 Hello, my name is Steve Ferdinand. I live in Columbus, Indiana. We're on the director of global engineering technology for the Cummins fuel systems business. I graduated from Purdue with a bachelor's in material science in 1982, which was probably the fourth most significant event in my life so far. The first, of course, being the day that I married my lovely wife, Mary, which also took place in 1982. She is an alumnus of Purdue with a degree in political science and is currently the executive director of administration and operations for the city of Columbus, Indiana. The second and third most significant events are the births of our two sons, Andrew, who is a civil engineer, and Sam, who is an aero astro engineer. Both earned it Purdue, or as they will refer to it, the promised land. I am humbled and honored at being selected to receive a 2021 Distinguished Engineering Alumni Award. Well, my friends at the School of Material Science Engineering informed me that I had been selected for this recognition last summer in the deepest darkest days of our COVID lockdown. My first thought was, could the story of 2020 get any crazier? But then I was filled with gratitude for the blessings of all of the relationships of personal and professional that I have enjoyed with the Purdue School of Material Science Engineering. As a sophomore back in 1979, I quickly discovered that a hidden benefit of attending one of the smallest engineering schools of Purdue, I think my class had all of 20 students in it, was that it enabled a culture of community and mutual support, where everyone who is engaged was accepted, valued, and important, regardless of their role, their user of experience degrees held, or their GPA. After graduation, I chose to stay connected with Purdue Materials Engineering, become campus speaking engagements, sponsoring senior projects and graduate projects, hiring interns, consulting with professors, as a member of the Industrial Advisor Committee, and now as a founding member of a new Industrial Research Consortium. I'm proud to say that over all of these years, I've seen the school grow significantly in size and stature, yet the collaborative community culture that made that school a very special place back in the early 80s continues today. When preparing for this acceptance speech, I listed all of the current active Purdue MSE staff and faculty that I've had the privilege to work with, and so that I could individually be thanked for this recognition. But when that list got to over 25 people, I realized that I just needed to thank them all collectively as a group, so that I could stay within my allotted time. However, I would like to express my gratitude to Professor Dave Barr, the department head, and Robin Jakes, as I suspect it required a significant level of effort on their part to make this recognition possible. I would also like to remember those, it made my years as a student in Purdue Material Science Engineering impactful and life-changing. Professor Dayanada, who was my advisor, my cheerleader, and role model. Dr. Jerry Liedl, who was the department head, and Dana Bystrom, who is his administrative assistant, but in fact she was the real department head. John Radovich, Mr. Super Alloys and failure analysis, Bob Spitzer, thermodynamics, Sam Ruska, physical metallurgy, Geraldine Deputy, and of course, Reinhardt Schumann, the grumpy old cuss who was my senior project advisor. Speaking of Professor Schumann, from day one, when the team first met him, it was clear that if our senior design project was ever going to be completed, and we were going to graduate and finish our senior year, it was not going to be a lot. We needed to get serious about our work and focus in order to satisfy Schumann's unrelenting standards of excellence. That my plans that spring also included a wedding, a move to Charlotte, North Carolina, starting a new job all very shortly after graduation. Schumann's standards presented an unanticipated source of tension as well as a significant life lesson in that final semester of college. The most important element of Schumann's standards of excellence was his insistence that our experimental plan measured results and conclusions made sense and were supported by physics. He was unrelenting in his expectations that we had solid thought and reason and purpose behind everything we did, that our communication whether it was conversational and writing was organized to the point and was supported with data and clear logic. He would never hesitate to very directly point out our mistakes or when we glossed over details or provided unsubstantiated suppositions. Literally up until the last week of my senior spring semester the team was convinced that we were not going to pass his class and therefore not graduate. However the lasting impact of this experience is to this day when myself or a team working for me are engaged in a major investigation or project, I will always step back and give that work what I call the Professor Schumann test. And if the work's not right and it wouldn't pass his review regardless of the stage that project might be in we step back and fix it. His teachings have served me well throughout my career with the successful closure of too many litigations negotiations and advanced technology launches to count. An enduring aspect of a productive engineering educational experience that has been the cornerstone for me in my career and it's still there for students today as Mary and I have seen the evidence already in the early careers of our two boys is that a Purdue engineering education is about more than just learning how to solve complex math and physics problems to develop technology for profit. Engineering is ultimately a social exercise to solve real world problems for real people in their daily lives. Therefore Purdue also teaches that engineers must be able to communicate, collaborate, listen and understand others with diverse backgrounds, experiences and cultures. We were challenged to not only pursue excellence and to confront conventional wisdom but to do this ethically in a pursuit of causes greater than ourselves and our own personal interests. Throughout my entire time at Purdue I can say that all of the professors and staff I have engaged with and continue to engage with openly promote and model these principles and practices. For all of these reasons and more I am ever grateful for my Purdue experience and Purdue education and it remains a privilege to be part of Purdue engineering. Thank you for this honor.