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Peruse our list below to get
acquainted with our past Engineer
of the Year winners.
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1: BURT RUTAN, 1988
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Founder, Scaled Composites
![PastEOY_Burt]()
Founder of California's Scaled Composites, was the very first Design
News Engineer of the Year and one of the most admired engineers in
America.
His engineering team has designed, tested and flown a whole series of
leading-edge aircraft, ranging from the Voyager -
the first plane to fly around the world without refueling - to SpaceShipOne,
the first privately funded manned aircraft to fly into space.
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2: ROWLAND REDINGTON, 1989
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Engineer, General Electric
![PastEOY_Rowland]()
At General
Electric, Rowland Redington led design teams in creating two
significant medical diagnostic machines. In the 1970s, he became
interested in Computed Tomography scanning and pushed GE to create a
program that would work toward creating commercial CT scanners. Later,
Redington out-did himself when he and his team worked with Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) technology. His
efforts caused GE to become the number one seller of both CT scanners
and MRIs.
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3: RAYMOND KURZWEIL, 1990
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Computer Engineer
![PastEOY_Raymond]()
An insightful voice on the future of technology, Raymond Kurzweil
pioneered leading products on artificial intelligence. He worked to
develop an early reading machine for the blind in the late 1970s,
linking an omnifont character recognition device with a synthetic
voice. Over the years the company he founded, Kurzweil
Computer Products, has worked to make the machine more
sophisticated. Kurzweil went on to create more companies to create
voice recognition systems that are now used by physicians for medical
reports.
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4: TERRY HABER, 1991
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Inventor
Terry Haber
always emphasized the importance of creating safe medical devices to
protect medical workers from deadly infections. He also created many
devices to improve patients' conditions, including the heart valve. To
prevent the spreading of disease, Haber created new safety syringes and collection tubes. At the time he
was recognized as Engineer of the Year, Haber held 83 patents and had
20 more pending. Haber concentrated most of his efforts in the medical
field but also created a smoke mask to protect airline passengers after
an accident and hydraulic jogging shoes.
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5: VICTOR POIRIER, 1992
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President, Thermo
Cardiosystems Inc.
![PastEOY_Victor]()
Victor Poirer was the lead design engineer for Thermo
Cardiosystems' efforts to create a revolutionary heart pump. His
company developed the LVAD, a heart pump that assists a patient's heart
instead of replacing it. It allows the patient some mobility and also
prevents infection and blood clotting. At the time of Poirier's
election, the LVAD was in its experimental stages but working
successfully in over 60 patients.
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6: BONNIE DUNBAR, 1993
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Astronaut, NASA
Bonnie Dunbar had always known she wanted to be an astronaut and made
the dream a reality by breaking into engineering, a field dominated by
men. She shaped and directed the course of science in space as the
leading mission specialist in microgravity research for NASA.
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7: DEAN KAMEN,
1994
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President, DEKA Research and
Development
![PastEOY_Dean]()
Dean Kamen, president of DEKA Research and Development in New Hampshire, is the creative force
behind many ground-breaking inventions, ranging from the HomeChoice
portable kidney dialysis machine to the now famous Segway human
transporter. Kamen also founded the FIRST program, dedicated to getting more young
people interested in science and technology.
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8: JEROME H.
LEMELSON, 1995
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Inventor
Jerome
H. Lemelson has an impressive repertoire of around 500 patents, a
record only trumped by Thomas Edison. Lemelson holds patents on various
technologies, robots, bar code readers, camcorders and cordless
telephones, to name a few. His dedication to improve simple things and
his creative mind gained him recognition as Design News'
Engineer of the year in 1995. Lemelson died in 1997 of liver cancer, a
disease which he fought by inventing improvements on medical devices,
gaining nearly 40 patents in the last year of his life.
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9: ALAN
MULALLY, 1996
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Senior Vice President,
Airplane Development and Definition
![PastEOY_Alan]()
Alan Mulally led the development of the Boeing
777, which was the biggest manufactured product of the early 1990s.
The 777 was designed entirely by computer, the first jetliner to be
designed in such a way. Mulally worked with 24,000 engineers in the US and
12 foreign countries in a collaborative effort to create the jetliner.
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10: BERNARD DAGARIN, 1997
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Hughes Program Manager
![PastEOY_Bernard]() Bernard
Dagarin's work on the Galileo space probe project began in 1978. The
project's goal, to plunge into the atmosphere of Jupiter, was both
unique and high-risk and would take the better part of two decades to
reach. The final product, a 747-lb probe with a 49-inch diameter, would
be able to withstand the conditions of Jupiter's atmosphere. Blasted
into space on October 18, 1989, the probe sat for more than six years,
to be checked periodically, until its release in July 1995. From there
the probe headed to Jupiter, facing questions about its durability in
such intense conditions. The project was a success, providing much
information about Jupiter's atmosphere.
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11: BRIAN
MUIRHEAD, 1998
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Project Manager, Mars
Pathfinder
![PastEOY_Brian]()
As the project manager for Mars
Pathfinder, Brian
Muirhead set the tone for a new era of faster, better, cheaper
missions at NASA. This highly ambitious project successfully landed the
Sojourner rover on Mars, and paved the way for a
family of rovers that are yielding vital new scientific findings. Brian
is now the chief engineer of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
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12: LYNN OTTEN, 1999
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Design Engineer, Medtronic
Lynn Otten became the 12th Design News Engineer of the year as
a result of her innovative technology in the treatment of Parkinson's Disease
and other movement disorder patients. Her technology, ActivaTM
Tremor Control, is a neurostimulation system that blocks the brain
signals responsible for the uncontrolled shaking experienced by
patients with movement disorders and allows them to carry out everyday
tasks.
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13: P. HUNTER PECKHAM, 2000
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Biological Engineer
![PastEOY_PHunter]()
P. Hunter Peckham was recognized for his devotion to motor function
restoration for those paralyzed by spinal cord injuries. In the 1970s,
the field of functional electrical stimulation was just emerging and
Peckham saw an opportunity for this tool to work as a bridge across the
damaged nervous system, in effect allowing quadriplegics to use their
hands. His research led to the design of the first FDA-approved neural
prosthesis for hand function. This design became known as Freehand.
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14: CHARLES
MUNNERLYN, 2001
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Engineer, VISX Corp.
![PastEOY_Charles]()
While working for California-based VISX Corp., pioneered the first laser-based systems
for vision correction, a technology that has improved the lives of
millions of people the world over.
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15: GERSON ROSENBERG,
2002
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Ph.D. Mechanical Engineer
![PastEOY_Gerson]()
Finding reliable, long-term heart-assist devices remains an elusive
goal for engineering. Penn
State's Gerson Rosenberg is a world leader in the development of
artificial organs for cardiology.
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16: TOM VOS,
2003
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Director of Safety System Technology,
TRW
![PastEOY_Tom]() Tom Vos worked
for forty years focusing on the small amount of time that it takes a
car accident to occur. During this time he was actively involved in
developing safety restraint technology for the occupants in a car.
These features include seat belts, integrated safety systems and air
bags. In 2003, Design News recognized Vos for his continued
efforts and successes in car safety. Vos constantly tests and examines
the physics of a car crash, an event which is calculated out in
milliseconds. He understands the mechanics, laws and anatomy of a
crash, and as a result is in the frontline of ever-improving safety in
automobiles.
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17: PAUL
BEVILAQUA, 2004
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Chief Engineer Advanced
Development Project, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co.
![PastEOY_Paul]()
Paul Bevilaqua was recognized for his innovative lift-fan propulsion
system for the F-35 Joint
Strike Fighter. The fan played a role in Lockheed Martin gaining what is historically the
largest military contract. The technology permits an airplane to fly at
high speeds and land vertically. Bevilaqua's
fan system accomplished a long-thought-impossible goal of creating
an aircraft with supersonic speeds, a short take off and a vertical
landing.
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18: JIM TIGHE,
2005
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Chief Aerodynamicist, Scaled
Composites
![PastEOY_Jim]() Jim Tighe was
the driving force behind the aerodynamics of SpaceshipOne.
The plane, which was created on a small budget (a $20 million donation
from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen), does not fly very
fast, which allows it to reach a higher altitude and contend better
with other forces in the air. Tighe wrote his own computer program to
use with a special SSI
simulator, one of the many secrets to the SSI's success. This
simulator allowed the pilots to practice before ever actually flying
the plane. This computer and program would become critical in each test
flight of the plane, later leading to the SSI's success flying against
20 other competitors.
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19: TOM
WATSON, 2006
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Hybrid Propulsion Systems
Manager, Ford
![PastEOY_TomWatson]()
Tom Watson is responsible for the blend of two extremely different
forms of power in an effort to sustain energy. Watson's knowledge of
engines, transmissions and more made him a leading figure in this
effort and brought Ford into a new age of fuel economy. The Ford hybrid achieves fuel economy by blending the
power of an inline four-cylinder engine and a 70-kW electric traction
motor. The power sent to the wheels varies by the driving situation.
This system has surpassed its competitors in mpg for both highway and
city driving.
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20: TOM COGAN,
2007
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Chief Project Engineer,
Boeing 787 Dreamliner
![EOYTomCogan_100X125]()
Tom Cogan's co-workers and subordinates will tell you he symbolizes the
new breed of consensus-driven engineering executives at Boeing that grew out
of the 777 development. Cogan is the calm in the storm. Read more about Tom Cogan and watch the 787
Dreamliner's chief project engineer accept his award at National
Manufacturing Week!
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21: MARTIN
FISHER, 2008
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Founder, KickStart International
![Martin Fisher 2008 EoY Martin Fisher 2008 EoY]()
As the founder of KickStart
International, a non-profit technology development, Fisher and the
engineers he oversees have created a variety of micro-irrigation,
oil-processing and building technologies that have resulted in the
creation of more than 60,000 small-scale businesses that have lifted
more than 300,000 people out of poverty, mostly in Africa. Read
more about Martin Fisher!
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22: JB STRAUBEL, 2009
| CTO, Tesla Motors
JB Straubel oversaw the technical effort that took Tesla's
electric Roadster to a battery-only range of a stunning 244 miles. Tesla's
achievement is considered significant, even by traditional automotive
competitors, because most production-level EVs have struggled to crack the
150-mile mark. Under Straubel, Tesla linked 6,800 lithium-ion cells together
in a battery pack weighing 990 pounds, developed a patented cooling system to
enhance the battery's safety, engineered a lightweight single-speed
powertrain and tweaked the vehicle's aerodynamics and rolling resistance. The
result: an electric car that races from 0-60 mph in 3.9 seconds and still
gets more range than any electric production car in automotive history.
Straubel is now spearheading the design of Tesla's Model S, an electric
seven-seat sedan that's targeted for a 300-mile range. Read More about JB Straubel!
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