I extend my wishes for a relaxing and happy holiday season to the Woodruff School’s faculty, alumni, students, staff, and friends. Celebrating with family and loved ones helps us to appreciate and reflect our good fortune in being associated with such a fabulous community. Happy Holidays!

I am constantly writing or speaking about beginnings and endings. Given our size and complexity and the fact that so many of our students study abroad, participate in co-op, perform undergraduate research as well as many other related activities, we wind up graduating large numbers in spring, summer, AND fall. Therefore, it is with great pleasure that I congratulate the nearly 250 Woodruff School students who will receive their Georgia Tech diplomas. Commencement is both an ending and a beginning. I know that our new alumni will make huge positive impacts on society. I wish each of them the best of luck while reminding them they will be forever be members of the Woodruff School family. Please stay in touch and please let us know if and when we can help!

The start of spring semester marks the mid point of the academic calendar and we continue to make improvements to our programs. Thanks to a generous gift from alumnus Larry Montgomery, we will commence on an exciting project to significantly upgrade our machine shop and tooling capability…..more in a future newsletter. On a recent trip to one of our major employers, I was told how much that company appreciated how effectively we were introducing our freshman and sophomore students to engineering and how clearly this came through in interviews for summer internships and co-op positions. I do want to compliment the many faculty, staff, and teaching assistants who year after year do such a great job in ME 1770 Introduction to Engineering Graphics and Visualization and ME 2110 Creative Decisions and Design. We will continue to keep you apprised of our progress.

Let me end by wishing you the very best for a successful and fulfilling 2016!