America's 25 Most Famous Engineers

For the 70,000 or so students who earn degrees in US engineering schools annually, fame is never the goal. Still, it occasionally works out that way.

A handful of engineers have become famous as CEOs, astronauts, criminals, media figures, football players, baseball managers, military leaders, and even US presidents.

[We hope to see you at Pacific Design & Manufacturing, Feb. 9-11, at the Anaheim Convention Center.]

Not surprisingly, design work seldom translates to fame. If the slideshow accompanying this story proves anything, it’s that popular culture values celebrity more than invention. The project managers behind magnetic resonance imaging (Rowland Redington) and the Mars Pathfinder (Brian Muirhead), for example, aren’t household names. But Bill Nye, The Science Guy, is.

Following are photos and biographical information on 25 famous engineers. We invite you to page through the images (by clicking on the photo below) and tell us about others, especially those who have earned their fame in the lab or at the workbench.

The first female CEO of a major auto company, Mary Barra launched her General Motors career as a co-op student in 1980, and subsequently held a variety of engineering and administrative positions before being named to her current post in 2013. Barra has automotive bloodlines, having grown up with a father who worked as a die maker at Pontiac for 39 years. In addition to being GM’s first female CEO, Barra’s promotion to the top was unusual in that she’s an electrical engineer, a position that for many years was not considered a good path to a corner office in the automotive world. She is a E.E. graduate of General Motors Institute, now called Kettering University.
(Source: General Motors)

READ ABOUT MORE FAMOUS ENGINEERS:

Senior technical editor Chuck Murray has been writing about technology for 31 years. He joined Design News in 1987, and has covered electronics, automation, fluid power, and autos.

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