Alabama Engineering Hall of Fame to Hold 2006 Ceremony

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – The State of Alabama Engineering Hall of Fame will induct six individuals and honor one corporation/institution during a ceremony on Feb. 25 at the Marriott Huntsville in Huntsville.

Joining the 103 individuals already inducted into the Hall of Fame will be:

Charles D. Griffin has helped save thousands of lives through his successful leadership of CarboMedic. In 2004, the 500,000th implant of CarboMedic’s prosthetic heart valve, or CPHV, was recorded – testament to the biotechnological and business expertise of Griffin.

As head of engineering at CarboMedic, Griffin was responsible for the valve’s development, and he was present in a Paris hospital in 1986 when the first CPHV was implanted. Since then, CarboMedic and its pioneering innovations have grown to offer a life-sustaining array of devices for repairing and replacing human heart valves. Nine out of 10 leading American cardiac centers employ CarboMedic devices. Under Griffin’s direction, CarboMedic has become the world’s second largest producer of mechanical heart valves.

Griffin graduated from Auburn University in 1975 and began a career in civil engineering with Southern Company before deciding to study biomaterials. In 1980, he earned a master’s degree in materials engineering from The University of Alabama at Birmingham. Griffin joined Zimmer USA as an orthopedic-implants researcher. In 1982, Griffin became a research engineer for CarboMedic, and within four years he was promoted to head of engineering. In 1990, he was appointed a vice president, and in 2001 he was named CarboMedic’s president.

Griffin resides near Austin, Texas, in Leander. He is active in Austin’s Adopt-a-School program, and he is a guest lecturer at UT-Austin and the Central Texas Machinists School. He served for five years on the advisory board that recently established for Georgia Tech and Emory University a groundbreaking biomedical-engineering department structured on input from faculty and industry.

Griffin’s other professional affiliations include the Society for Biomaterials, the American Society for Artificial Internal Organs, the European Society for Artificial Organs, and the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation. Griffin shares two U.S. patents for heart valve prostheses and has published and presented regularly to the engineering profession.

Coultas D. “Colt” Pears created a materials evaluation facility at Southern Research Institute that joined a handful of places worldwide where materials’ nondestructive testing and microscopy are performed and where thermal and mechanical properties are routinely tested and studied at up to thousands of degrees. Pears joined SRI in 1957, establishing a vanguard engineering organization that regularly proffered novel means of understanding complex new materials’ behavior.

Early work by Pears’ Analysis and Measurements Section evolved into a major SRI function becoming the mechanical and materials engineering department. Pears later became the vice president of the Engineering Research Center at SRI where the work targeted America’s aerospace needs, stressing high-temperature technology and characterization, macrostructural modeling, failure analysis, and core technology for materials. His work was key to U.S. Department of Defense and space program success, including Apollo and the space shuttle.

Pears was central in growing SRI’s annual research volume to more than $12 million. He anticipated areas where technical advancement would be needed and capitalized on his foresight by developing cutting-edge evaluative technologies and techniques. His work helped create more than 100 technical jobs in the state and brought millions of research dollars to Alabama. Pears was appointed as vice president emeritus and Distinguished Engineer in 1993, and he continues to consult on institute research.

Pears earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering at Tulane University in 1949. Before joining SRI, he directed coal gasification research for the Bureau of Mines for 10 years and headed Alabama Power’s Underground Coal Gasification Project. Among his many honors include the ASTM Outstanding Service and Leadership Award. In addition, Pears holds or shares five patents and was elected to the Alabama Academy of Science.

William B. Reed has made substantial impacts in the energy consumption area and in enabling promising engineering students scholarships.

Reed obtained a bachelor’s degree from Auburn University in 1950 and began his career with General Electric, where he developed expertise in steam-turbine generators. During his 19-year tenure with GE, his contributions were repeatedly the object of boardroom praise.

In 1969, he joined Southern Company Services as an executive vice president where he raised power plants and transmission systems to new standards. In 1976, he was appointed president, and in the eight years under his direction Southern Company Services made and maintained improvements to operations, engineering and construction of the sort typifying a world-class utility.

Reed retired in 1984 but still served the engineering professional admirably through work as a consultant. He founded Reed Consulting which throughout two decades built a sterling reputation nationwide for service that advanced the field of electric power engineering. During this time, Reed was CEO of Selma’s American Fine Wire Company and Systems Controls Inc.

At his alma mater, Reed serves on the Auburn Alumni Engineering Council, has lifetime membership in the alumni association, and is an 1856 Society donor. He is also active in the Birmingham Rotary Club and the Southern Seniors Golf Association.

Charles H. Sain is best described first as a civil leader and second as a civil engineer. During service to his nation, Sain, an honors graduate from the University of Florida, entered World War II as a teacher of engineering skills to infantrymen. He later became an engineer officer, serving from the invasion of Europe until Germany’s surrender.

Following the war, Sain entered the railroad industry where early projects showcased his innovative streak. A world expert on blasting and vibration, Southern Railway approached him in 1960 seeking a blasting method that would produce deep cuts free of rugged surfaces. His solution was “pre-splitting,” a method of cracking rock that not only smoothed slopes but improved control of blasting vibrations. Pre-splitting shaped the construction industry, and today it is standard in U.S. transportation departments.

In 1969, Charles H. Sain Associates was formed, and the consulting firm has become one of Alabama’s largest by doing what no other firm did – uniting engineers, architects, and contractors in seamless communication, planning and execution. Determined to give his clients his best, he created ways to contribute from the first strategic phases of new hospitals, landfills, roads and bridges, golf courses, power plants, water systems, and schools. He completed more than 1,000 projects alone.

At 82, Sain is in his office daily when not participating in professional gatherings. He continues overseeing a leadership development program he instituted at Sain Associates, thus ensuring his legacy of informed engineers who are inspired to lead.

David W. Scobey Jr. has been constantly challenged by shifting regulatory climates, technological changes, and a highly competitive environment. As president of Retail Markets for BellSouth Telecommunications, Scobey continues to focus his efforts on what he believes is most important in any business – people, including the customer, employee and shareholder.

Scobey began his career at BellSouth as an electrical engineering student. Graduating from Auburn University in 1978, he became a network engineer and, five years later, a manager. He initially developed digital telecommunication projects in Denver. In subsequent posts, he would manage diverse aspects of BellSouth’s operations including sales, marketing, publishing, strategic planning, and new ventures. In 1998, Scobey became president of BellSouth Long Distance. Taking off into this billion-dollar market, Scobey’s leadership claimed 40 percent of the market within two years.

In 2001, Scobey took the lead at BellSouth Small Business Services. He turned a 6 percent decline in revenue into an industry-leading 6 percent revenue growth, gaining DSL customers at an average growth rate of more than 30 percent and dramatically improving annual line loss. His attention to customer needs led his Small Business Services team, which served 900,000 customers, to three J.D. Power and Associates’ awards.

A resident of Alpharetta, Ga., Scobey serves his community as a member of the Board of Elders of the North Atlanta Church of Christ and as a volunteer with Angel Flight. An instrument-rated pilot, he offers his time to make medical flights for this group, absorbing the costs of transporting patients. He also gives time and resources to the Auburn University School of Electrical and Computer Engineering Alumni Advisory Board and to Harding University’s President’s Council. Ardently supporting small businesses, he is a volunteer business educator and recently wrote an introduction to a guidebook that serves small business needs.

Dwight L. Wiggins has been making his mark in the petroleum-refining industry for four decades. Wiggins earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering from Auburn University in 1962 and 1967, respectively. He joined Exxon Corp. in 1967, and throughout his 25-year tenure with Exxon became known as the solver of operational problems others couldn’t fix.

In 1993, Wiggins joined Tosco Corp. as president of its Bayway Refining Co. This huge East Coast plant had lagged for years, but Wiggins affected a complete turnaround. In a year, he had generated earnings, allowing Bayway to present all employees year-end bonuses for the first time. Soon, he added to his titles the executive vice president of Tosco, and under his guidance, refining became Tosco’s core business with quadruple the number of refineries it had held.

Wiggins eventually directed eight refineries in six states. By his 2001 retirement, Wiggins had grown the firm to refine up to 1.3 million barrels daily, employed 5,000 people, and logged annual capital expenditures nearing $500 million.

Wiggins continues to contribute to his alma mater greatly. He is an ardent supporter of Auburn’s Formula SAE team, as he routinely serves as adviser and attends races as far away as Australia. His input helps the team hold its top-10 spot among 140 exemplary engineering institutions representing Asia, Europe and the Americas. Wiggins also belongs to Auburn’s Samford Society and Alumni Engineering Council. He is leading the alumni campaign for new facilities for the mechanical engineering program.

The corporation/institution to be inducted into the State of Alabama Engineering Hall of Fame will be:

LBYD Inc. was founded in 1973 with the incorporation of E. Glenn Bishop and Associates. In 1978, with the merger of Lane/Hodnett, founded by Charles Lane and Robert Hodnett, the firm became Lane/Bishop/Hodnett Inc. Dale York and Jim Delahay became principals in 1987 and the firm became LaneBishopYorkDelahay Inc., known today as LBYD Civil and Structural Engineers.

With 51 employees, LBYD has established itself as a leader in engineering design innovations and in the process has produced outstanding projects which have received national and state recognition. These were not only award-winning projects, but projects that left a lasting impact on the state of Alabama. A few notable projects include the arch replacements at Martin Dam, the Mobile Convention Center, and the Mobile Government Plaza, which received a grand award identifying it as one of the top eight engineering designs in the United States.

LBYD engineers are registered in 35 states with projects completed in each of those. The company has completed engineering services for more than 6,500 projects with a combined value of over $5 billion. Some of the larger projects include Mercedes-Benz, the Federal Reserve Bank of Birmingham, U.S. federal courthouses in Montgomery and Birmingham, The University of Alabama Health Services Foundation’s Kirklin Clinic, and The University of Alabama Bryant-Denny Stadium expansion.

LBYD has made considerable contributions to furthering education in the engineering field. Since 1990, annual scholarships have been provided to Auburn University, The University of Alabama, and The University of Alabama at Birmingham. Since 2003, LBYD has provided endowed scholarships in civil engineering to Auburn University and The University of Alabama. The company has also partnered with the civil engineering departments at the Capstone, Auburn and UAB to assist with lectures and provide guidance with senior civil engineering design projects.

The State of Alabama Engineering Hall of Fame was founded by proclamation of the governor in 1987 to honor, preserve and perpetuate the outstanding accomplishments and contributions of individuals and corporations/institutions and projects that have brought and continue to bring significant recognition to the state.

Note to Editors: For more information about the State of Alabama Engineering Hall of Fame, visit the Web site at http://aehof.eng.ua.edu.