State Engineering Hall of Fame Inducts New Class

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — The State of Alabama Engineering Hall of Fame inducted five individuals and honored three engineering projects during a recent ceremony at the Auburn Marriott Opelika Hotel and Conference Center at Grand National.

The following five individuals join the 163 inducted into the Hall of Fame over the past 27 years: Clint S. Coleman, of Huntsville; Michael A. DeMaioribus, of Huntsville; Dr. J. David Irwin, of Auburn; Joseph A. “Buzz” Miller of, Atlanta, Georgia; and Stephen D. Moxley Jr., formerly of Birmingham.

Also, the Auburn University MRI Research Center, Interstate 565 in Madison County and the restoration of Little Bay Peninsula were inducted as engineering projects, joining 38 projects inducted into the Alabama Engineering Hall of Fame since 1987.

Founded by proclamation of the governor, the State of Alabama Engineering Hall of Fame honors, preserves and perpetuates the outstanding accomplishments and contributions of individuals, projects and corporations/institutions that brought and continue to bring significant recognition to the state.

The Hall of Fame is overseen by engineering colleges and schools at Auburn University, Alabama A&M University, The University of Alabama, Tuskegee University, University of Alabama at Birmingham, University of Alabama in Huntsville and the University of South Alabama.

It is administratively managed through the UA College of Engineering. For more information, visit aehof.eng.ua.edu.

Clint S. Coleman, vice president of Carrier Networks Division Engineering, ADTRAN Inc.

Clint S. Coleman was a charter member of an engineering design team that helped ADTRAN Inc. become a leading global provider of networking and communications equipment, with a portfolio of intelligent solutions deployed by some of the world’s largest service providers, distributed enterprises and small and medium-sized businesses.

ADTRAN solutions enable voice, data, video and Internet communications across copper, fiber and wireless network infrastructures. During his 27-year tenure at ADTRAN, Coleman has led many major development efforts including the team which allowed ADTRAN to become the world leader in the business-access market. His innovation and hard work have earned him placement as vice president, engineering, at ADTRAN.

After Coleman received his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from The University of Alabama in 1983, he began his professional career with UDS/Motorola in Huntsville, Alabama, as a design engineer. During his tenure with UDS/Motorola, Coleman spent a year in Singapore as resident engineering manager, providing technical support to various manufacturing subcontractors.

In 1987, he joined ADTRAN, also in Huntsville, as a design engineer. The company’s success stems from its history in telecommunications. Incorporated in 1985, ADTRAN began operations in 1986 following AT&T’s divestiture of the Regional Bell Operating Cos., or RBOCs. This created an opportunity for companies such as ADTRAN to supply network equipment to the seven RBOCs as well as the more than 1,300 independent telephone companies in the United States.

His creativity as a design engineer, helped ADTRAN become the dominate telecommunication supplier of the products he developed. Coleman helped develop ADTRAN’s first HDSL transceiver, upon which ADTRAN’s HDSL product line is built.

He became engineering manager of the HDSL product line in 1992 and, in 1997, engineering director of the HDSL, FT1 and HDSL2 product lines. In 2001, Coleman was named vice president of Carrier Networks Division Engineering, Loop Technologies. During this time, Coleman was co-inventor on three patents that helped his company become a leader in its industry.

In 2010, he became vice president of Carrier Networks Division Engineering, responsible for design groups with more than 400 employees in Huntsville; Phoenix, Arizona; Mountain View, California; and Hyderabad, India. He oversees ADTRAN’s products and services in broadband access, narrowband access, carrier Ethernet, Optical Networking Edge along with networking and configuration management.

Coleman serves on Biztech’s board of directors, UA’s electrical and computer engineering advisory board and is the ADTRAN executive sponsor for UA. He is a member of the UA College of Engineering Leadership Board. In 2003, he was declared Distinguished Engineering Fellow by UA’s College of Engineering.

Coleman resides in Huntsville with his wife, Jennifer, and they have two children.

Michael A. DeMaioribus, executive vice president of business operations, Dynetics

A significant portion of Michael “Mike” DeMaioribus’ 37-year career at Dynetics has been spent in the unique field of Scientific and Technical Intelligence Engineering. This discipline involves in-depth engineering analysis and evaluation of highly classified, all-source S&TI information to determine the capabilities, limitations and vulnerabilities of complex, advanced foreign weapon systems in order to develop countermeasures to protect U.S. forces.

After earning a bachelor’s and master’s degree in electrical engineering from Auburn University in 1976 and 1977, respectively, where he received the President’s Award as the “Outstanding Engineering Graduate,” he joined Dynetics in Huntsville.

The company serves clients within the federal government and related sectors, providing complete lifecycle analysis, engineering and systems development in the areas of intelligence, missiles, aviation, cybersecurity, space and automotive.

He joined Dynetics in 1977 as an engineer charged with evaluating the effectiveness of foreign air defense radars against U.S. aircraft. He showed promise and was quickly promoted, starting a career that advanced and evolved the field of engineering through the analysis, evaluation and development of highly complex systems for the defense and intelligence sectors. These included radars, guided missiles and integrated air defense systems.

During his time with Dynetics, DeMaioribus has been responsible for engineering, program management, technical direction, quality control and staffing for systems analysis, modeling and simulation, electrical and mechanical system design, development, test and evaluation.

He helped the company grow from 30 to 1,400 people and was eventually named senior vice president for the Hardware and Intelligence Operating Unit, which had 250 engineers and technicians in five locations nationwide and a $50 million budget.

In 2013, he was promoted to executive vice president of business operations over what is now a $300 million company. He is responsible for financial and material tracking systems necessary to manage large parts inventories and in-house labor costs, along with subcontractor costs.

He is also responsible for contracts, IT, security, human resources and facilities. He has been involved in the construction of three major Dynetics facilities totaling 450,000 square feet, two of which are focused on classified hardware programs.

DeMaioribus is also active in the Huntsville community. He is a member of the Huntsville Botanical Garden board of directors, and is past chair of the United Way of Huntsville/Madison County board of directors. He is an alumnus of the Leadership Huntsville program, and he and his wife, Leta, are actively involved in the Huntsville Community Foundation.

DeMaioribus serves on the Auburn University Board of Trustees. He is the past chair of both the Auburn department of electrical and computer engineering industrial advisory board and the Auburn Alumni Engineering Council.

He and Leta have pledged their support to Auburn through several gifts to the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering. In 2008, he was named an “Auburn Distinguished Engineer” after being selected as an “Outstanding Alumnus” in 2003 by the Auburn ECE Department.

Mike and Leta reside in Huntsville. They have four children and seven grandchildren.

Dr. J. David Irwin, Earle C. Williams Eminent Scholar, Auburn University Samuel Ginn College of Engineering

For more than 45 years, Dr. J. David Irwin has remained at the forefront of engineering both as a technology innovator and a pioneering educator. His research continues to influence today’s technology, and his creative solutions to educating tomorrow’s engineers have earned him the admiration of his peers and former students.

He earned a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering from Auburn University in 1961 and master’s and doctorate degrees from the University of Tennessee in 1962 and 1967, respectively. After a brief stint at Bell Telephone Laboratories, where he was promoted to a supervisor, Irwin returned to Auburn as an assistant professor in 1969.

His keen ability to effectively teach and mentor students, while also leading research, led him to be selected as head of the department of electrical engineering in 1973. He became a full professor in 1976 and was named the Earle C. Williams Eminent Scholar in 1993, a position he still holds though he left as department head in 2009.

As department head, Irwin initiated projects that strengthened Auburn’s prominence in engineering, including developing a strong faculty active in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, securing a new building for the department, and establishing the second microelectronics laboratory in the Southeast for teaching and research. He was also instrumental in developing the nation’s first accredited wireless engineering degree program.

As an educator, he authored “Basic Engineering Circuit Analysis,” a textbook now in its 11th edition and considered one of the top three in the field. The textbook has been translated in many languages and is a cornerstone of electrical-engineering education across the globe.

Irwin also co-authored the textbook, “Introduction to Computer Networks and Cybersecurity.” Recently published, it is already considered one of the most comprehensive texts in this emerging area of technology.

Outside the classroom, his achievements in research and development are just as meaningful. He contributed to the development of a Direct Digital Synthesizer, which, at the time, was the world’s fastest and most compact and used less power than any predecessor device.

The chip is a fundamental block in the transmit/receive modules for all-digital radars. He also contributed to development of a system, licensed to Aunigma Network Solutions, which minimizes authentication time to prevent denial of service attacks.

Irwin has been honored with numerous awards. He is a recipient of IEEE’s highest award for education, the James H. Mulligan Jr. Education Medal.  He has also been honored by the electrical engineering profession in many other ways, including the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society’s creation of the J. David Irwin Early Career Award in recognition of the many contributions made to the development of young professionals.

The award is given annually to outstanding IEEE members throughout the world. He is an IEEE Life-Fellow, a Fellow of the American Society for Engineering Education and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.  He is also a Distinguished Auburn Engineer and received Auburn University’s Presidential Award for Excellence.

Joseph A. “Buzz” Miller, president of nuclear development, Southern Nuclear, and executive vice president of nuclear development, Georgia Power

The career arc of Joseph A. “Buzz” Miller has led him to lead an ambitious project to build and start the first two nuclear reactors in the United States in more than 30 years, an effort that will supply power to the Southeast for generations

As president of nuclear development for Southern Nuclear and executive vice president of nuclear development for Georgia Power, both subsidiaries of Southern Company, Miller oversees construction of what are called Vogtle 3 and Vogtle 4, two new nuclear reactors at the Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating Plant.

After graduating from Auburn University in 1983 with a degree in chemical engineering, Miller began his career in Alabama in the oil field and power plant service industries before joining Alabama Power, also a part of Southern Co., in 1986 in the chemistry and environmental support section of nuclear generation.

After a series of assignments at Alabama Power and Southern Nuclear, he became federal regulatory affairs manager of Southern Co. in Washington, D.C., where he also served one year at the Nuclear Energy Institute as acting vice president of legislative affairs. In 1998, he was named assistant to Bill Dahlberg, CEO, president and chairman of Southern Co.

A year later, he was elected vice president for government relations, responsible for managing the company’s Washington staff and its efforts with Congress and executive branch agencies. In 2006, he was elected to his current position.

To meet future energy demands, Southern Co. is expanding its nuclear power generation at Plant Vogtle, and Miller was called upon to lead the effort. The $14 billion project is groundbreaking in its goal to expand nuclear power in the U.S., and Miller is pioneering ways to get the job done.

He spearheaded the effort every step of the way. His management and leadership resulted in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission issuing the first Nuclear Combined Construction and Operation License in more than three decades.

His activity in the project ranges from directing negotiations for the first contracts for the nuclear plant to implementing organizational designs and models for nuclear development that ensure continued success of the project’s safety, quality, cost and schedule. He also created project controls to ensure performance and cost recovery.

He interacts directly with the Public Service Commission construction monitor who oversees the site, and he maintains positive relationships with NRC.

Miller also supports engineering education at Auburn. He helped establish the Nuclear Power Generation Systems program in the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering, where he also serves on the Auburn Engineering Alumni Council. He is also a member of the Ramsay Circle for his philanthropic contributions to Auburn engineering.

Miller and his wife, Donna, live in Atlanta, Georgia. They have two children.

Stephen D. Moxley, former president, American Cast Iron Pipe Co.

For more than 40 years, Stephen “Steve” D. Moxley was a major player in the growth and innovation of the American Cast Iron Pipe Co. and a constant and influential presence in civic life of his city, state and nation.

During his life, he helped bring international prominence to ACIPCO, a new industrial water supply to Birmingham, a full engineering school to Birmingham and, later, the Warrior-Tombigbee Waterway to Alabama.

The son of Welsh immigrants, he dropped out of high school in Birmingham to become an apprentice draftsman at the Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Co. Still, he passed the entrance exam to become an engineering student at The University of Alabama, completing his high school credits by correspondence well after he was enrolled in college.

To pay for college, he fired the central furnace at the University and worked between terms at TCI. In college, as later in life, his energy was seemingly boundless as he helped found and lead both Theta Tau engineering fraternity and Tau Beta Pi engineering honor society all while earning a bachelor’s and master’s degree in mechanical engineering by 1922, four years after coming to Tuscaloosa.

In 1923, he joined ACIPCO as a draftsman. While there, he conceived and designed a number of machines for the production of cast-iron pressure pipe by the sand-spun process. He was also co-inventor of the centrifugal casting method of producing iron pipe using sand-lined molds, a production of super-strong, cast-iron pressure pipe. He climbed the ranks at ACIPCO and was named president in 1955, a position he held until his retirement in 1963.

A well-known engineer, Moxley is credited with numerous inventions and many technical papers, including 10 patents. He was made a Fellow by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1953 for his technical achievements.

He was a member of a number of professional and civic organizations, including the State Board of Registration for Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors and the National Defense Executive Reserve. He was also vice president for the national ASME organization. In 1960, he was named Birmingham’s Man of the Year.

Moxley was also an advocate for education. He led a committee in 1951 that equipped a foundry for the UA College of Engineering, and he led a drive that resulted in the first degree-granting engineering school in Birmingham, now the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Engineering.

His civic engagement was also extensive. As president of the Warrior Tombigbee Development Association, he helped promote the successful completion of the waterway, which, though completed long after his death, is an economic engine for the Southeast and the entire country.

Moxley served eight years as chairman of the Chamber of Commerce Industrial Water Committee that helped bring to Birmingham a new industrial water system. In 1958, he was elected first chairman of the city’s Industrial Water Board.

In 1966, he was awarded an honorary doctor of science degree by the University. He was inducted posthumously into the Alabama Business Hall of Fame in 1984 and named a Distinguished Engineering Fellow by UA in 1990.

Auburn University MRI Research Center

Opened in November 2010, the Auburn University MRI Research Center advances critical technology required to solve complicated medical challenges, meets society’s healthcare needs and improves economic growth in Alabama.

The $20-million, 45,000-square-foot facility houses two of the most powerful research and clinical magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, scanners in the world. The Siemens Verio open-bore 3 Tesla scanner is the most powerful MRI certified by the Federal Drug Administration for clinical and research use.

The Siemens 7 Tesla MRI scanner is the nation’s third actively-shielded, whole-body scanner, and is one of only three 7T scanners located in the Southeast and one of less than 20 such scanners in the United States. The center has carved a niche for Auburn University and the state of Alabama with capabilities few share.

Most MRI scanners are in medical schools, managed by medical personnel using standard 1.5T MRI scanners for clinical use. Auburn’s facility sits in the Auburn University Research Park and is overseen by the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering, whose researchers work with partners on cardiovascular disease, neuroscience, biomedical engineering and MRI technology.

Also, the center’s capabilities attract prominent faculty, enhancing research at Auburn and internationally.

Using the MRI scanners at the center, Auburn engineering researchers are working with counterparts at Auburn’s College of Veterinary Medicine in a federally-funded study of how dog’s brains process smells in an effort to improve training of detector dogs and to study how a dog’s brain reacts to human emotions.

Auburn researchers from engineering and psychology work with the U.S. Army Aeromedical Research Laboratory in Fort Rucker and the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center to study the structures and activity of the brains of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan to better understand post-concussion syndrome and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Auburn also partners with the University of Alabama at Birmingham in a project to improve detection of early-onset schizophrenia. In another partnership with UAB, the MRI Research Center provides the core for patient-centered studies on specific types of heart disease.

The center enhances health care in the region as specialized engineers in the center work alongside clinicians and scholars in a unique environment. Leased space in the center is devoted to area medical clinicians including a neurosurgeon specializing in minimally-invasive management of brain tumors along with brain and spinal cord trauma, an orthopaedics and sports medicine practice and an outpatient physical therapy group.

The innovative solutions in imaging developed at the MRI Center will be commercialized through partnerships in the private sector, providing jobs for the state. The center is advancing healthcare of the citizens of Alabama and is realizing such a large economic impact that Auburn University should recover the state’s initial investment in only six years.

Construction of the center was managed by Brasfield & Gorrie, Perkins+Will was the architect of record and LBYD was the lead civil and structural engineering firm. Newcomb & Boyd provided plumbing, mechanical and electrical engineering.

Interstate 565 Huntsville/Madison County

The largest project ever completed by the Alabama Department of Transportation, Interstate 565 through Madison County has sparked economic development and growth, improving quality of life for North Alabama. Completing it required overcoming engineering challenges, and the interstate stands the test of time.

Despite rapid growth in the region in the 1950s and 1960s stemming from the establishment of the United States Army Missile Command at Redstone Arsenal and the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville was the most populous city in the contiguous U.S. without a freeway connection to the Interstate Highway System before I-565 opened in 1991.

The concept for the interstate was approved by the Federal Highway Administration in 1968, and it is part of the federal Appalachian Development Highway System, a program enacted to develop easily-navigable highways throughout the Appalachia.

The development of I-565 consisted of 36 separate construction projects, and more than $435 million has been spent on the interstate, including a new interchange currently under construction. ALDOT was one of the first groups in the nation to plan and design the interstate under newly passed federal regulations that required Environmental Impact Studies.

From environmental assessments and surveys to land condemnation and right-of-way acquisition, from mitigation to design, engineering and construction, completion of this project included the team effort of numerous engineering and construction firms, design coordination and effort.

Construction on the 22-mile spur connecting Interstate 65 near Decatur with U.S. Highway 72 in Huntsville began in 1987. Innovative engineering was needed to overcome geometry design challenges.

There are more than six miles of bridges, and the interstate crosses over the Southern Railway at such a skew that structural engineers had to use unconventional and complex design methods. Parts of the design also required cutting rock from mountainous areas, and strategic business and residential relocations were required to satisfy environmental issues.

Some parts of I-565 carry more than 100,000 cars daily, and the freeway relieves congestion and cuts cross-city trip times. It’s estimated the spur has yielded $1.72 for each dollar spent in its construction, and it has become a vital part of the state’s transportation infrastructure.

The interstate provides for a better movement of goods into Huntsville and improves access to the airport. Also, tourism into the Huntsville area is estimated to add $1 billion to the local economy, and I-565 plays a crucial role in easing access to area attractions for the more than 2.7 million visitors in 2012.

The four-county Huntsville-Decatur combined statistical area has also greatly benefited from I-565. Its completion is credited with making the city of Madison the town it is today, and Madison is often recognized nationally as one of the best places to live. Huntsville, too, is consistently named on the best places to live and work. The metro area has become a hub in the Tennessee Valley Region, and Madison County is now the third-most populated county in Alabama.

Little Bay Peninsula Restoration Project

The largest restoration of its kind ever undertaken in coastal Alabama, the Little Bay Peninsula Restoration Project restored coastal marshes and created fish and shellfish habitats along publicly-owned shorelines damaged during Hurricane Katrina.

Waves and storm surge from Katrina in 2005 breached Dauphin Island, a barrier island off the Alabama Gulf Coast, and crossed the Mississippi Sound as far as Little Bay, severely eroding Little Bay Peninsula just west of Bayou La Batre, Alabama.

The peninsula serves as a shoreline barrier, protecting the ecosystem north of the Mississippi Sound.

The Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, ADCNR, used a Post-Hurricane Katrina Finfish and Shellfish Nursery Habitat Restoration Program to identify and implement coastal restoration techniques for a long-term solution. The infrastructure engineering firm Volkert, out of Mobile, was assigned the project in 2008.

The Little Bay Restoration Project closed the breach in the peninsula, restoring about 30 acres of salt marshes. The project helps the peninsula continue to guard more than 5,000 acres in a conservation area managed by ADCNR as part of the Alabama Forever Wild Program.

Professionals from several disciplines used state-of-the-art technology, site specific adaption and ingenuity to design and implement shoreline restoration. With expertise and research facilities provided by the University of South Alabama, a wave attenuation unit was designed to serve as a breakwater.

The combination of wave basin experimentation and computer modeling used to design the device is not typical in coastal restoration of this scale. Current engineering practices will be redefined by this project for similar undertakings, and future projects will benefit from these techniques.

The units built to decrease the energy of the waves, by design, were trapezoidal concrete structures, each weighing eight tons. Two, one-mile long parallel lines of the units – 546 in all – form a permeable, segmented breakwater as the primary barrier to calm the waves and protect the restored Little Bay Peninsula.

During storm surge, the wave attenuation units were designed to remain stable and provide sufficient wave calming effects, facilitate water exchange and afford habitat and shelter for species of shellfish and finfish.

With the protective units in place, the open gap in the peninsula was closed with oyster bags to provide a containment area to receive dredged sediment from a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers underwater disposal area. Then, more than 90,000 indigenous plants were brought in from a nearby marsh.

The project represents a $4 million investment toward environmental sustainability and will continue to have a positive impact on the coastal ecosystem. The project also improved the economic stability for the people of Coastal Alabama who rely heavily on the seafood industry.

Since its completion, the project has garnered national recognition from the Environmental Protection Agency and American Council of Engineering Cos., the Association of Conservation Engineers and the Mobile Area Council of Engineers.