Prospective Students, Chemical Engineering, Michigan tech

Professor and Former Chair Retires

Dr. Edward Fisher, Professor of Chemical Engineering, retired on 1 January, 2003, after a career that included positions as interim Dean of Engineering in 1995 and Department Chair

from 1985 to 1998. Dr. Fisher was an active fund-raiser during his time at MTU, and listed his efforts in that arena as some of the most satisfying aspects of his career at Michigan Tech. "I think my career highlights are largely related to raising financial resources for the benefit of students and faculty," he said, reflecting on a 17-year stay at MTU, and a total of 35 years in academic positions.

Ed’s work in planning and funding the PSCC is a source of great pride. "I wanted our pilot plant facilities to be truly outstanding facilities at the national level," he said. We accomplished that. He also cited his work on obtaining the first endowed chair at MTU, in Chemical Process Safety, as a highlight. "Safety is so critical in the chemical industry," he noted. "These successes were not reached alone, but I had a strong association with them, and they have significantly impacted the quality of education we offer." He has been actively involved in alumni outreach, and will this October become a life trustee of the Michigan Tech Fund, the fund-raising and endowment management arm of the university.

His work has included working with the National Science Foundation and with community colleges on major grant proposals. "My work has always been aimed at trying to make things happen," he said. "Resources have always been hard to get, and it’s going to be even more difficult in the next couple of years. If the department and the university are to remain credible and competitive, it’s going to be from external resources and with the support of our alumni."

Teaching has been fundamental to Dr. Fisher’s career over the years, and he lists

working with students as a major career highlight. "I had the opportunity to go further in management," he recalled, "but the primary reason I came back from being a dean, then to being the department chair, then back to teaching on a full-time basis, was to work with students. It has always been a pleasure working with both graduate and undergraduate students; to turn a light on periodically, and to see them go on, in many cases, to very successful careers." His last class was significant, he said, "because I had the opportunity to know the students when they were freshmen, and now I had the opportunity to instruct them and work with them as seniors in the Unit Operations Laboratory."

Dr. Fisher’s roots go all the way back to Oceanside, California, where he graduated from high school in 1956 and junior college in 1958. He then graduated from UC-Berkeley in 1961, and earned his Ph.D. in chemical engineering from Johns Hopkins University in 1965. After a year and a half at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, he joined the General Electric Space Sciences Laboratory in Pennsylvania. He then joined the faculty of Wayne State University in 1968. After spending several years teaching and developing research programs, he served as Associate Dean of Engineering and Director of the Research Institute for Engineering Sciences for eight years. In 1985, he came to MTU as professor and chair of the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering.

"I retired from the department so I could do some other things for the next few years," he said. Among his current professional activities are serving as chair of the Chemical Technology Program Approval Service (CTPAS), an American Chemical Society (ACS) subcommittee responsible for reviewing and approving all chemistry-based technician programs in the U.S., and he has recently been appointed to the ACS’s Society Committee on Education (SOCED), which oversees all education programs in chemistry. Finally, Ed says he is "having a terrific time" working on important community projects as an elected member of the Lake Linden Village Council.

This page was last updated on 11/03/03 11:38:59 PM

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