Last year, the College graduated a record 766 engineers, grew research expenditures to a record $27.5 million (up $3.5 million from last year), delivered a list of research breakthroughs, and drove the formation of new companies based on OSU technology.

Harder to measure, but just as important, are the many ways our faculty and staff develop our students into some of the world’s finest engineers, while creating prosperity for the world beyond OSU via their research innovations. We give people hope for the future. I’m so proud of our students from all over Oregon and the world – students like Rick Presley who grew up on a farm near Sweet Home, Oregon then demonstrated the world’s first transparent integrated circuit as his master’s thesis. Or the interdisciplinary team of 30 OSU students who won the international SAE Mini Baja competition.

I often hear our alumni talk about the special advice they received from our faculty, and how that changed the course of their lives and helped them find opportunity. I also see examples of the impact our graduates have on prosperity and wonder what the world would have missed had these talented engineers not been guided and educated by our faculty and staff.