Engineers Week Banquet 2009 Award Recap & Photo Essay IEEE Huntsville Section Special Awards Will Preussel, Chair, Section Awards Committee

The IEEE Huntsville Section recognizes excellence in the local electrotechnology community with six annual awards.  Huntsville Section presented five awards at the Huntsville Engineers Week Banquet at the Space Center Marriott February 19, 2009. 

The Section awarded the Outstanding Engineer award to Dr. Annie Saylor, currently Executive Vice President at Simulation Technologies, Inc (SimTech). She received her BS in mathematics in 1972 from Cumberland College and her MS and PhD in Mathematics from the University of Kentucky in 1974 and 1979 respectively. Dr. Saylor has led SimTech development of radar scene generation and infrared modeling, analysis and engineering for real-time hardware-in-the-loop (HWIL) and digital simulations since 1983.  Her outstanding technical expertise and team leadership has resulted in the successful development of hardware and software tools and specialized modeling techniques for generation of high fidelity radio frequency and infrared signature models.  These models are complex and require extremely high speed processing and input/output implementation to meet real-time and fidelity requirements.  Her modeling expertise resulted in AMRDEC achieving the capability to simulate helicopter and jet engine blade modulation, clutter, chaff, and multipath models for assessing ECM techniques for RF surface-to-air and air-to-air missiles.  Prior to joining SimTech, Dr. Saylor was a senior engineer at the Boeing Company and held positions at Dynetics, Inc. and UAH.  Annie is an engineer and mentor first and a manager second.  She has helped numerous SimTech and Government personnel in getting their “feet on the ground” in a very specialized field and has supported their professional development over many years.  She is an IEEE Senior Member. 

Our Outstanding Educator award went to Dr. David Gross, Associate Technical Fellow and Chief Technologist for Experimentation with the Boeing Company.  Dr. Gross received his BS in Computer Science in 1985 from Auburn, his Master of Science in Operations Research in 1992 from UAH, and his PhD in Industrial Engineering in 2004 from the University of Central Florida. David is a nationally acknowledged technical expert on Human Computer Interfaces (HCI) and virtual reality simulations.  He chaired the Foundations 2004 Verification, Validation, and Accreditation Workshop, sponsored by the Society for Modeling and Simulation (M&S) International.  Entities within the Boeing Company and outside technologists constantly recruit David for his captivating and extremely knowledgeable instruction style.  He has the reputation of always being able to pack a classroom, and is the top-rated instructor of internal courses since Boeing started keeping that metric.  He is also an affiliate instructor with UAH, teaching both live and Internet classes, and a member of their M&S Advisory Board.  The two continuing education courses he presently teaches were attended by more than 60 people last year and 300 since they were first offered.  David was a consultant to UAH for curriculum development for their new M&S graduate program and also a consultant to the University of Central Florida for their standard M&S curriculum development.  He provides M&S support for the Boeing focus school executive for Old Dominion University, and was instrumental in gettinig Boeing grants to ODU and UAH for M&S education. 

IEEE Section awarded, our Outstanding Service Award goes to Dr. Willie J. Fitzpatrick of the US Army Research, Development and Engineering Command (RDEC).   Dr. Fitzpatrick received the BS degree from Tuskegee University in 1974 and the MS degree from Leland Stanford University in 1975, both in Electrical Engineering.  He received the Ph.D. degree in Industrial and Systems Engineering from the University of Alabama-Huntsville in 2001.  He has over 33 years experience in the software/systems engineering area.  His experience includes the development and assessment of automatic control systems, systems engineering, and software engineering on various aviation and missile systems.  He is currently Chief of the Aviation Division, in the Software Engineering Directorate of the U.S. Army RDEC’s Aviation and Missile Research Development and Engineering Center.  Dr. Fitzpatrick is responsible for the management of life cycle software engineering support and airworthiness assessments for several aviation systems, including Apache, Blackhawk, Chinook, and Kiowa aircrafts. He has co-authored several technical reports and publications. 

Dr., Fitzpatrick is an IEEE Senior Member, and belongs to the IEEE Computer Society, IEEE Engineering Management Society, Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association, Association of United States Army, American Society for Engineering Management, The International Council on Systems Engineering, and The American Helicopter Society.  He was recognized as the IEEE Huntsville Section Outstanding Engineer for 2002. Willie has served in various leadership capacities in the Huntsville Section, including: Secretary (2003-2004), Vice-Chair (2005-2006), and most recently as Chair (2007-2008).  He has volunteered in various Educational activities supported by the Huntsville Section, including serving as judge at various Science Fairs (NARSEF and ASEF), ACTE Team Programming Competition, and the Alabama Regional Future City competition.

For the fifth year, the Section presented awards for the most outstanding member of the Student branches at UAH and A&M Universities, respectively.  Award recipients are selected by those who know them best --- their fellow student branch members.  The student branches are free to choose their own criteria for the award, and, as in previous years, have stressed somewhat different mixes of qualities.
 
The Outstanding UAH Student Branch Member award went to Tony Luchner, a senior in computer engineering.  He maintained a 3.67 GPA while working part time and staying active around campus.  He is currently working as an Engineering Intern at ITT, where he has worked on various internal R&D projects, including an operational management/battlefield awareness system.  Tony has been active with the IEEE student branch for all 4 years holding an officer position each year.  He has also contributed to many of the branch’s robotics projects including the Trinity Firefighting Robot, the SoutheastCon hardware competitions, and Charger Trainer, the UAH Student Branch freshman tutoring program for robotics and software.  He attended the NASA Robotics Academy in 2006, where he spent a summer at the University of Maryland’s Space Systems Lab, part of a student design team to build a fully operational remote controlled space crane to fit on the edge of a space shuttle cargo bay pallet.  Tony’s previous accomplishments include a 5-year tour in the USMC, where he worked as an avionics technician on Huey and Cobra helicopters.  His ultimate goal is to work in the robotic prosthetics field, helping to integrate prosthetics with the nervous system. 

AAMU Student Chapter named Augusta Johnson of Pine Apple, AL the Outstanding A&M Student Branch Member.  She is a junior with a 4.0 GPA and graduation date of May 2010.  Augusta was selected based on demonstrated outstanding academic excellence in electrical engineering. She also serves a secretary for the IEEE Student Branch  

The remaining annual award, Professional of the Year (POY) will be presented at the POY banquet hosted by HATS later this year.  We have not yet selected our POY and the awards committee is still soliciting nominations.

Willard G. Preussel, Section Awards Committee Chair
Address: 113 Acacia Trail Drive, Madison, AL, 35758
E-mail:  willard.preussel@dynetics.com
Phone: (256) 964-4218 (Office, with voice mail).

Thanks for you help!!

Will Preussel
Awards Committee Chair
IEEE Huntsville Section