Nine professionals with ties to Missouri University of Science and Technology were inducted into the Missouri S&T Academy of Civil Engineers at a dinner and induction ceremony held at Hasselmann Alumni House in Rolla, Missouri, on April 21.

The academy recognizes outstanding alumni for their professional achievement and success, and it provides organized assistance to the civil engineering department at Missouri S&T.

New members are:

Neil S. Brady, president and CEO of Anderson Engineering Inc. in Springfield, Missouri, earned a bachelor of science degree in civil engineering from Missouri S&T in 1995. With four offices in southwestern Missouri and one in Destin, Florida, Anderson Engineering offers consulting engineering across the country. Brady is a longtime member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), the National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE) and the Missouri Society of Professional Engineers (MSPE). He is past president of MSPE and a past member of NSPE’s House of Delegates. In the Springfield area, Brady is a member of Ozarks Greenways Technical Committee, past member of the city’s Green Building Task Force and the Greene County Storm Water Management Task Force.

Sean C. Henry, director of public works and city engineer in Carbondale, Illinois, earned a bachelor of science degree in civil engineering from Missouri S&T in 1995. While in school and shortly thereafter, he worked as a summer engineering technician and then as a civil engineer for the city of Carbondale. In late 1996, he joined the consulting engineering firm Asaturian Eaton & Associates in Carbondale. He was their first civil engineer with a degree and was instrumental in growing the civil engineering business for the firm. In the summer of 2006, he returned to the city of Carbondale and served as the city’s maintenance and environmental services manager until the spring of 2011, when he was named the city’s director of public works and city engineer. Henry is a member of ASCE, NSPE, the American Public Works Association (APWA) and the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE). He is also chairman of the Professional Advisory Board for the civil and environmental engineering department at Southern Illin
ois University.

Jim Kirby, a retired engineer with Black & Veatch, earned a bachelor of science degree in civil engineering from Missouri S&T in 1963. He joined Black & Veatch and over the next 33 years he worked on a Corps of Engineers water resources project in Puerto Rico; a USAID-funded wastewater collection and treatment project in Cairo, Egypt, serving about 5 million people; a World Bank-funded wastewater project in Izmir, Turkey, serving 2.5 million people, an internationally funded water resources project in Chile and review of a wastewater and storm water master plan for Dubai. Kirby retired after serving six years with the Kansas City Water Services Department as engineering division section manager for plant and process design. He is a diplomate in the American Academy of Environmental Engineers.

Dr. Larry Mays, professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona, earned bachelor of science and master of science degrees in civil engineering from Missouri S&T in 1970 and 1971, respectively. He earned a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois in 1976 after serving in the military. During the past 27 years at Arizona State, he has served as department chair and as professor of civil and environmental engineering. He has been the author, co-author or editor-in-chief of 24 books, including the textbooks, Applied Hydrology; Hydrosystems Engineering and Management; Water Resources Engineering; and Groundwater Hydrology. He has volunteered or consulted the United Nations, the World Bank, the Texas attorney general’s office, the American Water Works Association and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He is a fellow member of ASCE, the International Water Resources Association and the International Water Association. He won engineering awards, including
the ASCE Julian Hinds Award, the Prince Sultan bin Abdulazizz International Prize for Water – Surface Water Prize, and the Warren Hall Medal from the University Council on Water Resources.

Rocky Miller, a member of the Missouri House of Representatives for District 124, earned a bachelor of science degree in civil engineering from Missouri S&T in 1988. He worked for Laclede Gas and Iowa Southern Utilities before returning home to the Lake of the Ozarks. He now owns his family’s engineering and environmental services firm, the Miller Companies. Elected to the Missouri legislature in 2012, Miller represents the Lake of the Ozarks area. As a state representative, he is chairman of the energy and environment committee and serves on committees for natural resources, utilities and solid waste. Miller has received awards from the Electric Cooperatives, Missouri Chamber, St. Louis Business Journal and Missouri Farm Bureau for his work in the legislature. He is a member of the Southern States Energy Board, the energy and environment committee for the Southern Legislative Conference and the energy and environment committee for public policy with the Council of State Governments.

Dr. Steve Starrett, associate professor of civil engineering and director of the honor and integrity systems at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas, earned a bachelor of science degree in civil engineering from Missouri S&T in 1989. He joined the civil engineering faculty at Kansas State University in 1994 and also is the director of the civil engineering undergraduate program. With a key interest in engineering ethics, he has developed and taught courses on the subject and is near completion of co-authoring a book titled, Pursuing Engineering Ethics Through Real World Case Studies. Active in the National Institute for Engineering Ethics, Starrett served on its executive board from 2012 to 2014. He is the president-elect of ASCE’s Environmental and Water Resources Institute and has served as the chair of the ASCE Committee on Ethical Practice. The National Academy of Engineering recently recognized one of his courses as an exemplar course in engineering ethics education.

Gregg Wilhelm, retired Missouri Department of Transportation engineer, earned a bachelor of science degree in civil engineering from Missouri S&T in 1983. He began his career with MoDOT in the St. Joseph District. In 1985, he transferred to the St. Louis District, where he worked on the geometric and hydraulic design of the Inerstate-64 at I-270 interchange. Wilhelm then became the local programs design engineer, helping communities with projects that enhance transportation and the local economy. He was the MoDOT lead in working with Trailnet to rehabilitate the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge from a declining vehicular structure into an active transportation link across the Mississippi River. He retired from MoDOT in 2014. In 2010 he went on a church mission trip to Uganda, and after returning from that trip Three Avocados, a non-profit coffee company, was formed. Wilhelm has been actively involved with Three Avocados as the director of sales and operations, and all profits are sent to Uganda to help provide clean drinking water, or to Nicaragua to improve children’s education. Since its formation in 2010, sales of Three Avocados coffee have helped provide over 21,000 people in Uganda with clean drinking water.

David Wisch, an engineer with Chevron Corp. in Houston, earned bachelor of science and master of science degrees in civil engineering from Missouri S&T in 1975 and 1977, respectively. He began his career in offshore engineering with Texaco and today is Chevron’s global technical authority in civil, structural and marine engineering. He is the engineer of record for the first U.S. offshore platform to undergo certified verification agent (CVA) certification and provided engineering oversight for the world’s deepest self-standing structure. Wisch has worked for more than 30 years in industry standards development for the American Petroleum Institute and the International Organization for Standardization. He chaired the API Committee on Offshore Structures and led the U.S. delegation to ISO’s Offshore Structures Standards Committee. After hurricanes Ivan, Katrina and Rita, he led an API task force to develop consensus interim industry standards for mooring of floating drilling vessels. Wisch has chaired the Chevron Fellows program and the company’s Mentoring Excellence in Technology programs and served two terms as a Marine Board Member for the National Academy of Engineering. He has received awards for his work from the API, ISO, Chevron and the National Academy of Engineering. Wisch was a placekicker on the Miner football team and an officer of S&T’s ASCE Student Chapter.

An honorary member is:

Dr. Genda Chen, Robert W. Abbett Distinguished Professor of Civil Engineering at Missouri S&T, earned bachelor of science and master of science degrees from Dalian Institute of Technology in Dalian, China. In 1992, he earned a Ph.D. from the State University of New York at Buffalo. In 1996, Chen joined the civil, architectural and environmental engineering department at Missouri S&T as an assistant professor. His research interests include structural health monitoring, deterioration of composite structures, adaptive passive dampers, and seismic analysis and retrofit. Chen is the associate director of Missouri S&T’s Mid-America Transportation Center. He holds three patents, has received the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, has been a U.S. delegate on nearly 20 national and international workshops, and has been an invitee to post-disaster reconnaissance, including the 2011 Japan earthquake, the 2010 Chile earthquake, the 2008 China earthquake and Hurricane Katrina in 2005. He has authored over 120 journal articles and over 170 conference articles and written 37 engineering reports.