Outstanding Engineer

Dr. Willie J. Fitzpatrick, Jr. was named our Outstanding Engineer. He is currently serving as Chief of the Aviation Division, AVCOM RDEC, Software Engineering Directorate. Dr. Fitzpatrick is the former Deputy Director of the Software Engineering Directorate, and has previously held positions with TBE, MICOM RDEC Battlefield Automation Directorate, the MITRE Corporation, and the Department of the Navy. He received his BSEE from Tuskegee, his MSEE from Leland Stanford, and a PhD at UAH. He is a member of the IEEE and its Engineering Management and Computer Societies. He has co-authored numerous technical papers. Dr. Fitzpatrick's extensive community involvement includes serving as President of the Brotherhood Organization and as Deacon, and Secretary of the Trustee Board of the First Missionary Baptist Church. He has been co-president of the Farley Elementary PTA, and also chaired its Newsletter Committee. He has also served as a volunteer tutor for the Coalition of At Risk Minority Males.

Service Award

Eric R. Grigorian, beginning his second year as Chair of the Huntsville Section, was selected to receive the 2002 service award. Eric has served as a volunteer for a number of years. He has also been Vice Chair of the Huntsville Section; Chair of the AES Society; Vice Chair and Chair of the UAH IEEE Student Branch; Vice President and President of UAH's Engineering Council; and Vice President of the UAH's Eta Kappa Nu Honor Society. Eric has over 17 years experience in Defense System Integration and Deployment. He has been the COO and Vice President of Product Development for Q-PC, Inc. since 2000. He was the Vice President of Commercial Markets for Applied Data Trends, Inc. (ADT) from 1997 to 2000. At ADT, he was responsible for the design and development of rugged servers for use with tactical communication radios for establishment of Tactical WAN gateways. Previously he was a Systems Engineer with Intergraph Federal Systems. Eric earned his B.S.E. (Electrical Engineering) from the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) in 1983 and his M.S.E (Electrical Engineering) in 1987. Eric has been married to Maro Grigorian for 10 years and has two lovely children. His hobbies and interests include soccer, karate, computers, and reading.

Outstanding Educator

Dr. Jorge I. Auñón, Dean of the College of Engineering at UAH since 1999, was chosen as Outstanding Educator. Dr. Auñón was born in Cuba, arriving in the US as political refugee at age 18. He received his BSES, MSE and ScD degrees from George Washington University. He has held previous positions as Dean and Professor of EE at Texas Tech, Professor and Head of EE Dept at Colorado State, and Professor of EE at Purdue. He has conducted research for AFOSR, WPAFB, Public Service of Colorado, AT&T and Southwestern Bell. Publications credits include more than 60 refereed journals and conference proceedings as well as co-authorship of a book in 1997. In 1991 Dr. Auñón was named an IEEE fellow for his contributions to biomedical signal processing. As Dean at UAH, he has achieved the reputation of being very helpful to student organizations, and maintains an "open door policy" for the engineering organizations on campus. He is an avid collector and appreciator of art and music. His hobbies include travel, hunting, and cooking.

Professional of the Year

Dr. Marc J. Bendickson, Chief Executive Officer of Dynetics, Inc., was selected as Professional of the Year. Dr. Bendickson received his BSEE from Iowa State, his MSEE from Columbia, and his Ph.D. in EE from UAH. In his current position he is responsible for more than 500 employees in 6 locations across the US who generate sales in excess of $72M. In 1989, he helped to formulate, plan and execute a leveraged Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) buyout of the company from its founders. The new organization captured the enthusiasm of employee ownership, improved service and product quality, and launched the company on a strong growth path that resulted in an annualized revenue increase in excess of 20% over the last 9 years. During his technical career Dr. Bendickson specialized in RF sensor systems including ground based and missile seeker radar systems. He also directed studies of radar waveform analysis, antenna performance and signal processing for a wide variety of tactical and strategic defense systems. Prior to joining Dynetics, he was employed at TBE and at Bell Telephone Laboratories. Dr. Bendickson has been highly supportive of the Dynetics policy of encouraging activity in professional organizations, and over the years many employees have served in positions of responsibility with the IEEE Huntsville Section. He has been active in the Huntsville Community and is known as a strong supporter of numerous causes such as the Museum of Art and the Children's Advocacy Center.

The Outstanding Engineer, Outstanding Educator, and Service Awards will be presented at the Engineer Week Banquet to be held at the Huntsville Marriott on Feb 22. Our Professional of the Year will be honored at the HATS-sponsored Professional of the Year banquet, to be held in conjunction with TEAMS Week at the VBC on 8 April.