Grant Crawford is a first-generation college graduate and a veteran.  He was commissioned in the US Army upon graduation from the United States Military Academy (West Point) with a BS in Mechanical Engineering in 1985.  Following initial leadership assignments to Korea and Germany, he earned his MS in Aerospace Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1994 and taught at West Point as an Instructor and Assistant Professor.  From 1998 to 2001 Grant again served in Army leadership assignments until his selection to return to the West Point faculty as a permanent faculty member.  He earned his Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Kansas in 2004 and returned to West Point as the Director of the Aerodynamics and Thermodynamics Group.  Grant was promoted to Associate Professor in 2008 and assumed duties as the Chair for the Mechanical Engineering Program until his Army retirement in 2014.  In the summer of 2009, he led a West Point delegation of military and civilian faculty mentors to the National Military Academy of Afghanistan in Kabul. During this deployment, Grant’s team assisted the fledging staff and faculty in the development and improvement of its engineering program. 

Upon his retirement from the US Army, Grant joined the new Department of Engineering at Quinnipiac University as a Professor of Mechanical Engineering. An experienced ABET program evaluator and team chair, he was instrumental in efforts to achieve initial ABET accreditations for all four engineering programs in 2016. As the newly designated School of Engineering continued to grow, Grant served in a temporary role as the interim associate dean for career development until the school could make a permanent hire. He has continued to serve in a variety of capacities as the school has grown and been recently redesignated as the School of Computing and Engineering.

An ASEE Fellow, Grant has served in a variety of service and leadership positions at the section, division, zone, and national levels. He served for three terms on the Board of Directors: one as the Zone I Chair and two as the Vice President for Member Affairs.  He is the organizer and founding chair of ASEE’s Military and Veterans Division and is currently serving as its Program Chair.  He is the current chair of the Long-Range Planning Committee and a previous chair of the Risk Management Committee.  External to ASEE, Grant has served as the Chair of the Fundamentals of Engineering Examination Committee for the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES) and is in his 18th year of service with the committee.  He serves as a Program Evaluator for the Engineering Accreditation Commission of ABET and has served as a Team Chair for the Engineering Technology Accreditation Commission of ABET.  Grant has been a registered professional engineer since 1998.  He is the recipient of the 2012 ASEE National Outstanding Teaching Award, the 2020 ASEE Ralph Coats Roe Award, and the 2022 NCEES Distinguished Examination Service Award.

Candidate Statement:
It is an incredible honor to be nominated to serve as your president-elect and the future president of ASEE.  Since being introduced to ASEE during my first West Point faculty assignment in 1995, ASEE has been my focal professional society.  Engagement with ASEE perfectly aligns with my three passions: engineering, teaching engineering, and serving others.  While my service with ASEE and affiliated organizations has taken me across the US and to India, my commitment to service with a variety of people and teams predates my ASEE involvement.  My assignments in the Army took me to numerous places in the US and around the world; from Asia to Europe.  In over 37 years of public and professional service, a primary aspect of my endeavors has involved listening to and working with a wide variety of people in a manner that reflects understanding and respect for the diversity of viewpoints and talents that we all possess. In that time, I have learned a lot and I continue to learn more each day.

The president position requires a broad set of skills and abilities and necessitates communication across the organization, as well as engagement with entities external to ASEE.  Within the organization, I have served as a Campus Representative and held numerous service and leadership roles as outlined in my biographical sketch. While I have been honored with many awards, I have found more joy in being able to present awards to and recognize the achievements of others. In all of my ASEE service, my focus has been on outreach and communication aimed at serving member needs and effectively advocating for member priorities. In each position, I have continued to build on the solid foundations laid by my predecessors and worked to strengthen the connections with our membership so that ASEE can best serve us all. External to ASEE, I have extensive service with NCEES and ABET in a variety of capacities; always with a focus on listening to and connecting with others.

This is an exciting and challenging time for ASEE as we continue to engage in the national and global challenges we are facing as engineering and engineering technology educators and partners. In the uncertain financial and divisive political climates of our times, we can never lose sight of what binds us together. The world is ‘filling up’. By some estimates, our precious planet will reach its capacity of 10 billion people by 2050. Fulfilling the need for water, energy, food, sanitation, medicine, etc. will require the combined talents and energies of every engineer. It cannot be done without us. For most of us, we will not be the ones who solve these grand challenges. That will fall to those who are currently sitting in our classrooms. Can there be a more noble calling than that which we have undertaken? To this end, we must position ourselves to promote and communicate the universality of our ability to make positive impacts in the lives and communities of those we serve. ASEE plays and must continue to play a critical role in advancing our professions and preparing the next generation of engineers for global service and leadership. I am excited as I think about what we can do together. Thank you for your consideration of my candidacy for this position. If elected, I will do my utmost to fulfill your trust and expectations.
 

Gary Steffen joined the faculty of Purdue University Fort Wayne (PFW), formally known as Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne (IPFW), in 1999 after spending a decade in laboratory facility management and operating his consulting firm. He spent 10 years serving in academic leadership roles as an engineering technology department head, prior to his naming as the first Director of the School of Polytechnic at PFW in 2018. His subsequent dual appointments occurred in 2022 after being selected as the Interim Dean of the College of Engineering, Technology, and Computer Science.

Steffen shares his passion for teaching through lively classroom discussions, service on various teaching committees, and as the campus representative to ASEE. He has received recognition for his teaching, including the PFW ETCS Excellence in Teaching Award, the Indiana Council for Continuing Education Faculty Member of the Year Award, and the ASEE Frederick J. Berger Award, recognizing exemplary contributions in engineering technology education. His active collaboration with industry in his research interest areas of cybersecurity and student success, has led to multiple successful projects including most recently, the Don Wood Foundation grant.

Steffen has been actively involved with ASEE for 20 years. At the section level, he initiated the first joint section conference between the Illinois-Indiana and North Central sections, serving as Conference Chair for both the 2006 and 2015 Illinois-Indiana conferences. He was recognized with both the Illinois-Indiana Service Award, for his contribution to the section as past chair, and as outstanding campus representative.
Nationally, Steffen served on the ASEE Board of Directors as the Council of Sections, Zone II Chair, which provided him opportunity to assist in organizing and co-chairing the 2017 Zone II Conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico. In his subsequent position as ASEE Vice President of Member Affairs, he undertook activities to revitalize connection to our campus representatives. His memberships included the ASEE Executive Committee, Long-Range Planning Committee, Nominating Committee, Chair of the Campus Representatives Taskforce, and he serves as a Standing Member of the Commission on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (CDEI).
Steffen’s ongoing ASEE leadership affiliations include chairing the Electrical and Computer Engineering Technology Department Head Association (ECETDHA), serving as a Director of the Engineering Technology Council (ETC) and as a Delegate Member of CDEI. His former leadership roles have included chairing the Membership Data Taskforce, the Isadore T. Davis Award, the Zone II Paper award, ASEE National Outstanding Teaching Award, and the ASEE Data taskforce committees.

Steffen was awarded a B.S. in Electrical Engineering Technology and A.S. in Organizational Leadership from IPFW, an M.S. in Computer Science from Ball State, and an Information Assurance and Security graduate certificate from Purdue University. Steffen further provides a voice for quality engineering
education through his participation in the IEEE University Resource Committee (URC) and Committee on Engineering Technology Accreditation Activities (CETAA), along with being a Program Evaluator for ABET.

Candidate Statement:
Growing up on a small farm in northeast Indiana as a first-generation college student, I never realized the opportunity and community that my profession might provide. From the moment I received my first at-home electronics experimentation kit to those words of encouragement from my father saying, “Go to college! You can always come back and farm,” my path was launched, or some say fated, to do what I do. I am an educator who is appreciative of the opportunities provided to me, and I hope to contribute to inspiring the next generation of engineering students and professionals.

It has been my honor to be a spectator, participant, and leader within ASEE. Attending my first conference in 2002 I remember sitting silently as an eager onlooker, soaking in new methods of pedagogy. At later conferences, I engaged in impromptu hallway conversations following the moderation or participation in a paper session. It was from these intimate hallway exchanges with colleagues, many of whom I now consider friends and mentors, that I was encouraged to seek leadership opportunities. All these roles have been fulfilling, and I’ve discovered it is our membership participation that makes ASEE distinctively special.

I have been fortunate to serve at multiple levels within our organization offering me a broad perspective of views and responsibilities. Each position that you have elected me to hold has deepened my insight of ASEE along with providing a clearer understanding of the membership’s expectations. As an institutional representative and section chair, I experienced the tightknit community of regional partners and as the Zone II chair, the uniqueness of our geographical regions. Serving as your Vice President of Member Affairs, I acted on your behalf to improve member services, initiated discussions to strengthen bonds with our campus representatives, and served on the executive committee. My leadership roles in both the Engineering Technology Council (ETC) and on the Commission on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (CDEI) introduced me to likeminded, authentic leaders, committed to achieving an inclusive and fair environment for all.

Throughout the 129-year history of ASEE, our organization has faced multiple challenges that were overcome by working together. Today, we face financial trials that we must collectively collaborate to transcend. As your President-Elect, I would work with the current board and ASEE headquarters to support ongoing restorative initiatives while providing my own stewardship approach and perspective. My focus would be strengthening core services to the membership, streamlining where necessary, ensuring essential resources to staff, and guaranteeing a robust, transparent, financial system that is judiciously available to external review. Importantly, I would work to restore the working accounts (BASS) for our divisions, councils, and sections so they can continue their valuable and unique contributions to our Society.

My participation within our Society has helped shape my career as an administrator and educator. I am proud to call myself an ASEE member, and humbled to be your nominee for President-Elect. Working together, we can uphold our values, achieve our mission, and continue moving forward.