MechSE Honors Six with 2008 Distinguished Alumnus Awards

7/3/2012 By Anna Flanagan

Drs. Fourney and Van Der Sluys take a break during the Alumni Board meeting.The Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering honored six alumni with the Distinguished Alumnus Award during the Alumni Board awards dinner on April 18. The award recipients include:

Written by By Anna Flanagan

Drs. Fourney and Van Der Sluys take a break during the Alumni Board meeting.
Drs. Fourney and Van Der Sluys take a break during the Alumni Board meeting.
Drs. Fourney and Van Der Sluys take a break during the Alumni Board meeting.
The Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering honored six alumni with the Distinguished Alumnus Award during the Alumni Board awards dinner on April 18. The award recipients include:

Ralph A. Andersen completed his BS in Mechanical Engineering in 1950. Upon graduation, he took a position in the accounting department of John Deere's Spreader Works Division in East Moline, Illinois, where he worked for 11 years. Anderson retired from Andersen Engineering, Inc., which he founded in 1983.

Prior to attending Illinois, Andersen served in the U. S. Air Force, from 1940 to 1945. After leaving John Deere, Andersen worked for Turpin and Associates in California for about 20 years. In 1981, he moved to Montana, where he worked for Big Sky Fabricators in Ronan before founding his own engineering firm.

Andersen is a lifetime member of the University of Illinois Alumni Association and has been a member of the University of Illinois President's Council since 1987.

William L. Fourney received his PhD in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics in 1966. He is currently the Keystone Professor of Fundamentals and Associate Dean of Engineering at the University of Maryland.

An internationally recognized expert in dynamic fracture, he led the development of the first and only American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) standard on crack arrest testing, and is president of the International Organizing Committee for FRAGBLAST (an international conference held every threeyears as a forum for the latest advances in blasting and fragmentation techniques). Fourney is the North American editor for the international journal Blasting and Fragmentation. His research involves the development of next-generation military personnel carriers that will provide protection from the detonation of buried mines.

At the University of Maryland, he has served as Chairman of both the Mechanical Engineering Department and the Aerospace Engineering Department, and has been an associate dean of engineering since 1995. He was the 2007 recipient of the University of Maryland President's Medal, the highest honor awarded to faculty on the College Park campus, and has been recognized as a Distinguished Alumnus of the West Virginia University Department of Aerospace Engineering. He is a lifetime member of the University of Illinois Alumni Association and a member of the University of Illinois President's Council and Chancellor's Circle.

George B. Grim completed his BS degree in Mechanical Engineering in 1940 and his MS degrees in Mechanical Engineering in 1952. After graduating, he joined Caterpillar Tractor Company, where he worked for 40 years before retiring as a staff engineer in 1979.

During his career at Caterpillar,Grim was affiliated with the Engine Research Division. His specialty was tribology and bearing development, and he was the inventor or co-inventor on 10 patents assigned to the company.

As a student, Grim was a member of Pi Tau Sigma and the student chapter of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. His master's degree was one of the final two "working degrees" presented to students by the President of the University of Illinois. He is a lifetime member of the University of Illinois Alumni Association and a member of the University of Illinois President's Council.

Emerson W. Lacey received his BS in Mechanical Engineering in 1965. After graduating, he joined Commonwealth Edison Company, where he worked for 35 years before retiring as Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the Fossil Generating Division.

While working at Commonwealth Edison, Lacey oversaw the first large-scale use of gas turbine and aircraft derivative engines for peak power production on a utility system, the building of major fossil generation stations, the first use of integrated solid state controls on critical power generating systems, and the modernization of an aging generation fleet to meet changing environmental standards and efficiency requirements. This last achievement resulted in one of the largest generating asset sales in the utility industry.

Lacey is a Register Professional Engineer in Illinois and a member of the National Society of Professional Engineers and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. He has also been involved in many community activities, including the Urban League, the United Way, the YMCA and the Arthritis Foundation. He is a lifetime member of the University of Illinois President's Council and Chancellor's Circle.

George E. Neilson received his BS in Mechanical Engineering in 1942. After graduating, he spent most of his career as a plant site engineer specializing in power systems. He worked at the University of Illinois Power Plant in Urbana, Monsanto Company in St. Louis, and Abbott Laboratories, from which he retired.

During his career, Neilson helped engineer General Motors plants in Toledo, Ohio, and Janesville, Wisconsin, as well as the Northern Petrochemical Plant (now Lyondell Basell) in Tuscola, Illinois.

He is a longtime ham radio operator and enjoys studying genealogy and chronicling his family history. He is a lifetime member of the University of Illinois Alumni Association and a member of the University of Illinois President's Council.

W. Alan Van Der Sluys completed his MS in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics in 1963 and his PhD in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics in 1966. Upon completing his doctorate, he was appointed an assistant professor. In 1967, he joined the staff of the Metallurgy Section at the Babcock and Wilcox Research Center in Alliance, Ohio, where he remained until he retired.

During his career, he published more than 60 technical papers. He has been a member of the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) since 1971, and in 1999 received an ASTM Award of Merit from the society's standards writing Committee E-8 on Fatigue and Fracture. The title of Fellow accompanied the award, the highest award granted to an individual member for distinguished service and outstanding participation in ASTM technical committee activities. In 2002, he received the Fracture Mechanics Medal, also from Committee E-8.

A member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) since 1965, Van Der Sluys was awarded the ASME Melville Medal for a technical paper based on his master's thesis. In 2002, ASME made him a life fellow. Van Der Sluys is a lifetime member of the University of Illinois Alumni Association, a member of the University of Illinois President's Council, and a former member of the board of directors of the TAM Alumni Association.


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This story was published July 3, 2012.