Six Honored as UA Distinguished Engineering Fellows

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – The University of Alabama College of Engineering recently honored six alumni and friends of the College by inducting them into its class of 2003 Distinguished Engineering Fellows.

Clint Coleman, John W. Covington, James M. Delahay, Merrill Jones, Marc Bryant Tyson and Terry R. Woods were selected for the top honor the College bestows.

Clint Coleman is vice president of Carrier Networks Division Engineering, Loop Technologies for ADTRAN Inc., a manufacturer of innovative telecommunications projects. After Coleman received his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from UA in 1983, he began his professional career with UDS/Motorola in Huntsville as a design engineer. During his tenure with UDS/Motorola, he spent a year in Singapore as resident engineering manager, providing technical support to various manufacturing subcontractors. In 1987, he joined ADTRAN as a design engineer. He was a charter member of the design team that developed ADTRAN’s first HDSL transceiver. Through his contributions, he helped ADTRAN grow from a small start-up company to a major telecommunications equipment provider with annual revenues exceeding $450 million. He resides in Huntsville.

John W. Covington is president of Chesapeake Consulting, a company he founded in 1988 that gives more than 10 percent of its pre-tax profits to charities chosen by a committee of employees. Covington received his bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from UA in 1972. After years of working in various management roles, Covington got the chance to follow one of his dreams and he started Chesapeake Consulting. Through Covington’s leadership, Chesapeake Consulting has worked with companies around the globe including Georgia Pacific Corp., 3M Corp., and Wilson Sporting Goods Co. This past year, the company’s recorded gross profits surpassed $3 million. Covington was named Small Businessperson of the Year by the Greater Severna Park (Maryland) Chamber of Commerce in 2002. A Springfield, Va., native, Covington resides in Millersville, Md.

James M. Delahay, president and CEO of LBYD Inc., has been the structural engineer of record for hundreds of commercial and industrial building projects throughout the United States. A few notable building projects with LBYD include the award-winning Birmingham Airport additions and renovations and the Mercedes Benz Visitor and Training Center in Vance. Delahay’s professional accomplishments are distinctive as he is a leader in some of the most important and prestigious organizations dealing with structural codes. He has been the chairman of the Structural Committee of the International Building Code. He also has served as the vice-chairman of the American Society of Civil Engineers 7 Wind Load Task Committee. Through his leadership, this group redefined the procedures for calculating wind loads and is considered the foremost wind engineering group in the U.S. Delahay received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in civil engineering from UA in 1980 and 1987, and he is a registered professional engineer in 16 states. A Montgomery native, Delahay resides in Vestavia Hills.

Merrill Jones, Ph.D., is the project manager for sustaining engineering, program engineering and program closeout for the NASA Spacelab and Payloads Carriers Programs for the Boeing Co. He was the Boeing member on an international team to plan Spacelab use for educational purposes in the United States and Europe. Jones’ outstanding performance on both the Spacelab and the International Space Station programs has been widely recognized as a key contribution to program success for the Boeing Co. and to the U.S. space program. Jones received his bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in chemical engineering from UA. He received the H.G. Johnston Memorial Award for the outstanding UA engineering student in 1961, and he received a UA Outstanding Chemical Engineering Fellow Award in 1988. A native of Birmingham, Jones resides in Huntsville.

Marc Bryant Tyson is president and founder of Ready Mix USA Inc. He has established the company as one of the top ready mix concrete, concrete block and aggregate producers in the Southeast. The company employs more than 1,100 people in five states and includes 80 ready mix concrete plants, 18 block plants, seven sand and gravel operations, and a septic tank plant. Notable projects where Ready Mix USA products have been instrumental include the Shelby Hall Interdisciplinary Science Building on the UA campus, the Honda Manufacturing Plant in Lincoln, and the Mercedes Benz Manufacturing Plant in Vance. Tyson received his bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from UA in 1985 and a master’s of business administration from the Owens Graduate School at Vanderbilt University. Tyson resides in Birmingham.

Terry R. Woods is the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Nuclear Power program chief civil and metallurgical engineer, responsible for providing technical support and strategic guidance to multiple plant sites on safety and reliability issues. A licensed and registered professional engineer in Tennessee, Woods received his bachelor’s degree in metallurgical engineering from UA in 1980. He was recently featured in Diversity Careers magazine for his involvement in recruiting and training new college graduates, and he is instrumental in TVA’s recruiting of UA interns and graduating engineers.

Woods also received a UA Outstanding Metallurgical Engineering Fellow Award in 1988. A Thomasville native, Woods resides in Chattanooga, Tenn.

In 1837, UA became the first university in the state to offer engineering classes and was one of the first five in the nation to do so. Today, the College of Engineering, with about 1,900 students and more than 90 faculty, is one of the three oldest continuously operating engineering programs in the country and has been fully accredited since accreditation standards were implemented in the 1930s.

Note to the Editor: Photos to accompany this release are available from Mary Wymer at mwymer@coe.eng.ua.edu.