Joseph Alford received his BS in Chemical Engineering from Purdue University in 1966. He is currently an Automation Consultant after serving in the US Navy and then retiring from a 35-year career as an Engineering Advisor at Eli Lilly and Company. 

As one of his projects during his time at Lilly, Alford led the team that automated the world's first manufacturing plant using man-modified microorganisms, (i.e., utilizing recombinant DNA technology), to make a commercial product, human insulin. The project had to deal with several new microorganism containment requirements. 

Since graduation, Alford has received many awards from Eli Lilly, Purdue, and other organizations. He is a 2004 recipient of the Purdue Outstanding Chemical Engineer award and was elected to Purdue’s ROTC Hall of Fame. He was also named into the Process Automation Hall of Fame and as a Fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and International Society of Automation. He has been named a Distinguished Engineering Alumni from the College of Engineering at both of his alma maters, Purdue University and the University of Cincinnati. 

Alford says his most memorable engineering experience at Purdue centered around his time in the Chemical Engineering Senior Design course, which included a Capstone project where student teams designed a chemical plant utilizing much of what had been learned while completing the chemical engineering curriculum. Capstone projects required teams to utilize many group management and technical skills, one of which was to program the University's IBM 360 computer (to execute the 

Team’s simulated plant design), with computer programs coded onto IBM punch cards. “Each card contained 80 alphanumeric characters, using Fortran IV programming language. Card stacks were turned into the computer center, which had a 24-hour turnaround time to receive results.”

The chemical plant design created by the four-member team that Alford was on required about 2500 IBM cards. “The daily submissions to the computer center caused great stress to the student team,” says Alford, as time was running out in the semester to get the program debugged (with all the syntax, logic, spelling, and punctuation errors) and then to execute properly. On the last day of class, the program finally ran successfully. “Computing has certainly changed. In today's technologically advanced world, no punch cards are needed and any feedback regarding coding errors can often occur within seconds.” 

Alford credits his Purdue Chemical Engineering degree with providing a strong foundation in engineering basics and logical analytical thinking. He notes these skills are highly beneficial for many types of careers, including medicine, law, business, science, and the many different branches of engineering. “It is common for Chemical Engineering graduates to go on and be successful in a wide variety of careers,” explains Alford. “I am a good example of this, as Eli Lilly and Co. hired me, after graduate school, to help develop computer and analytical systems to automate their development and manufacturing life science processes.”  He recalls fermentation process control being mostly “art” in the early 1070s (with little control or up to date knowledge as to how a fermentation was progressing). Lilly management challenged him during employment interviews to change some of the “art” to science. He spent most of his career doing just that. After serving as a key member of the team that developed the novel process control and data historian system, implemented at all major life science plant sites, he led teams that added new sensors, analytical systems, models, and troubleshooting and optimization algorithms to fermentation processes, some using artificial intelligence technology. Higher yielding more consistent fermentations resulted, and scientists were happy as fast process diagnosis and online troubleshooting capability improved. Lots of electrical wiring and computer program codes were involved. So, Alford ended up being a hybrid chemical, computer, and electrical engineer all in one, with a Purdue Chemical Engineering education enabling him to make an easy transition into computer science and electrical system-type projects.

Along the way, Alford served several years part-time as Lilly’s chief corporate computer system validation QA auditor, co-authored the national and international standard on process alarm management (as part of his involvement with the International Society of Automation), co-authored one of the leading textbooks on process control, is a long-time member of AIChE and ISA technical journal editorial advisory boards, and continues to give guest lectures at universities, including Purdue.     

 “My passion for process control, a major component of process automation, began with the senior year Chemical Engineering process control course taken at Purdue with Dr. Donald R. Coughanowr, the inspirational instructor and co-author of the textbook we used,” says Alford. “Despite not having a computer science degree, I spent my whole adult life heavily involved with computers. They were not only the primary tool used in my professional career, but a computer even had a major role in selecting my wife.”

On November 13, 1964, Purdue University hosted the first computer match dance in the Midwest. At the time, Purdue’s student population was predominantly male, with six males enrolled for every female. The computer match dance was sponsored by the Junior Class Council. Event organizers could only accept the same number of men as women who signed up, leaving many frustrated males who were not able to attend. To register, students were required to answer 20 multiple-choice questions, with answers entered on IBM punch cards.

That Friday evening, 1,252 singles walked into the Memorial Union ready to be paired up. In front of ABC and CBS television cameras, Alford would meet his future wife, Marti.  “I was a senior at the time, and she was a freshman. We dated for 14 months, getting lavaliered and pinned, and she then waited for me while continuing her education while I served for two years in the US Navy as an Engineering Officer on an aircraft carrier in the Vietnam War,” remembers Alford. “We married after she graduated, and we have since been together for over 55 years. I believe we are one of two couples who met at the computer match dance and got married. We have three sons and five grandchildren.”

One of Alford’s fond Purdue memories is meeting Gemini 8 and Apollo 11 astronaut and Purdue alumnus Neil Armstrong. “I met Neil Armstrong after he left NASA, both while in graduate school at the U. of Cincinnati and later at a Purdue Memorial Union banquet,” says Alford. “He, and two other famous Purdue astronaut alumni, Gene Cernan and Jerry Ross, are pictured with my wife and I in one of our past Christmas cards sent to friends and family.” 

^{The photo above is the Alford’s famous Christmas card. From the left, Neil Armstrong (the first man on the moon), Joseph Alford, Marti Alford, Eugene Cernan (last man on the moon), and Jerry Ross (astronaut with the most missions to the space station). Photo provided by Joseph Alford.}

Check out Dr. Joseph S. Alford’s LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joseph-s-alford-4457847/

Source: Dr. Joseph S. Alford

Writer: Makenna Fitzgerald, fitzge39@purdue.edu