2018 Academy of Distinguished Alumni Announced

As a way of recognizing the accomplishments and careers of our outstanding alumni, the Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering established the Academy of Distinguished Alumni in 2004. The Academy’s purpose is to recognize high-achieving mechanical engineers from among the UT Austin community and from the engineering community at large, to champion the mechanical engineering profession and to build a strong community and facilitate interactions among our students, faculty, alumni and corporate partners.

This year’s honorees include:

Richard Church

Distinguished Mechanical Engineer
BSME, The University of Texas at Austin, 1977

Richard (Rick) M. Church, Jr. was born Los Angeles, California on December 14, 1954. His father worked as a machinist for Rockwell, which began a lifelong connection to the space industry. At age 6, the family moved to a farm in southwest Missouri, milking cows and performing farm duties for the next 6 years. Here he began playing the trumpet in 3rd grade and marched in the local town parades. The family moved to Houston in 1966 where his father started a manufacturing company doing work for NASA and other aerospace companies. He worked at the machine shop business through high school. In 7th grade he decided to be an engineer. “I wanted to design things, not build them.” He switched to playing the baritone and was in the marching band. At Spring Woods High School, he took 4 years of drafting and received state honors. He decided

The University of Texas was the best engineering school for him and they also had a marching band. After a tryout with “Vincent R. DiNino” he was told he wasn’t good enough as a baritone player to make the band. But if he could switch to a Tuba, he may have a place for him. The first time he held a Tuba was at freshman band orientation. So, it began 45 years of playing in the Longhorn Band and Longhorn Alumni Band.

He worked for Dr. Marcus in the ME materials department at UT for 2 years, operating the scanning electron microscope, studying failure analysis of materials. Dr. Kenneth Ralls was also a mentor in the ME materials department at UT. Rick worked summers at Cameron after high school and through college as a draftsman. Rick was an officer in the Longhorn Band in charge of all refreshments at rehearsals  and home games, including visiting bands.

Rick began his career in 1977 at Cameron, working in the drilling products engineering group. His first design project was for 25,000 psi working pressure blowout preventers, the highest-pressure units ever made.  He received 2 patents for blowout preventer designs. In 1979, at 25 years of age, Rick was promoted to engineering manager of Cameron’s Louisiana operations which employed over 800 people.

He was employed by McEvoy in 1984 and was transferred to Aberdeen as engineering manager of subsea systems in Europe. In 1988, he was employed by a Norwegian oil company, as a consultant on subsea production systems until 1990. In 1991, He formed an oilfield services company, Church Oil Tools, with his brother Dan. A customer asked them to design some new high-pressure valves in 1994. They were to be called “frac” valves. The business thrived, and they sold the company in 1998. In 2001, Dan and Rick started a new company, Church Energy Services. They manufactured high pressure drilling equipment, including blowout preventers. They sold the business again in 2010. Rick and Dan are currently starting a new business venture, Church Upstream Technologies.

Family values were the strength of his commitment to achieving goals and gaining the respect of his peers. His brothers, Alan, Dan, Mike, sister Debbie and parents Richard and Nelda formed a strong foundation and helped navigate through life’s difficult challenges.

The UT Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Longhorn Band has given so much to the success of Rick. He has endowed scholarships to Longhorn Band members, dedicated to his parents, as well as endowments to the Longhorn Band Legacy Fund and the Department of Mechanical Engineering at UT. Rick and his family, Lana, and Valentina live in Houston and spend time at the Church Ranch near Austin.

David Frank

Mechanical Engineering Hall of Fame
BSME, The University of Texas at Austin, 1967

David grew up in Dallas, Texas, with an interest in sports and old cars. He purchased his first car when he was 12 years old, for twenty-five dollars. A high school career day conversation with a Dallas Power and Light engineer led him to pursue a degree in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin.

After graduating, he started his engineering career at Collins Radio Company in Richardson, Texas, in the High Power Transmitter Department, completing mechanical designs for the third and fourth generation of airborne high power VLF transmitters.

In 1972, David joined Electrospace Systems, Inc. (ESI), a small engineering company in Richardson, Texas. ESI designed, manufactured and installed communication systems in large aircraft for the United States Air Force and Navy. David was the Mechanical Engineering Department Head and a Program Manager as ESI grew from fifty to two thousand employees.

David became a VP of Operations after the company was purchased by Chrysler Corporation in 1987. The aircraft modification was relocated to Waco, Texas, and became Chrysler Technologies Airborne Systems (CTAS).

In 1996, Chrysler sold CTAS to Raytheon who combined it with the Raytheon E Systems Operation in Greensville, Texas. David was the Director of Aeronautical Engineer for Greensville and Waco. While in Waco, he was involved in several civic organizations including; United Way, Downtown Waco Inc., and the regional airport advisory board.

David was a member of the Visiting Committee for the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at UT and a corporate supporter of Women in Engineering. With his wife, he established the J. David and Jean A. Frank scholarship in Mechanical Engineering.

David and his wife, Jean, have two children that are UT engineering graduates. A daughter, Kelly, BS Architectural Engineering, MS Biomechanics, and a son, William, BS Mechanical Engineering, MS Aerospace Engineering.

After retirement, David and Jean traveled for several years in their motor home, and enjoy time with their 4 grandchildren (Allison, Cara, Everett, Colin).  David continues his hobbies of building stained glass and street rods. 

Robert Grimes

Distinguished Mechanical Engineer
BSME, The University of Texas at Austin, 1979
MSME, University of Houston, 1989

Robert E. (Bobby) Grimes is a native Texan, born in San Antonio and raised in Houston. He learned to turn wrenches at an early age, first on small motorcycles, then on various muscle cars of the late 1960’s. He knew virtually every nut and bolt on his beloved 1970 Mustang, and had many adventures both on- and off-road between bikes and cars on the west side of Houston and around Texas.

After graduating from Memorial High School, he entered The University of Texas at Austin in the fall of 1975 to study mechanical engineering. He did not recognize at first he was following in the footsteps of his father Robert H. Grimes, who returned from WWII in 1945 and earned his BSME from UT Austin. They both took many classes in Taylor Hall. Bobby loved the many fields covered by ME coursework: materials, design, fluids, heat transfer, etc. All these provided him the actual science and understanding for the seat-of-the-pants development he had done on cars and bikes as a youth.

Bobby had several campus interviews in the spring of 1979, the one that seemed most intriguing was at Hughes Tool Company on the east side of downtown Houston. He had no idea he would spend the next four decades in the Oil & Gas drilling industry, specializing in drill bit technology. Hughes Tool became Baker Hughes in 1987, and now Baker Hughes, a GE company (BGHE) in 2017, but it evolved far beyond all the corporate mergers with the myriad advances in computational design and analysis, material science, & testing methodologies over the years. He earned his MSME at University of Houston from 1987-89. Bobby enjoyed technical and management roles in product design, R&D, CAD/CAM, product management, and application engineering. He has visited most of the major drilling areas around the world, introducing new drill bit product lines and technologies to operators and BHGE engineers. He now serves as a technical advisor for BHGE, leading and serving on product development teams, mentoring earlier career engineers, and leading special projects for customers. He has numerous drill bit related patents and technical papers.

Bobby has been a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers for over 35 years, and has been actively involved in leadership positions at the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) for over 25 years. He is currently serving on the ASME Board of Governors (2017-2020). 

Bobby is a fellow of ASME, and a registered P.E. in Texas. He received ASME’s Frank Walk Service Award (1997); Eckart Service Award (1998); Dean W.R. Woolrich Engineer of the Year Award (2006); IPTI Exceptional Volunteer Award (2009); ASME Distinguished Service Award (2016); and the Geoca Mechanical Engineering Achievement “Oil Drop” Award (2017).

Bobby and Diane were married in 1985 and have two wonderful daughters, Emily and Sally, both married, and one delightful granddaughter, Jane. He feels very blessed indeed.

Michael Hart

Distinguished Mechanical Engineer
BSME, The University of Texas at Austin, 1974
MSME, The University of Texas at Austin, 1977

A native Texan, Mike Hart was born in Dallas, Texas,  in 1951.  His family moved to Austin and Mike attended Reagan High School.  Mike continued his education in Austin, attending the University of Texas to receive both his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees.

In April 1977, Mike Hart became a co-founder of Energy Engineering Associates, Inc. (EEA) with UT Professors Gary Vliet, Phil Schmidt and Jerold Jones.  He purchased the firm from his co-founders in 1980 and has over forty years of experience in the consulting engineering business.

The focus of the firm in its early years was providing energy efficiency and renewable energy consulting which included Department of Energy Institutional Conservation Program site reviews and inspections for 100+ grantees across 10 states.  While continuing to focus on energy conservation and efficient design, Mike lead the firm’s diversification into existing building engineering services and new building design.

Mike’s projects have won a variety of national and regional awards including a US Department of Energy National Energy Award and an E.P.A. Pollution Prevention Award for energy efficiency improvements at the UT-Austin campus, resulting in a 29% reduction in campus energy usage.

Over the last 40+ years, Mike grew EEA into an 80-person firm with offices in Austin, TX, and Albuquerque, NM, and projects located nationwide and beyond.  EEA has received the Austin American Statesman’s “Top Workplace” Award, which is based solely on the results of an employee feedback survey, each of the 7 years it has submitted.

Mike was extremely proud to complete a 55% stock sale to the EEA Employee Trust, making the firm majority Employee Owned.  The Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) allows every employee owner to have a piece of equity as a retirement plan.

Mike has been active in ASHRAE over the last 40 years, holding leadership positions in all levels of the organization.  He is currently serving on the Foundation Committee Board of Trustees and served 3 years as Chairman.

L. Benjamin Houston

Mechanical Engineering Hall of Fame
BSME, The University of Texas at Austin, 1958
MSME, Southern Methodist University, 1965

“Ben” Houston is a past director, president, and current shareholder at TDIndustries, where he has spent 53 years involved in such projects as the UTSW Bed Tower; 28 Level Methodist Outpatient Hospital in Houston, Texas; Cowboys (AT&T) Stadium in Arlington, Texas, and the 60-level Bank of America building in Charlotte, among hundreds of others. TDIndustries is an employee-owned mechanical construction service and facilities company with corporate offices in Dallas. TDIndustries has annual revenues of $600 million, and 2,400 TDPartners, with offices in Austin, Houston, San Antonio, Richardson, Dallas, Fort Worth, Denver, and Phoenix. TDIndustries practices a Servant Leadership, Employee Ownership philosophy and has been recognized by FORTUNE magazine as being one of the “100 Best Companies to Work for in America” for the past 21 years – one of only 13 companies on the list all 21 years. Mr. Houston is licensed as a professional engineer, an air conditioning contractor, and carries a master plumbing and master electrician’s license in Texas.

Prior to working with TDIndustries, Mr. Houston was assigned to the United States Naval Support Activity complex in Naples, Italy, ranked as Lieutenant where he was assistant officer in charge of construction of six, 6-to-11-story buildings. Mr. Houston has a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from University of Texas in Austin, class of 1958 and a Master of Science degree in Engineering from Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Mr. Houston is a graduate of the United States Navy Civil Engineer Corps Officers’ School in Port Hueheme, California, and both Harvard and Stanford Courses for Presidents.

Mr. Houston was listed as one of the top 25 newsmakers of the year in 2000 by Engineering News Record. In 2002, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Center for Simplified Strategic Planning and was named the National Associated Builders and Contractors “Contractor of the Year.” He received the Inaugural Engineering News Record Texas and Louisiana Legacy Award in 2014.

Mr. Houston is a past member of TDIndustries Board of Directors; the PPC Electrical Contracting and Service Board of Directors in Milwaukee; and the SSR Consulting Engineers Board in Nashville. Mr. Houston also served on the Advisory Board for the University of North Texas’ School of Community Service in Denton, Texas, and is a past member of the University of Texas’ School of Mechanical Engineering Advisory Board in Austin. Mr. Houston is a member of the Salesmanship Club of Dallas where he is a past member of the camp board, and is a past President of National Association of Builders & Contractors.

Mr. Houston is a member of the Highland Park Methodist Church and chairman of the Methodist Hospital of Dallas Advisory Board. He was married to his wife Sally for 57 years and has two sons – Scott and Louis.

For over five years, Ben and Sally sponsored scholarships for women entering the School of Mechanical Engineering.

Laura Lewis

Distinguished Mechanical Engineer
BA PHY, University of California, 1985
MSMSE, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1988
Ph.D., The University of Texas at Austin, 1993

Laura H. Lewis is the Distinguished University and Cabot Professor of Chemical Engineering and Professor of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at Northeastern University in Boston, MA. Prior to her faculty position at Northeastern University, she was a research group leader and Associate Department Chair in the Nanoscience Department of Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), a US Department of Energy Laboratory devoted to research in the physical, biomedical, and environmental sciences, as well as in energy technologies. Lewis received her Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin and she earned a M.S. degree in Electronic Materials from M.I.T. and a B.S. degree in Physics and Earth Sciences from the University of California at San Diego.

Laura’s research focuses on investigating the materials factors at the atomic level that provide functionality to magnetic materials. She has (co)-authored over 200 peer-reviewed publications and delivered over 100 national/international invited presentations. She has participated on a number advisory panels, including as a NATO Technical Team Member (AVT-231, Scarcity of Rare Earth Materials for Electrical Power Systems), worked with the US National Academies Vietnam Education Foundation, and participated in Nanoscience Journalist Roundtable, New York Academy of Sciences. She is currently an Advisory Board Member of the Critical Materials Institute, A DOE Energy Innovation Hub and she serves on the International Advisory Committee of the Joint European Magnetics Symposia.

Laura is a Senior Member of the IEEE and is the Conference Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Magnetics and is the Chair of the IEEE Magnetics Society Technical Committee. She is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, a Fulbright Fellow as well as a member of the Materials Research Society, the American Chemical Society, and the American Society for Engineering Education. She divides her time between Boston and Long Island, NewYork, and enjoys cooking, early music, and travel, which she has been able to do quite a lot of during her recent Fulbright Fellowship based in Madrid, Spain.

Steven Trujillo

Distinguished Mechanical Engineer
BSAAE, Purdue University, 1988
MSME, University of New Mexico, 1994
Ph.D., The University of Texas at Austin, 1999

Dr. Steven M. Trujillo is a manager in Systems Analysis at Sandia National Laboratories. In this role, Dr. Trujillo leads a team of subject matter experts on a variety of technical topics supporting the application of the Nation’s nuclear deterrent. Customers are both internal Sandia management as well as external (NNSA, DoD, other) agencies and advisory panels. This is his second management position; his first was managing a sister department that focuses on characterizing Sandia’s execution of its Nuclear Deterrent life cycle mission, servicing a customer base of internal Laboratories leadership.

From 2013 to 2016, Dr. Trujillo was Sandia’s technical advisor to the Deputy Administrator for Defense Programs at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) within the US Department of Energy. In this role, he provided insight to National leadership on stockpile and laboratory capabilities, contributing to high-level work that ultimately was reflected in National policy directives.

Before that, Dr. Trujillo was a member of the department he presently manages, serving in a variety of roles, including as a member of Sandia’s support team to DoD elements, analyses of commonality in future stockpile warheads, and advising Sandia’s development of the documentary film, “On Deterrence”.

From 2006-2010, he was a primary liaison between Sandia’s Engineering Sciences Center and New Mexico Weapons Systems Engineering Center, working full-time in a system-engineering role on weapon development programs, as well as being a lead developer of Sandia’s future system architecture concepts. The inter-center liaison role brought efficiency and a more natural, knowledgeable interface between the design and analysis communities. A key preparatory element for this role was Dr. Trujillo’s completion of Sandia’s Weapon Intern Program in 2005.

From 1999 to 2004, Dr. Trujillo was a post-doctoral appointee and staff member in the Engineering Sciences Center, experimentally investigating multiphase flows, and behaviors of materials in fire environments.

Dr. Trujillo is a graduate of Purdue University (BS Aerospace Engineering), the University of New Mexico (MS Mechanical Engineering), and the University of Texas at Austin (Ph.D. Mechanical Engineering). He is Santa Fe native, and sits on the board of directors of The Cancer Foundation for New Mexico, a non-profit foundation providing non-medical patient services to people receiving cancer treatment in Santa Fe.

Lisa Waters

Distinguished Mechanical Engineer
BSME, The University of Texas at Austin, 1981

Lisa Waters has more than 35 years of ExxonMobil experience with a wide range of leadership roles in the United States, Canada, Europe, Africa and South America.  She became Vice President, for ExxonMobil Development Company in February 2014.  In her current role, she is responsible for Major Upstream Capital Project Development in North and South America.

Ms. Waters has worked on some of the megaprojects within ExxonMobil Development Company, including the Sakhalin-1 project in Russia, the Kizomba deepwater projects in Angola, the Adriatic LNG Terminal project in Italy and the Kearl oil Sands project in Canada.  Her current portfolio includes deepwater projects in the Gulf of Mexico and South America, including Guyana and Brazil.

Her primary areas of expertise are in capital project management, production facilities, marine engineering, and hazard & risk assessment.

Ms. Waters graduated with Highest Honors from the University of Texas at Austin in 1981 and holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Mechanical Engineering.  She has been married to her husband, Michael, for 34 years and has three grown children, a daughter in-law, son in-law, and two grandchildren.   She and her family enjoy golf, hiking, fishing, and skiing.

Michael Webber

Honorary Mechanical Engineer
BSASE, The University of Texas at Austin, 1995
BALA, The University of Texas at Austin, 1995
MSME, Stanford University, 1996
Ph.D., Stanford University, 2001

Dr. Michael E. Webber is the Sid Richardson Chair in the LBJ School of Public Affairs and the John J. McKetta Centennial Energy Chair in the department of mechanical engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. In addition to his role as a faculty member, from August 2021 to September 2024, Webber served as CTO of Energy Impact Partners, a $5 billion cleantech venture fund focused on investments in cleantech and climate tech startups with the potential for deep decarbonization at speed and scale. Furthermore, from September 2018 to August 2021, Webber was based in Paris, France where he served as the Chief Science and Technology Officer at ENGIE, one of the world’s largest energy companies.

Webber’s works spans research and education at the convergence of engineering, policy, and commercialization on topics related to innovation, energy, and the environment. His research tackles complex energy systems analysis with a deep record of expertise on the following: 1) grid reliability in the face of electrification and the rise of variable sources in a warming world, 2) the hydrogen sector and how it couples to other sectors such as the grid, transportation, industry, and the built environment and 3) the food-energy-water-waste nexus.

Webber has authored or co-authored more than 600 publications, including five full-length general interest books, and holds 6 patents. His book Power Trip: the Story of Energy was published in 2019 by Basic Books with an award-winning 12-part companion series spread out over two seasons that aired on PBS, Amazon Prime, AppleTV, and in-flight entertainment on American Airlines. The series had more than 10,000 broadcasts in the United States and has been distributed in dozens of countries, ultimately reaching millions of viewers. Seasons 1 and 2 of Power Trip along with his documentary Thirst for Power and television special Energy at the Movies have been recognized with six Telly Awards (one gold, four silver, and one bronze) for excellence in television.

He serves on the board of GTI Energy (an industry consortium formerly known as the Gas Technology Institute) and the Scientific Advisory Council for ENGIE.

He was selected in 2014 as a Fellow of ASME (the American Society of Mechanical Engineers), in 2018 as a member of the 4th class of the Presidential Leadership Scholars, which is a leadership training program organized by Presidents George W. Bush and William J. Clinton, and in 2022 for the Rockefeller Foundation’s prestigious writer’s residency in Bellagio, Italy. Webber holds a B.S. and B.A. from UT Austin, and M.S. and Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Stanford University.  He was honored as an American Fellow of the German Marshall Fund and on four separate occasions by the University of Texas for exceptional teaching.

Bryan Willson

Distinguished Mechanical Engineer
BSME, Texas A&M University, 1982
MSME, The University of Texas at Austin, 1985
Ph.D., The University of Texas at Austin, 1988

Dr. Bryan Willson is Executive Director of the Energy Institute at Colorado State University where he also occupies the Bryan Willson Presidential Chair in Energy Innovation and serves as a Professor of Mechanical Engineering. CSU’s Energy Institute comprises over 180 faculty members working in energy and works closely with the Colorado energy startup community to help grow clean energy companies.  The Energy Institute is headquartered at CSU’s Powerhouse Energy Campus, a 100,000 sq ft research facility that also houses over 15 early stage energy companies; it’s work on cleantech commercialization has been honored by the Economist, Scientific American, the Smithsonian Institution, university technology transfer associations, and the governments of Denmark, Spain, and China.  Dr. Willson served as a Program Director at ARPA-E (Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy), from 2012-2016 and continues to serve as a consultant / advisor to the agency.  He has worked for over 25 years to develop and deploy large-scale technology solutions related to energy, air quality, and human health. 

As an entrepreneur, Dr. Willson is co-founder of Envirofit International, Solix BioSystems Factor(e) Ventures and Xpower. His research laboratory, the Engines & Energy Conversion Laboratory, has made important contributions in many areas, including: internal combustion engines, oil & gas production technology, advanced electrical grids, advanced biofuels, energy technology for the developing world, and advanced building technologies.  Dr. Willson is a Fellow of the Society of Automotive Engineers and has worked in over 40 countries.