Dr. Dale Reed (BS AE '53, Honorary Doctorate '02) passed away in San Leandro, California, on March 23, 2012. Known as "Mr. San Leandro" for his business and civic involvement in the community, he was also a great friend to Purdue University and the Department of Agricultural & Biological Engineering. Returning to campus for the Old Masters, he has also served the ABE Department as an advisor and mentor, and was instrumental in the funding for the ADM Agricultural Innovation Center dedicated on January 18, 2012.

Dr. Reed was Chairman and CEO of Buran and Reed, Inc., a scale manufacturing company. One of his many outstanding accomplishments included the establishment of the Civic Bank of Commerce in California in 1984. He also served his community actively as President of the San Leandro Chamber of Commerce, Trustee of San Leandro Hospital, President of San Leandro Scholarship Foundation, Vice Chairman and Director of Goodwill Industries of the East Bay, and Chairman of the San Leandro Planning Commission. He served as President of the National Scale Dealer's Association and received the Mayor's Award of Excellence in 2001.

His humanitarian activities included serving on a 5-person delegation to Russia, under the auspices of Intellect, Russia's Charity Foundation, sa a technical advisor supporting the privatization of Russian agriculture in the Staritsky District. He was an advisor to Triquest Group, which funds the Staritsky Project as well as other projects in Russia. In association with the Staritsky Project, he and the other associates entered into an agreement to dismantle 38 missile sites in Russian and recycle the precious metals such as silver and gold in a company called "Plowshares." The proceeds go to set up farming operations and purchase US machinery and technology for these new farms.

A proud member of Triangle during his Purdue days, he continued to assist in fund-raising activities and visits. The Purdue ABE family extends our sincerest condolences to his family.

Kyle Bailey (MS) "Effect of a Seed Tube Modification for Granular Pesticide Application on Corn Seedling Uniformity" April 4, 2012, 2:00 pm ABE 212 (Buckmaster, Ess)

Junli Liu (PhD) "Thermodynamic Modeling of Urea Inclusion Fractionation" April 6, 2012, 3:30 pm PORT 234 (Tao)

Pamela O'Conner (MS) "The Economic Impact of Extending OSHA's Grain Handling Standards to Currently Exempt Agricultural Worksites" April 16, 2012, 10:00 am ABE 212 (Field)

Necla Mine Erin (MS) "Physicochemical Characterization of Mechanically Modified Xanthan Gum Solutions" April 17, 2012, 9:00 am ABE 301 (Campanella)

On behalf of the graduate committee, I’m pleased to announce this year’s award winners:

• PhD: Laurent Ahiablame
• MS: Shahriar Karim

Please join me in congratulating Laurent and Shahriar on this achievement.  They will also be recognized at the annual Alumni and Student Celebration on April 19.

Members of the Maha Fluid Power Laboratory presented papers at the 8th International Conference on Fluid Power (IFK) in Dresden, Germany:

• Zecchi, M. and Ivantysynova, M. 2012. Cylinder block / valve plate interface – a novel approach to predict thermal surface loads. Proceedings of 8th IFK  International Conference on Fluid Power. Dresden, Germany, Vol.1. pp. 285-298.

• Hippalgaonkar, R., J. Zimmerman and Ivantysynova, M. 2012. Fuel savings of a mini-excavator through a hydraulic hybrid displacement controlled system. Proceedings of 8th IFK  International Conference on Fluid Power. Dresden, Germany, Vol.2. pp. 139 – 154.

• Ivantysynova, M. 2012. The Piston Cylinder Assembly in Piston Machines – a long Journey of Discovery. Proceedings of 8th IFK International Conference on Fluid Power, Dresden, Germany, Vol. 3. pp. 307 - 332. Keynote Lecture.