrate how engineers can improve our lives," said Leah Jamieson, the John A. Edwardson Dean of Engineering. "Purdue's College of Engineering has more than 76,000 alumni. This group represents the contributions that so many of those Purdue engineers make in bettering our world."

The 2009 Distinguished Engineering Alumni are:

* Michael H. Campbell, bachelor's in aeronautical and astronautical engineering, 1983. Campbell, of Winnetka, Ill., is executive vice president and chief operating officer of Fair Isaac, which applies high-level math to study fraud, determine credit worthiness and predict consumer behavior. He is considered a pioneer in the application of mathematical optimization to complex management tasks. In 1989, he founded Campbell Software, which would develop the leading workforce management solution for the retail marketplace. Campbell Software was sold to SAP Americas in 1999.

* Jeffrey Fisher, bachelor's in electrical engineering, 1980. Fisher, of San Jose, Calif., is senior vice president of the graphics processing unit business at NVIDIA. When Fisher joined NVIDIA in 1994 as head of worldwide sales and its first salesperson, the company had yet to ship its first product. It is now a leader in visual computing technologies and inventor of the GPU, a high-performance processor that generates interactive graphics on workstations, personal computers, game consoles, and mobile devices. Fisher combines engineering and business degrees to understand the technical side of the operation and communicate with the commercial side.

* Harold Force, bachelor's in civil engineering, 1973; master's in civil engineering, 1974. Force, of Columbus, Ind., is president and chief operating officer of Force Construction and executive vice president of Force Design.  Force began working in the company business as a teenager, joining it full-time in 1974. He was named president of Force Construction in 1980. He has influenced an emerging architectural engineering emphasis in Purdue's civil engineering curriculum. This has been driven, in part, by his experience with Force Design, which offers engineering and architectural design services for the company's design-build projects.

* Jeffrey L. Hemmer, bachelor's in chemical engineering, 1980. Hemmer, of Kingwood, Texas, is senior vice president of solution implementation for Sinclair Group. He joined Sinclair, a consulting firm that offers strategic planning, operations excellence, and due diligence support for the process and chemical industries, last year. Before that, he had overseen supply chain, information technology and a business unit and managed operations, technology, engineering and licensing groups for chemical companies including Exxon, Millenium, Equistar and Lyondell.

* Jacquelyn A. Levin, bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering, 1981. Levin, of St. Charles, Mo., is president and chief operating officer of AFB International. AFB is the world's top supplier of pet food and treat flavors. At AFB, which she joined in 2002, Levin is responsible for a $130 million business and manages 240 people. Earlier in her career, she also worked in human food production. After graduating from Purdue, she joined Procter & Gamble as a product engineer. There she first worked with food, helping with the startup of an orange juice business.

* Joseph T. Mallof, bachelor's degree in metallurgical engineering, 1984. Mallof, of Arlington Heights, Ill., is president and chief executive officer of World Kitchen. The company's brands include CorningWare, Pyrex, Corelle and Baker's Secret, among others. World Kitchens has 2,900 employees in the United States, Canada, and Asia-Pacific region. Mallof's career also has included work with Proctor & Gamble, S.C. Johnson & Son, Hormel Foods and CIBA Vision. Mallof envisions engineers moving into more non-industry fields, including government operations and health care, to address societal problems.

* Jorge A. Ochoa, master's degree in mechanical engineering, 1987; doctorate, 1991. Ochoa, of Redmond, Wash., is senior managing engineer with the medical device practice of Exponent. He is also an affiliate associate professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Washington. Before joining Exponent last year, Ochoa worked in several positions with Johnson & Johnson Orthopaedics and with DePuy after it acquired Johnson & Johnson. He also worked for Archus Orthopedics. He holds numerous patents as a result of his research in biomedical engineering.

* Martha Rees, bachelor's degree in civil engineering, 1973. Rees, of Wilmington, Del., is vice president and assistant general counsel, chief environmental counsel and chief anti-trust counsel for E.I. DuPont deNemours. Rees joined DuPont in 1973 as an environmental engineer. After interacting with lawyers as part of her work in plant environmental regulatory compliance, she started law school. Rees assumed her current positions in 2006. Her responsibilities include managing DuPont's law departments outside the U.S., in addition to the commercial, environment/real estate, corporate/securities and merger and acquisitions practices.

* William B. White, bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering, 1974. White, of Kennett Square, Pa., is the retired president of DuPont Canada. He is a partner in CBW Associates-Consulting. White retired from DuPont last year after a 34-year career. During that time, he was a leader in international business units with a presence in more than 70 countries. These included DuPont Titanium Technologies, DuPont Chemical Solutions Enterprise and DuPont Safety Resources. He was director of business improvement at the company's headquarters in Wilmington, Del., before being promoted in 2006 to president of DuPont Canada.

Writer: Judith Barra Austin, (765) 494-2432, jbaustin@purdue.edu

Source: Leah Jamieson, (765) 494-5346, lhj@purdue.edu

Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu

Note to Journalists: Photos and biographical information on the honorees can be found at College of Engineering: https://engineering.purdue.edu/Engr/People/
Awards/Institutional/DEA/DEA_2009

To the News Service home page