Dean's Leadership Board
About the Dean's Leadership Board (DLB)
The DLB is an advisory board of high-level executives who bring their expertise and knowledge in their respective engineering fields. This group of alumni and industry experts secure resources for the college and to help define its strategies and goals.
Chair and Vice Chair
Eric Schmidt ('92, ARO; Engineering Alumni Hall of Fame Class of '19)
Eric Schmidt is the president and co-founder of Equadrum, Inc., an aerospace company. As president, his responsibilities span the spectrum of engineering and business functions, including managing general business, overseeing the manufacturing and fabrication areas, supervising testing and evaluation, and mentoring engineers through their careers at the company.
Michael P. Smith ('84, ET; Engineering Alumni Hall of Fame Class of '25)
Michael P. Smith has committed his entire 40-year professional career to CBS Radio, climbing the ranks to director of broadcast operations and engineering for CBS Radio San Francisco. His work involved designing and building broadcast studios and transmitter sites, setting up remote facilities for major events like the Super Bowl and space shuttle landings, and contributing to the early development of digital audio broadcasting—now known as HD radio.
Members
Ahmed Al-Khatib ('83, EE; Engineering Alumni Hall of Fame Class of '14)
Ahmed Al-Khatib is the chairman and CEO of Agiline LLC, a software company building solutions for district attorneys and law enforcement agencies. Previously he founded SIGMAnet Inc. Since 1989, SIGMAnet is a leading provider of technology products, solutions and services for businesses, government, education, and healthcare. He was responsible for the strategic direction of the company and lead the senior management team. In December 2015, Al-Khatib sold SIGMAnet to a private equity.
Elise Baker ('17, ME B.S.; '21, ARO M.S.)
Elise Hough is a principal structural engineer at Northrop Grumman (NG). She is responsible for conducting analysis and decision making required to certify structural integrity for NG’s various strike platforms. Hough is also the NG Technical Champion for Cal Poly Pomona, maintaining a relationship with student clubs on campus, university relations and recruiting, talent acquisition, the College of Engineering, and extracurricular clubs/projects as an industry liaison to ensure NB participation for campus events.
Doug Beshears ('80, CHE)
Doug Beshears has a career spanning over 40 years Universal Oil Products (UOP), predecessor to Honeywell UOP, a leading global company in the research, development and supply of process technology, specialty products, services and control systems for the petroleum, petrochemical, renewable fuels, and gas processing industries. Beshears has experience in developing marketing positions, hiring and developing account managers, promoting, and securing sales of new and existing technologies, products, and services, engaging with all levels of customer’s management, and mentoring young engineers.
Michael Beckage ('87, ET; Engineering Alumni Hall of Fame Class of '19)
Michael Beckage co-founded Diversified Technical Systems (DTS), Inc. in 1990 and was its first chief technology officer. Today, DTS has nearly 100 employees and over 15 years of growth and profitability. DTS is a global leader in advanced, life-saving data recording solutions for extreme testing environments like vehicle crash and military blast testing.
Jeff Berk ('88, CE; Engineering Alumni Hall of Fame Class of '17)
Jeff Berk is the global clients and market strategist for GHD. He has over 30 years of experience in engineering design, construction, and research. In addition, Berk is a frequent contributor to many professional organizations and is a board member of the California Association of Sanitation Agencies.
Eddie Castro ('05, ARO)
Eddie Castro is the director of Engineering Integration for Customer Support at The Boeing Company. Castro is responsible for leading a multi-disciplined team that supports each of the business units within customer support. These include Innovation, Digital Applications, Data & Analytics and Airline Support Engineering.
Martin J. Colombatto ('82, ET; Engineering Alumni Hall of Fame '14)
Martin Colombatto has over 30 years of experience in the semiconductor and electronics industry. He serves as an independent consultant and is on the board of directors for fabless semiconductor companies ClariPhy Communications and Luxtera Corporation. Previously, Colombatto was a semiconductor industry executive and former chairman and CEO of Staccato Communications, a leading supplier of ultra-wideband (UWB) silicon and software solutions.
Chris Diaz
Chris Diaz, P.E., G.E. is the principal of Diaz Yourman & Associates. The geotechnical consulting services corporation offers design, construction and environmental services that range from site evaluations to performing hazardous waste studies.
Nato Flores ('79, ME; Engineering Alumni Hall of Fame '14)
Nato Flores is currently an independent consultant, assisting owners and institutions to develop building projects from inception, through final construction to meet their growth needs. Before this, Flores founded Tower General Contractors in 1986 and served as its president and CEO for 27 years. The company specialized in projects in education, healthcare/biomedical, entertainment, retail, industrial, and government and defense industries.
Jim Fruth
In 1991, James Fruth began operations of its first extruder, allowing the company the opportunity to extrude their own film. Over 20 years later, Fruth Custom Plastics is now home to over 10 extruders, multiple class 100 clean rooms, and a plethora of hand and automatic machinery, all run and operated by dedicated and hardworking employees. Fruth has since sold the company is now retired.
Lawrence M. Gates ('87, CE; Engineering Alumni Hall of Fame '14)
Lawrence M. Gates is the president of DRC Engineering which he founded with another Cal Poly Pomona alumni, Warren Williams Jr., in 1997. DRC Engineering has 35 employees and concentrates on providing civil engineering design services for the land development community with a majority of the work being large-scale shopping centers.
Isabel Gutierrez ('19, ME)
Isabel Gutierrez is the founder of Vistendo Inc. She launched her company while as a student in Cal Poly Pomona. As a former soccer player driven by her personal experiences with injuries and her sister’s undiagnosed head injury, she created the company to prevent suffering among athletes. She leads a team from esteemed institutions like Johns Hopkins, Caltech, and Stanford developing on-field injury detection technology.
Robert Happersett
Isabel Gutierrez is the founder of Vistendo Inc. She launched her company while as a student in Cal Poly Pomona. As a former soccer player driven by her personal experiences with injuries and her sister’s undiagnosed head injury, she created the company to prevent suffering among athletes. She leads a team from esteemed institutions like Johns Hopkins, Caltech, and Stanford developing on-field injury detection technology.
Mike Huggins ('85, ARO; Engineering Alumni Hall of Fame Class of '15)
Mike Huggins was a chief engineer for the Air Force Research Laboratory. After graduation, he started as a propulsion engineer working on the initial production and flight testing of the Air Force's B-1 bomber. Later, he moved into engineering management and eventually organizational leadership, serving companies like Rockwell International, the Air Force Phillips Laboratory, the Air Force Astronautics Laboratory and the Air Force Research Laboratory.
Brian Jaramillo ('87, CET; Engineering Alumni Hall of Fame '14)
Brian Jaramillo is the chief operating officer of Tilden-Coil Constructors. In his first 12 years with Tilden-Coil Constructors, Inc., he managed hundreds of millions of dollars in construction projects and was a leader in production growth and service. For the past fourteen years, he has overseen and guided all company operations.
Tim Kippen ('89, ET; Engineering Alumni Hall of Fame '25)
Tim Kippen is the co-founder and former chief technology officer of Diversified Technical Systems (DTS), a global leader in data acquisition systems for extreme environments such as automotive crash testing and military applications. He co-founded the company in 1990 alongside fellow Cal Poly Pomona alumni, Michael Beckage. Over the course of his 35-year career, Kippen led the design and development of seven generations of award-winning hardware and software systems, with applications spanning the automotive, aerospace, biomechanics, and defense sectors.
Kevin Klowden
Kevin Klowden is the executive director of the Milken Institute Finance. He has written about the effects of transportation and freight infrastructure on job growth; the role of technology-based development on regional economies; and the effect of long-term obligations and international factors on municipal finances in California. Klowden is a frequent speaker on state fiscal issues and has served on multiple advisory boards on business growth, economic development and infrastructure.
David H. Klyde ('87, ARO; Engineering Alumni Hall of Fame Class of '25)
David H. Klyde is a technical fellow in Flight Controls at Virgin Galactic Holdings LLC, where he contributes to the advancement of commercial spaceflight using more than three decades of aerospace engineering experience. Throughout his career, Klyde has been recognized for his deep technical expertise in control theory, flight safety, and aerospace systems integration. Prior to this, he spent over 30 years at Systems Technology, Inc., progressing from staff engineer to technical fellow.
Jacob Lipa ('77, CE; Engineering Alumni Hall of Fame Class of '15)
Jacob Lipa is a principal partner at Lipa Consulting Group, a consulting firm serving public and private clients in California and abroad with its headquarters in Los Angeles California. Jacob specializes in supporting real estate clients with all their needs including due diligence, acquisition, financing, planning, engineering, construction management, entitlements, permits support and community relations. Lipa is also an expert engineer and planner of land development, water, transportation, and energy projects. He was also the CEO of Micropolitan, a subsidiary development company of Psomas.
Maria Martinez ('81, ME)
Maria Martinez is the director of Gas Engineering for SoCalGas, the nation's largest gas distribution utility. In this role, she leads several multi-disciplined teams, overseeing a staff of 300, including engineers, technical specialists, project managers, and designers. Martinez has over 20 years of experience in the natural gas utility industry and has gained substantial expertise in pipeline integrity management.
Maria Mehranian
Maria Mehranian is the managing partner and CFO for Cordoba Corporation, a Los Angeles based civil engineering and construction management firm specializing in water, energy, transportation, and education facility infrastructure. The firm’s success has been demonstrated through its work on projects as complex as the California High Speed Rail, move of Shuttle Endeavor from LAX to the California Science Center, and restoring wetlands in the Delta.
Shinjini Meno
Shinjini Menon is vice president, Asset Management and Wildfire Safety, at Southern California Edison. She is responsible for the development and execution of SCE’s Wildfire Mitigation Plan, PSPS Readiness and oversees the asset management work across the company to optimize investments and ensure safe and reliable operation of the system.
Kent R. Miller
Kent R. Miller is an engineering fellow with Raytheon Technologies Corporation. He provides education and program protection design support for Raytheon's advance weapon and sensor programs. In addition to consulting individual programs, he shares his expertise more broadly as an instructor for Raytheon engineers and technologies in cybersecurity, reverse engineering, and anti-tamper in hardware, firmware and software. Miller has over 30 years of experience as a technical expert in the dense and national security areas.
Mathias Nakatsui
Mathias Nakatsui currently serves as part of Glenair’s engineering leadership team. Glenair has an extensive history of manufacturing high-reliability connectors and cable assemblies for mission critical land, sea, air and space applications. Prior to Glenair, Nakatsui worked for large and small companies in the defense industrial base. He has experience working on various projects and programs from sonar systems to advanced sensor signal processing.
Mark Pestrella
A 35+ veteran of Public Works and a licensed civil engineer, Mark Pestrella is the director of LA County Public Works, the nation’s largest municipal public works agency, overseeing a $4.1 billion annual budget, a $5 billion Capital Project Program, and a 4,000-person workforce. The agency delivers infrastructure and services across Water Resources, Transportation, Environmental Services, Construction, and Municipal Services to over 10 million residents in a 4,000-square-mile region.
David Piechota ('86, ME)
David Piechota is currently an executive project director with Fluor Corporation with over 35 years of experience in the areas of project management, engineering management, and mechanical engineering. He has led and executed of projects of all sizes, both foreign and domestic, lump sum and reimbursable, front-end engineering/detailed engineering and conceptual studies.
Shefali Patel
Shefali Patel is a general management and technology executive. She is the former CEO and board member of SunDensity Inc., a venture backed photonics start-up. She brings to bear 25+ years of industry experience in power generation, energy, semiconductor, big data and analytics sectors. Patel serves as a board advisor and mentor to several start-ups commercializing advanced materials, energy/climate tech, B2B SaaS, building technologies and life sciences solutions.
Chris Rideout, P.E. (’86, CE)
Chris Rideout was a principal and vice president of BKF Engineers, a full-service civil engineering and surveying firm. During his tenure at BKF, Rideout managed offices in Oakland and Walnut Creek prior to initiating BKF’s presence in Southern California. He recently retired as principal in charge of the Newport Beach office.
Clark Rucker (’83, ET; Engineering Alumni Hall of Fame ’19)
Clark Rucker was the senior manager of the Phantom Works Quality organization within Boeing Defense, Space, and Security (BDS). In this role, Rucker lead the overall strategy, program integration, management and personnel development of the Phantom Works Quality organization across The Boeing Company.
Kelly M. Sigmon (’89, IE; Engineering Alumni Hall of Fame ’19)
Kelly M. Sigmon was vice president of Customer Experience for the U.S. Postal Service (USPS). She developed effective customer strategy for all aspects of USPS. Over her 30-year career, Sigmon has worked on a variety of large projects, including the implementation of new technology that enabled USPS to automate mail sorting, as well as a simulation tool to protect the impact of this equipment nationwide.
John Valasek, Ph.D. (’86, ARO; Engineering Alumni Hall of Fame Class of ’19)
John Valasek serves as a professor in Texas A&M University’s aerospace engineering department and is director of the university's Vehicle Systems & Controls Laboratory. In 2017, Valasek was elected a fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) for his pioneering contributions and leadership in flight mechanics and control leading to new capabilities in autonomous air refueling, morphing flight and flight safety. He also influenced aerospace on a national level by providing expert input to federal lawmakers of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.
Tom VanDorpe M.S., S.E. (’89, IE; Engineering Alumni Hall of Fame ’19)
Tom VanDorpe is the CEO of VCA Consultants, a 110-person engineering consulting firm. Within the building industry, VCA has grown to be a prolific design firm with a clientele of highly regarded architects, builders and government jurisdictions. As a practicing structural engineer, VanDorpe and his partners have served as engineer-of-record for over $30 billion of new construction in the Western U.S. which includes housing for over 500,000 people.