College Awards

Six Receive Distinguished Engineering Alumni Award, continued

The college's 2001 DEAA winners are, from left to right, Karl Larson, Thomas Marsh, Byron Lauer, John Archuleta, Stanley Dodson and John Melanson. They were honored at the annual Engineering Awards Banquet.

S. John Archuleta (ArchEngr'61) was recognized in the Private Practice category as a highly successful professional engineer and businessman. A former partner, principal and president of the structural engineering and design firm, Johnson-Voiland-Archuleta, he received multiple awards for design and innovation, and then retired to pursue other interests in banking and real estate and development. He was one of the founding partners of the National Bank of the Rockies and developed Bonnie Brook Vineyards in Palisade, Colorado. He also has volunteered his time on several university boards, including serving as a current member of the Engineering Advisory Council.

Stanley L. Dodson (CivEngr'41) received the DEA Award in Government Service for his more than 30 years of public service to his community and the state of Colorado. Mr. Dodson is the owner of the distribution firm, Dodson Engineered Products, in Glenwood Springs. He served on the Colorado State Highway Commission from 1965 to 1977, and was chair when the first bore of the Eisenhower Tunnel was dedicated in 1973. He also served as chair of several other transportation and civic organizations and has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Roderick L. Downing Award from the Colorado Department of Transportation and the Glenwood Springs Chamber of Commerce's Citizen of the Year Award.

Karl G. Larson (MechEngr'54) was recognized in the Industry and Commerce category as a leader in the HVAC industry. He is the former president, now serving as chairman, of his family's business, the Gustave A. Larson Company, which he grew from a small distributor of refrigeration equip-ment to a company with 24 branches in nine Midwestern states. He also is former president and chairman of the Northamerican Heating, Refrigeration, and Airconditioning Wholesalers Association. He has been active with the College of Engineering through serving on various advisory boards and has been an important supporter of the Building Systems program. He also has led various charitable and arts organizations in Wisconsin and Colorado.

Professor Emeritus Byron E. Lauer received the DEA Award in the Special category for helping to lead the Department of Chemical Engineering toward national prominence as the third head of the department. He is credited with strengthening the faculty and restructuring the curriculum so as to achieve accreditation for the first time in 1948. He also initiated the first doctoral program in the College of Engineering and the first such program in chemical engineering in the Rocky Mountain West. At the same time, he expanded and drastically improved the department's laboratory facilities. He served as chair of the department from 1946 to 1961, and remained an active faculty member until his retirement in 1975.

G. Thomas Marsh, who earned an MBA at CU-Boulder, was honored in the Special category for his many accomplishments in the aerospace field and his strong advocacy for the College of Engineering. An electrical engineering graduate of the University of New Mexico, he played key roles in many of the nation's most important space programs, receiving two NASA Public Service Awards for outstanding work on the Viking Mars Lander and the Space Shuttle's External Tank. An employee of Lockheed Martin for more than 30 years, he now serves as president of Lockheed Martin Astronautics Operations in Denver. He was instrumental in establishing the Lockheed Martin Engineering Management Program at CU and currently serves on the Engineering Advisory Council.

John L. Melanson (ElecEngr'74) was honored in the Research and Invention category for his multiple contributions in digital audio products and as inventor of the world's first digital signal processing hearing aid. One of several original employees at NBI, an office systems manufacturer in Boulder, he went onto co-found three successful high-tech businesses, the latest of which, AudioLogic, was recently bought by Cirrus Logic of Austin, Texas. Mr. Melanson, who holds or has applied for more than 25 patents, now serves as technology advisor to the president of Cirrus Logic and is a valued speaker to students in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

For further information on the DEA Awards, visit the college's website at www.colorado.edu/engineering and select the Alumni-Awards category. A database of award profiles going back to 1966 has recently been made available online.