The Huntsville Section named Eric R. Grigorian as our 2004 Professional of the Year (POY) at the annual POY banquet sponsored by HATS on 1 April 2004. This places him in the distinguished company of past recipients who have included leading figures in local industry such as Tom Houser of BAE (2003), Dr. Marc Bendickson CEO of Dynetics (2002), Mark Smith CEO of Adtran (2001), and Roy Nichols former CEO of Nichols Research (2000). For the first time in recent memory involving a contested selection, the decision by the Huntsville Section Executive Committee was unanimous! Eric received this award in recognition of his distinguished service to the engineering profession, the IEEE, and the Huntsville Community as a whole.

A Somber Eric Receiving His Award from
Dr. James Bradas, the Keynote Speaker

A More Relaxed Eric at Dinner

Eric has over 20 years experience in the federal and commercial markets, directing hi-tech product design and development for the military, transportation, consumer after-market, and scientific digital imaging markets. Currently, he is serving as the Chief engineer and director of computational systems for Z/I Imaging Corporation here in Huntsville. Previously he was COO and Vice President of Product Development for Q-PC, Inc. 2000 - 2002, and served as 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. From 1984-1997, he worked as System Engineer for Intergraph Federal Systems. As an Executive Manager at Intergraph's Special Operations and Fleet Programs he was responsible for design and development of rugged workstations for shipboard automation programs such as Smartship. He was the Hardware Integration Manager for Manual Air Defense Operations Center (MADOC); responsible for managing design, integration, and installation of multiple MADOC sites within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. He also was Lead Hardware Engineer for several PATRIOT hardware and communications tasks.

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) from the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) in 1987. He has continued his education by taking additional postgraduate courses such as digital communication, digital signal processing, digital image processing, neural networks, etc.

Eric has served as a volunteer for a number of years. He is the past Chair of the Huntsville IEEE Section. He has also served as Vice Chair of the Huntsville IEEE 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. He received the Huntsville Section Service Award and was designated one of UAH's Distinguished Young Engineering Alumni in 2002. Most recently he chaired the committee which planned the IEEE's 50th anniversary celebration in February 2004.