MECHANICAL ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT SPRING 1999 UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON

A newsletter for alumni, students, and friends of the Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

Five ME Faculty Hold Named Professorships and Endowed Chairs

With the recent appointments of Professor Robert D. Lorenz to the Consolidated Papers Foundation Endowed Chair, and of Professor John W. Mitchell to the Kaiser Chair, the ME Department faculty now boasts five distinguished and endowed professorships.

The other positions are the Bascom Professorship, held by William A. Beckman; the Wisconsin Distinguished Professorship, Rolf D. Reitz; and the Procter & Gamble Bascom Professor in Total Quality, Donald S. Ermer.

The Consolidated Papers Foundation Chair is awarded to a professor of Mechanical Engineering to provide leadership in the field of automatic and process controls or successor technologies with relevance to the paper industry. The endowment is to be used to "promote and recognize excellence in teaching and research." Professor Lorenz has a long history of commitment to the paper industry, especially in web machine control, primarily with graduate students working in that area. With this funding, he plans to begin development of a web machine controls laboratory.

The Elmer R. and Janet A. Kaiser Chair is endowed by the Kaisers to promote and recognize excellence in teaching and research in Mechanical Engineering at UW-Madison. Mr. Kaiser received BS and MS degrees from the department in 1934 and went on to a career at Battelle Memorial Institute, The Coal Research Association and New York University. With the chair's five-year funding, Professor Mitchell will continue his research work on control and fault detection in air-conditioning systems as well as in his teaching. He is working with groups to promote teaching effectiveness, and he is also co-writing a textbook. Previous holder of the Kaiser Chair was Professor Ali A. Seireg, now emeritus.

Professor Rolf Reitz was appointed a Wisconsin Distinguished Professor by the UW Regents last November for a five-year term. The appointment recognizes faculty in areas of vital or emerging economic significance to the state of Wisconsin and those who would also be judged as outstanding by peers and the public alike. Only 20 professors hold this distinguished status within the UW System.

The Bascom Professorship held by Professor Beckman for nearly 20 years was endowed by William A. Ouweneel (BS'24) and his wife Irene. It is designated to support a faculty member in the area of solar and renewable energy studies.

Professor Donald S. Ermer has been the Procter & Gamble Bascom Professor of Total Quality since his appointment by the UW Regents in 1994. This named professorship is awarded to faculty in recognition of scholarly distinction within their field. The company's financial gift is matched by its employees and UW alumni. Ermer has been involved in national and international total quality programs since 1972 and has integrated quality principles into his courses and developed new courses on quality product and process design in industry.

SPRING 1999 Contents