Co-Op Hall of Fame inducts three CoE alumni and one faculty member
This year’s inductees are Paul Amico (BSCE ’96), Thomas Beutner (BSAAE ’87), Geoffrey Cubitt (BSIE ’92), and Eckhard Groll, the Reilly Professor of Mechanical Engineering, who formerly served as interim director of OPP in 2007 and director beginning in 2008. On Jan. 1, 2018, he was appointed associate dean of undergraduate and graduate education for the College of Engineering.
The Hall of Fame was created in 2010 to recognize individuals who have had a significant influence on OPP programs, as well as CoE alumni who have demonstrated unparalleled excellence in their field.
Amico completed a five-session co-op with Montgomery Watson, now Stantec. He has worked for several different consulting engineering firms delivering water infrastructure projects for municipal clients. He is currently employed by Carollo Engineers in Fresno, Calif. He believes his experience in the co-op program was an essential stop in his career because he was exposed to a wide variety of projects and experiences in water and solid and hazardous waste remediation.
Beutner, who also earned a master’s degree and Ph.D in aeronautics and astronautics from Stanford University, completed four co-op rotations at General Dynamics in Fort Worth, Texas. He has worked in research areas including advanced diagnostics, computational fluid dynamics, and applied aerodynamics. His career has taken him to the Air Force Research Laboratory, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Senior Executive Service, and the Office of Naval Research. In 2018, he returned to DARPA as deputy director of the Tactical Technology Office. He has formerly been recognized as an Outstanding Aerospace Engineering Alumni from the Purdue School of Aeronautics and Astronautics in 2007, and as a Distinguished Engineering Alumni by the College of Engineering in 2018.
Cubitt, who also earned a master’s degree in industrial engineering from Stanford University, completed the co-op program with seven rotations at Hughes Space and Communications (HSC), where he began his professional career and worked in business process reengineering, information engineering, and project leadership. He is a founder of the pioneering digital agency Roundarch, now Isobar, and has spent more than 25 years helping clients, including HBO and Enterprise Rent-A-Car, create transformational digital platforms and experiences.
Groll earned his diploma in mechanical engineering in 1989 from University of the Ruhr and his doctorate in mechanical engineering in 1994 from University of Hannover, both in Germany. During his time in OPP, he was responsible for growing the 3-session co-op program to the largest co-op program on campus. He also introduced the MS Co-Op program and facilitated the move of the Interns-for-Indiana program to OPP. During his tenure, student participation in OPP’s various programs grew from 650 students in academic year 2006-07 to 1,400 in 2016-17. Groll, who teaches thermodynamics, has been the principal investigator (PI) or co-PI on more than 120 research grants and more than 40 educational grants with a total budget of $13.6M from various agencies. He holds four patents.
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