National Academy of Engineering Elects Chair, Home Secretary and Four Councillors

The National Academy of Engineering has elected a chair, home secretary and four members to its governing Council. All terms begin July 1, 2016.

Gordon R. England, chairman of PFP Cybersecurity, will become the Academy’s eleventh chair, elected for a two-year term.  The chair works with the NAE president to promote the Academy and its policies to the engineering community and the public. England is also chairman of the board of V1 Analytical Solutions and a partner of Dyno-Tech, LLC.  Previously, he served as the 29th Deputy Secretary of Defense, the 72nd and 73rd Secretary of the Navy, and the first Deputy Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. England served as president of the General Dynamics Fort Worth Aircraft Company (later Lockheed Corporation), president of the General Dynamics Land Systems Company, and executive vice president of the General Dynamics Information Systems & Technology Sector. He began his career at Honeywell, where he was an engineer on the Project Gemini space program. England, who was elected to the NAE in 2012, succeeds Charles O. Holliday, Jr., chairman of the board of Royal Dutch Shell and retired chairman of the board and CEO of E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co., who reached the term limit dictated by the NAE Bylaws.

Newly elected to serve a four-year term as NAE's home secretary is Julia M. Phillips, retired vice president and chief technology officer at Sandia National Laboratories, who will oversee the Academy’s membership activities. Phillips was elected to the NAE in 2004 and served as councillor from 2008 to 2014. She succeeds Thomas F. Budinger, professor in the graduate school of the University of California, Berkeley and senior consulting scientist at E. O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, who is retiring due to term limits. 

Reelected to a second term as councillor are David E. Daniel, deputy chancellor of The University of Texas System, and C. Paul Robinson, president emeritus of Sandia National Laboratories.  Newly elected as councillors are Josephine Cheng, entrepreneur and retired vice president at International Business Machines Corporation, and Alan I. Taub, professor of materials science & engineering and mechanical engineering at the University of Michigan and retired vice president for global research and development at General Motors. All terms are three years.

Paul Citron, retired vice president of technology policy and academic relations at Medtronic, Inc., completed six continuous years of service as councillor, the maximum allowed under the Academy’s bylaws. Uma Chowdhry, chief science and technology officer emeritus, E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co., served one three-year term as councillor and chose not to stand for re-election.

The mission of the NAE is to advance the well-being of the nation by promoting a vibrant engineering profession and by marshalling the expertise and insights of eminent engineers to provide independent advice to the federal government on matters involving engineering and technology. The NAE is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, an independent, nonprofit organization chartered by Congress to provide objective analysis and advice to the nation on matters of science, technology, and health.