Six alumni were honored as Engineers of Distinction at The University of Texas at Austin fall commencement ceremonies.
The Cockrell School's Engineering Advisory Board makes the annual selections based on outstanding professional records, public service, support of education, and other significant achievements. The honored group included four Distinguished Engineering Graduates, the highest honor the Cockrell School of Engineering awards, and two Outstanding Young Engineering Graduates, considered the rising stars among alumni under age 40.
The 2009 Outstanding Young Engineering Graduates are: NASA International Space Station Trainer Valori Leinmiller and NASA Astronaut Karen Nyberg.
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Larry Farmer has been a teacher, researcher, entrepreneur, designer, project manager and engineering/construction executive. After earning his civil engineering doctorate at The University of Texas at Austin in 1965, he returned to the University of Missouri-Rolla, where he had earned his bachelor's degree, to serve as an assistant professor of civil engineering. In 1967, he founded L.E. Farmer, Inc. in Atlanta to provide computer software for structural engineering firms. He was a pioneer in developing and marketing structural analysis and design software for use with time-sharing computers. A few years later he sold this company to CompuServe, where he was director of engineering software until 1976, when he joined Brown & Root to develop new offshore platform concepts. He advanced rapidly within Brown & Root, and in his 25 years served as vice president, chief marine engineer, and director of marine construction, fostering the largest design engineering business in Europe.
Larry served as president of Brown & Root Energy Services from 1990 to 2000, during which time it became the largest offshore engineering and construction firm in the world. Under his leadership, the company's size increased five-fold. He retired in 2001 as chief executive of Halliburton Brown and Root Limited and is now a director of Global Industries Limited.
As a registered professional engineer, Larry's two great sources of professional satisfaction are working with teams to achieve extraordinary performance and using engineering as a means to enhance quality of life. Throughout his career, Larry has been a staunch supporter of The University of Texas at Austin. Larry has been a Friend of Alec since 1984, a member of the Cockrell School's Engineering Advisory Board since 1994, and a supporter and advisor for the Ferguson Structural Engineering Laboratory. He and his wife Judie, reside in Monroe, Georgia.
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Robert (Bob) Leibrock earned both his bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering and his M.B.A. degree from The University of Texas at Austin. His career has focused primarily on oil and gas exploration and production, although he began as a construction engineer in the downstream part of the business. As general partner of Amerind Oil Company, Ltd., Bob planned and managed exploration and production operations in numerous fields in the Permian Basin and in other areas. He directed a major extension of the Northeast Lovington oil field, which resulted in Amerind ranking among the top 25 oil producers in New Mexico for several years.
Bob is actively involved in oil and gas investments in several areas, including Australia. He is a director of Ortloff Engineers, Ltd., which provides technology and consulting engineering services to the oil and gas processing industry.
Bob has maintained a deep connection to the Cockrell School of Engineering and has supported the Cockrell School in a variety of capacities, including as a member of the Mechanical Engineering External Advisory Committee beginning in 1996 and the Engineering Advisory Board in 1999. He is a Friend of Alec Legacy Donor and a contributor to the Department of Mechanical Engineering's T-Room renovation. He was awarded the honor of distinguished mechanical engineer in the Department of Mechanical Engineering.
He has served in board positions and other leadership roles for many professional and civic organizations, including the Permian Basin Petroleum Museum, Permian Basin Petroleum Pioneers, Society of Petroleum Engineers, Society of Independent Professional Earth Scientists, Abell-Hanger Foundation (at the time of its 1998 grant to the Biomedical Engineering Department), Midland Men's Community Bible Study, and the Texas Interscholastic League Foundation where he contributed the Leibrock Family Scholarship. Bob is married to the former Pamela Branson of Midland, and they have two daughters.
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Sara Nall Ortwein became a drilling engineer for Exxon after earning a bachelor of science degree in civil engineering from The University of Texas at Austin in 1980. Over the span of her career, she has held numerous technical, operations and planning assignments within the upstream oil and gas sector.
She held a variety of positions within Exxon's U.S. production operations, working in New Orleans, Midland and Houston. Later, she was the reservoir evaluation and planning manager for Exxon Ventures, CIS, where she worked on new venture capture in Russia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan. Following the ExxonMobil merger in 1999, Sara was responsible for production reservoir engineering worldwide as reservoir engineering manager. From 2001 to 2003, she served as advisor to the upstream director at the company's corporate headquarters in Irving, Texas. She was named production manager with U.S. Production in 2004, running all ExxonMobil-operated production operations in the United States.
Sara is currently the vice president of engineering for the ExxonMobil Development Company. In this position she is engaged in the integral role of ensuring the technical quality of the engineering work that supports all of the company's projects around the world. She is responsible for recruiting, developing and deploying engineers across ExxonMobil Development Company.
Sara participates on the advisory council for the ExxonMobil Corporate Initiative on Women's Economic Opportunity, which focuses on building women business leaders and entrepreneurs, reducing barriers to women's economic participation, and helping identify and deploy enabling technologies globally.
In 2008, Sara was inducted into the Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering's Academy of Distinguished Alumni. As well, she has been a Friend of Alec supporter since 1986 and is a member of The University of Texas System Chancellor's Council.
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A native of Austin, C. Ronald (Ronny) Platt became a petroleum engineer in 1962, when he earned his bachelor of science degree from The University of Texas at Austin. He was employed by Chevron Oil Company for more than 13 years before he opened a private petroleum engineering consulting office in 1976. In 1980, with fellow petroleum engineering alumnus Don Sparks, he co-founded a petroleum engineering firm and currently serves as chairman of Platt, Sparks and Associates Consulting Petroleum Engineers, Inc. The company provides professional consulting petroleum engineering services to operators and owners of petroleum properties, mineral interest owners, attorneys, courts, government agencies, banks and financial counselors.
Highly respected in the petroleum industry, Ronny is recognized as one of the leading petroleum engineering experts in regulatory hearings and litigation. He has served as an expert witness in more than 150 lawsuits and more than 500 administrative hearings. He was the Texas governor's appointee to the Energy Resources Committee of The Interstate Oil Compact Commission for 12 years.
Ronny has supported the Cockrell School in several capacities. He served on the External Advisory Committee for the Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering at the university. He and Don Sparks are establishing the Platt, Sparks and Associates Endowed Presidential Scholarship in Petroleum Engineering, after having been a Friend of Alec for more than 22 years.
A licensed professional engineer in Texas, Ronny is a member of both the Society of Petroleum Evaluation Engineers and the Society of Petroleum Engineers.
Ronny is married to Kathie Platt, and they have four children and ten grandchildren. He is a member of the Lake Travis Methodist Church and a member of the advisory board of My Healing Place, a non-profit agency that provides grief, trauma and loss counseling in the Austin area.
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While growing up near El Dorado, Kansas, Valori Leinmiller dreamed that she would one day work at NASA's Johnson Space Center. The valedictorian of Sunrise Christian Academy in Wichita, Kansas, Valori came to The University of Texas at Austin for her bachelor of science degree in aerospace engineering. While at the university, Valori was the president of Kappa Theta Epsilon, the co-op honor society, and an officer in Sigma Gamma Tau, the aerospace engineering honor society. As well, Valori was a student caller for the Friends of Alec Annual Fund and the recipient of more than nine undergraduate scholarships. She later earned a master's degree in engineering management from the University of Southern California.
Valori first met her goal of working at Johnson Space Center while an engineering cooperative education student employed by Boeing, NASA's prime contractor for the International Space Station. She alternated working semesters at NASA in Houston with semesters in Austin earning her bachelor's degree. She began working full-time with NASA in 2005, and she currently works in the Mission Operations Directorate on the Environmental Control and Life Support System of the International Space Station, where she trains astronauts and flight controllers. She is the lead life support trainer for astronauts and cosmonauts preparing for the long-duration International Space Station Expeditions 19, 20, 25 and 26. She was also the lead life support trainer for the STS-120/ISS-10A Shuttle flight that brought the Node 2 Harmony module to the International Space Station. In addition, Valori is the lead trainer for the highly-publicized regenerative life support system on the space station that includes urine processing, water processing and oxygen generation.
Valori and her husband, Aaron, are expecting their first child in May.
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Karen Nyberg became the 50th woman in space on May 31, 2008, as a mission specialist on board STS-124, Space Shuttle Discovery's flight to the International Space Station.
Born in Vining, Minnesota, Karen earned her bachelor of science degree from the University of North Dakota in 1994. She immediately entered graduate school at The University of Texas at Austin and earned her master's in mechanical engineering and her doctorate in mechanical engineering with an emphasis in biomedical research. She is currently chief of the Astronaut Office Robotics Branch at NASA's Johnson Space Center.
Karen began her career at NASA in 1991 with a co-op position, receiving a patent during that time for her work on the Robotic Friendly Probe and Socket Assembly. She later worked as an environmental control systems engineer for the Crew and Thermal Systems Division, and in August 2000, she began training as a mission specialist.
Karen has held various positions within NASA's Astronaut Office, including crew support astronaut and Capsule Communicator for the Expedition 6 crew during their six month mission aboard the International Space Station. She served on the Orbiter Damage Assessment and Repair Teams and on the Advanced Spacesuits project. In 2006, she was a crew member on NEEMO 10, a deep-sea training and simulation exercise at the Aquarius underwater laboratory, testing concepts for human's return to the moon and eventual missions to Mars. On the STS-124 mission, she logged over 13 days in space, while Shuttle astronauts delivered the Japanese 37-foot Kibo laboratory.
Karen has received many honors and awards, including the Space Flight Medal, The University of Texas at Austin Outstanding Young Mechanical Engineer Award, and the NASA Johnson Space Center Cooperative Education Special Achievement Award, among others. She is a Friend of Alec and a supporter of the Women in Engineering Program and the Cockrell School's Department of Biomedical Engineering.
