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2012 Oregon Stater Engineering Awards
College of Engineering
Oregon State University
13
Council of Outstanding Early Career Engineers (continued)
RANDY HOFFMAN
B
rian Timmins began his quest to
leave the Earth a better place at the
University of Florida, where he did his
undergraduate work. From researching
sources of mercury in Florida medical
waste incinerators to analyzing sediment
and water quality in Colorado, Timmins has made his way
across the country in an environmental quest to help clean
up the planet.
As a graduate student and researcher at Oregon State,
Timmins worked on definitive research affecting bioremedia-
tion — the use of microorganismmetabolism to remove
pollutants from contaminated material.
“My education at Oregon State provided me with the
conceptual understanding of environmental engineering prac-
tices and the opportunity to apply that knowledge in the field,”
says Timmins. “Studying concepts is first and foremost,
but applying them in an open system is what solidified my
understanding of the science.”
Today, Timmins is a director at ETEC, a nationwide
environmental services provider dedicated to delivering
innovative, cost-effective solutions to environmental
problems using advanced treatment technologies.
“We have been able to show how rapid and cost-effective
bioremediation is compared to other remedial alternatives,”
Timmins says. “Based on OSU/Stanford research, we have
implemented a new approach capable of remediating impacted
sites in less than a few years.”
Brian Hales Timmins
MS Environmental Engineering ’01
Director, ETEC LLC
|
Portland, Ore.
A
fter graduating from Oregon State
University, Bryan Kirkpatrick took
a decade-long break from education
to work as a stability system analyst,
mechanical engineer, and intellectual
property manager for NACCO Materials
Handling Group, a global forklift manu-
facturing company.
His work on intellectual property at NACCO piqued his
interest in legal matters and allowed him to concurrently
attend Northwestern School of Law at Lewis and Clark
College and earn a Doctor of Jurisprudence in 2001.
Today, Kirkpatrick provides legal advice and manages
patent portfolios for clients ranging from established
industry leaders to cutting-edge startups. He is currently
representing Oregon State University as patent counsel
for a number of inventions related to the production of
nuclear energy and the generation of medical isotopes.
“My degree from Oregon State translated well into
other types of engineering work in which I became
engaged,” says Kirkpatrick. “Over the past few years, I
have had the great pleasure to work with OSU professors
and graduate students in obtaining patent protection for a
number of inventions, including a next-generation nuclear
reactor system that is currently in the process of getting
certification from the United States Nuclear Regulatory
Commission.”
Bryan D. Kirkpatrick
BS Nuclear Engineering ’94
Attorney/Partner, Stolowitz Ford Cowger LLP
|
Portland, Ore.
J
.D. Vetter came to Oregon State University
on a full basketball scholarship, lettering
in all four years and culminating his athletic
career by receiving the Most Valuable
Player Award in his senior year. Off the
court, Vetter was also an academic power-
house, leaving Oregon State with undergraduate degrees in
both engineering and business.
“Professionally, the most significant impact my OSU
education provided me was to develop a ‘pay-it-forward’
mindset in everything I do — to continuously strive for
improvement and excellence,” says Vetter. “Personally, my
OSU education gave the opportunity for me to meet my
wife Cassie in our College of Engineering classes.”
Upon graduation, Vetter began his professional career
in the Northwest offices of Montgomery Watson
Americas, a global leader in wet infrastructure engineer-
ing. He joined Kiewit in 1998, where he worked on the
Nike World Campus Project in Oregon and several land-
mark construction projects in Denver, Colo. He currently
is working on the East Coast, overseeing three of Kiewit
Building Group’s area offices. “I am proud of the attention
our company gives to alternative project deliveries and
unique project procurement models,” says Vetter.
J.D. Vetter
BS Construction Engineering Management ’97
BS Business Administration ’97
Executive Vice President
Kiewit Building Group, Inc.
|
Arlington, Va.
A
s one of the College of Engineering’s
youngest recipients of an Oregon
Stater Award, Alex Polvi has packed a lot
into a quarter of a century. His work as
one of the founders of the Open Source
Education Lab on campus helped garner
Polvi coveted internships and jobs after graduation.
“The Open Source Lab was by far the most valuable
part of my experience at Oregon State,” says Polvi. “It just
really set my career up for all sorts of things — Mozilla,
Firefox, Google.”
But Polvi wasn’t satisfied to work with some of the world’s
largest search engine companies. In December 2008, he and
two fellow Oregon State graduates (with help from Silicon
Valley incubator Y Combinator) launched Cloudkick, an
Internet cloud server management and monitoring system.
In less than a year, the company had grown to 12 employees,
half of which were Oregon State graduates. After two years,
the company was acquired by Rackspace, one of the nation’s
top players in cloud computing.
“Job creation was definitely the most satisfying element
of my work on Cloudkick,” says Polvi. “After starting a
company, we created dozens of jobs and hired a ton of OSU
grads along the way.”
Alex Polvi
BS Computer Science ’07
Director of Bay Area Operations
Rackspace
|
San Francisco, Calif.
I
an Wendler firmly believes that people
are the difference between success
and failure. His people-driven leadership
strategies helped him successfully earn an
engineering degree from Oregon State and
an MBA from George Fox University (’04).
“Leadership, exposure, and trust were
the most significant impacts my Oregon State education
had on me,” says Wendler. “My experiences with MECOP
(Multiple Engineering Cooperative Program), student gov-
ernment, and as a college ambassador and teaching assistant
all prepared me for leadership. OSU’s commitment to work-
ready graduates comes down to building good leaders and
entrusting themwith the world’s challenges.”
In addition to a stint with RadiSys Corporation, Wendler
has been professionally affiliated with Warn Industries since
his internships with the company. He now provides leader-
ship and direction to a global team that is creating solutions
to market challenges. He has remained actively involved with
MECOP, serving in numerous leadership positions, including
chair of the board.
“The innovation, value, and contribution that surround
me have all come from people and teams that I have had the
opportunity to lead,” says Wendler. “I try every day to create
that early OSU experience of trust — encouraging people to
take on the world’s challenges.”
Ian C. Wendler
BS Industrial & Manufacturing Engineering ’00
Director of Research, Development & Strategic Sourcing
Warn Industries, Inc.
|
Clackamas, Ore.
R
andy Hoffman’s master’s research
at Oregon State University led to the
invention of a family of oxide semiconduc-
tor-based thin-film transistors (TFT). He
carried this new technology with him to
Hewlett-Packard, where he continued to
develop it in collaboration with the university.
“The timing of this invention aligned nicely with a major
need in the flat panel display industry to move from amor-
phous silicon-based TFT backplanes to a higher-performance
TFT device,” says Hoffman. “The opportunity to participate
in the development of new semiconductor device technology
from invention in the labs of Oregon State through commer-
cialization in the flat panel display industry has been tremen-
dous, and is an exemplary picture of constructive collabora-
tion between academics and industry.”
Hoffman’s graduate work in the integration and device
physics of oxide semiconductor-based thin-film transistors
produced several publications and the first in a series of foun-
dational patents in this new field. He now holds more than 40
U.S. patents.
“The research facilities in the School of Electrical
Engineering and Computer Science provided a great deal of
freedom to explore tangential ideas and concepts and was a
key factor in my discoveries,” says Hoffman. “Co-location and
a strong working framework with Hewlett-Packard provided
an ideal transition from academia to industry.”
BS Electrical Engineering ’00
MS Electrical Engineering ’02
Senior Engineer
Hewlett-Packard Company
|
Corvallis, Ore.