 I would like to thank the College of Engineering, Dean Chiang, and all the faculty and staff at Purdue University for such a wonderful honor. Like the other recipients, this is a true highlight in my life, and I am most appreciative of being recognized by my alma mater. It is moments like these that I think how lucky I have been. I entered Purdue University, eager to learn, but still uncertain of the role that an engineer actually played in society. Although I knew engineers were good at math and science, I didn't fully appreciate at the time that engineers are at the center of taking the world from where it is today to where it will be tomorrow. Learning how to be an engineer gave me an insatiable desire to understand the world in which we live. The education that I received at Purdue was structured and challenging, but also rewarding. It was demanding, but at the same time enjoyable. It taught me to listen closely to those with expert knowledge and how to apply information to solve complex problems. It provided me the basic skills to become a leader in my chosen profession, and as a result, my life took a different turn than most. For that, I will always be thankful. As I move through my career, being presented with new and unusual challenges, indeed luck played a part in my success, but luck can be seen most clearly at the time when ample preparation meets an obvious opportunity. Over the many years of my career, I have had the opportunity to live and work on four continents and in many different cultures. I have worked for the Americans and the Belgians, the Koreans and the French, the British and also the South Africans. Each culture brings its own unique approach to life and to the problem-solving process, not to mention their own accents and their own sense of humor. I think I was able to succeed and excel in these diverse circumstances by remembering what I learned at Purdue, rely on the fundamentals, those things that will not change, try not to have a preconceived view and simplify complex problems. I found these skills worked well on technical problems, on business problems and organizational problems at every place that I traveled. The Engineering Curriculum at Purdue has an outstanding blend of theory and application providing a foundation on which graduates like myself can build on throughout their entire career. My time at Purdue was also one of personal growth. I must commend the university for helping their students transition into adulthood. Now I'm not saying that I really enjoyed those 7.30 a.m. labs in the middle of an Indiana winter or that having a major assignment due immediately after Thanksgiving was a joy, but even these served as an introduction to the real world that would turn out to be much more daunting only a few years into the future. And another personal aspect that I recall was the nurturing of the faculty. You know the image of a tenure professor with years of experience and insight can be somewhat intimidating to most undergrads. I was grateful to find the faculty at the College of Engineering to be remarkably competent yet easily approachable. As I came to understand myself after rising to higher positions in industry, this blend of openness and competence, it's not an easy thing to achieve. The faculty understood that education is a journey of the mind and of the spirit and their kind and inviting manner was able to help uplift both of these in me. While at Purdue, I also had the opportunity to participate in the industrial co-op education program. This involved an alternating pattern of one semester at West Lafayette followed by another semester or summer at the work site of a partner company. Back and forth between the two became a routine caravan route for me with all my possessions in tow. And at the end of each work session, my advisor Dr. Neal Howes, he would review the work that I had done probing what professional growth had occurred and what insights I had gained. This actual work experience was certainly invaluable in my early career, but no less impactful were the many discussions with Dr. Howes, his guidance to me and my efforts and his friendship to me as a mentor. Both experiences are further testament as to how Purdue provided me one of the highest quality education in the world. So if I had to do it all over again, I would still choose chemical engineering as my degree and Purdue as my university. I've been a very small part of an honorable profession and I'm humbled to receive this award. I do indeed feel lucky today. Thank you once again.