Paying Tribute to 1997 IEEE President Charles K. Alexander

Charles K. Alexander, 1997 IEEE president, died on 17 Oct at the age of 79.

The lively volunteer held many substantial-amount positions all over the corporation, together with 1991–1992 IEEE Area 2 director. He was also the 1993 vice president of the IEEE United States Routines Board (now IEEE-United states of america).

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The IEEE Lifestyle Fellow worked in academia his total vocation. At the time of his loss of life, he was a professor of electrical and pc engineering at Cleveland State University and served as dean of its engineering college.

He was a previous professor and dean at several faculties together with Temple College, California State University, Northridge, and Ohio University. He also was a marketing consultant to businesses and govt companies, and he was included in analysis and development assignments in solar energy and application engineering.

Alexander was focused to building IEEE a lot more meaningful and valuable to engineering college students. He served uncovered the IEEE Pupil Qualified Consciousness system, which gives talks and networking events. Alexander also helped uncovered IEEE’s student publication IEEE Potentials.

He mentored numerous college students.

“My life has been so positively impacted with the considerable opportunity to know these kinds of a large in the engineering world,” suggests Jim Watson, an IEEE senior life member and a single of Alexander’s mentees. “While numerous are extremely prosperous engineers and instructors, Dr. Alexander rises far higher than people who contributed to the accomplishment of some others.”

Serving to engineering students thrive

Alexander was born in Amherst, Ohio, where he became fascinated in mechanical engineering at a younger age. He preset the automobiles and devices employed on his family’s farm, according to a 2009 oral heritage performed by the IEEE Historical past Heart.

He switched his pursuits and then attained a bachelor’s diploma in electrical engineering in 1965 from Ohio Usual (now Ohio Northern College), in Ada. As a freshman, he joined the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, one of IEEE’s predecessor societies. Even though he was an undergraduate, he served as secretary of the school’s AIEE scholar branch.

Alexander went on to obtain master’s and doctoral degrees in electrical engineering from Ohio University in Athens, in 1967 and 1971 respectively. As a graduate college student, he suggested the university’s Eta Kappa Nu chapter, the engineering honor culture that is now IEEE’s honor modern society. He appreciably improved assembly attendance, he mentioned in the oral heritage. Thanks to his attempts, he explained, the chapter was rated a single of the top four in the place at the time.

Immediately after graduating, he joined Ohio College in 1971 as an assistant professor of electrical engineering. Throughout this time, he also labored as a expert for the U.S. Air Pressure and Navy, designing producing processes for their several new devices. Alexander also created a testing program for good-point out filters, which were being employed in atomic warheads for missiles on aircraft carriers.

He remaining a year later to be a part of Youngstown State College, in Ohio, as an affiliate professor of electrical engineering. He was faculty advisor for the university’s IEEE university student branch and served increase its membership from 20 students to far more than 200, according to the oral history. In 1980 he moved to Tennessee and turned a professor of electrical engineering at Tennessee Tech University, in Cookeville. He also assisted the school’s IEEE university student branch boost its membership.

In 1986 he joined Temple University in Philadelphia as a professor and chair of the electrical engineering division. At the time, the university did not have an accredited engineering plan, he mentioned in the oral heritage.

“They introduced me on board to assist get the undergraduate courses in all a few disciplines accredited,” he said. He also developed master’s diploma and Ph.D. courses for electrical engineering. He served as performing dean of the university’s higher education of engineering from 1989 to 1994.

Just after the engineering applications became accredited, Alexander stated in the oral historical past that his career was completed there so he still left Temple in 1994 to be a part of California Condition College, Northridge. He was dean of engineering and personal computer science there.

Alexander returned to Ohio College as a viewing professor of electrical engineering and laptop or computer science. From 1998 to 2002, he was interim director of the school’s Institute for Corrosion and Multiphase Technological innovation. The institute’s researchers forecast and solve corrosion in oil and gas creation and transportation infrastructure.

But just after a couple of decades, Alexander reported, he skipped producing and growing engineering systems at universities, so when an prospect opened up at Cleveland State University in 2007, he took it. As dean of the university’s engineering university, he additional 12 faculty positions.

Supporting student members’ qualified improvement

Throughout his occupation, Alexander was an active IEEE volunteer. He served as chair of the IEEE Student Things to do Committee, in which he aided start applications and companies that are however staying offered now. They incorporate the IEEE College student Expert Awareness Program and the WriteTalk application (now ProSkills), which allows students develop their communication expertise.

He was editor of the IEEE Transactions on Training. Alongside with IEEE Senior Member Jon R. McDearman, he helped launch IEEE Potentials.

“Potentials was created to be anything of value for the undergraduates, who do not want to examine technological papers,” Alexander claimed in the oral heritage. “We styled it following IEEE Spectrum. Jon and I decided to include things like posts that would help learners on subjects like occupation progress and how to be successful.”

Alexander continued to increase through the ranks in IEEE and was elected the 1991–1992 Location 2 director. The pursuing calendar year, he grew to become vice president of the IEEE United States Actions Board (now IEEE-Usa) and served in that place for two yrs.

He was elevated to IEEE Fellow in 1994 “for leadership in the discipline of engineering instruction and the skilled development of engineering students.”

He was elected as the 1997 IEEE president.

“It was an unbelievable honor,” he said in the oral history. “One of the pretty distinctive items that has occurred to me.”

He been given the 1984 IEEE Centennial Medal as very well as quite a few awards for his perform in instruction, including a 1998 Distinguished Engineering Instruction Achievement Award and a 1996 Distinguished Engineering Training Management Award, both from the Engineering Council, the United Kingdom’s regulatory entire body for the profession.

“Dr. Alexander often emphasized the worth of establishing skilled and moral capabilities to enhance engineering job success,” Watson states. “He inspired many others to use Winston Churchill’s renowned estimate ‘We make a living by what we get but we make a life by what we give.’”

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