• Junior Engineer of the Year - Chad Yagow

• Junior Scientist of the Year - Craig D. Gehrels

• Senior Engineer of the Year -  Roger A. Less, P.E.

• Senior Scientist of the Year - John S. Hickman

• Lifetime Achievement Award - Roy E. Harrington

• Society of the Year - Society of American Military Engineers (SAME)

• President's Award of Merit - Mary Daniels

Junior Engineer of the Year:

Chad Yagow

Mr. Yagow is a Product Engineer for biomass harvesting technologies for John Deere at the Worldwide Product Development Center in Silvis, Illinois.  He has been an outstanding leader in his profession at both the national and local levels. While at the University of Illinois, he served as the President of the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE) International Pre-Professional Community. After graduation, he was instrumental in developing the ASABE Young Professional Community. Locally Mr. Yagow recently served as Chairman of the ASABE Quad City Section. He was the 2007 ASABE Quad City Section Young Engineer of the Year and has received four Presidential Citations for outstanding contributions to ASABE.

Mr. Yagow has been an active member of the community including Concordia Lutheran Church, Henry County 4-H Cloverbuds, Henry County Farm Bureau Young Leaders, and Galva FFA Alumni Chapter.

Junior Scientist of the Year:

Craig D. Gehrels, CIH

Mr. Gehrels is a Major in the U.S. Army and currently serves as the Command Industrial Hygienist in US Army Sustainment Command on Rock Island Arsenal (RIA). His responsibilities include advising and providing technical oversight in all areas of industrial hygiene, preventive medicine, and occupational health for a global organization supporting the Warfighter and Army transformation.

Before his assignment at RIA, he was the Chief of the Industrial Hygiene Division at the US Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine – West, Fort Lewis, Washington supervising a team of industrial hygienists providing occupational health and industrial hygiene support to Army and National Guard Units in a 19 State area of the western United States. This included providing technical expertise and manpower to support the Corp of Engineers Louisiana Recovery Field Office in New Orleans for Hurricane Katrina Support.

Mr. Gehrels has been an active member of the American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA) and serves as the Treasurer of the Iowa-Illinois Local AIHA Section along with being the QCESC Representative for AIHA. In addition, he served as the Chairperson for the recent QCESC Catapult Contest held at the Putnam Museum. He is also a member of the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH).

Mr. Gehrels earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Industrial and Manufacturing System Engineering from Iowa State University in 1995 and a Master of Science in Occupational and Environment Health from the University of Iowa in 2003. He received the University Of Iowa College Of Public Health Milford E. Barnes Award given for outstanding work in occupational and environmental health. He also obtained the designation certified industrial hygienist (CIH) in 2006.  He lives in Davenport, Iowa with his wife Kathy and daughters Kaitlyn and Kelsie.

Senior Engineer of the Year:

Roger A. Less, P.E.

Mr. Less serves as the Chief, Design Branch for the US Army Corps of Engineers, Rock Island District. He manages 100 professional employees charged with executing engineering designs, reports and investigations of navigation, flood control and ecosystem projects in the Mississippi River watershed and providing engineering support to the Armed Forces.  He is a Professional Engineer and has received numerous awards in service to the Nation and for his engineering accomplishments.

In 2005, Mr. Less received the “Commander’s Award for Civilian Service” for performance of Task Force Unwatering duties in New Orleans where he was a member of the initial task force deployed to Louisiana in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.  The efforts of this task force, along with the coordinated efforts of local governments and private contractors resulted in unwatering the city several weeks ahead of forecasted dates. His efforts were key to the successful completion of this landmark engineering mission.

In 2006 and 2007, he returned to New Orleans on numerous occasions to lead peer review panels and provide engineering leadership to the $12 Billion hurricane protection improvements on-going throughout the Gulf Coast area.

Mr. Less been active in his community and church throughout his career. He has coached numerous youth sports teams and has served as an officer on a local Little League Baseball board, a Dad's Club school representative and has served on the North Scott High School Athletic Booster Club, including a term as President of the club. In addition, he is a state licensed high school basketball official. He also served six years on the Davenport, Iowa Trinity Lutheran School Board of Education including four years as chairman and has served on the North Scott Community Schools Superintendent's Advisory Panel.

Senior Scientist of the Year:

Dr. John Hickman

Dr. Hickman is currently the Director of Renewable Energy & Life Sciences for John Deere at the Moline Technology and Innovation Center. He has served in this role since Nov 2007 where he strategically directs, develops and implements the Enterprise technology innovation strategy in biorenewable energy. 

Since 1998, Dr. Hickman had been serving in the role of Corporate Life Scientist, responsible for integrating the evolving technology of crop production, biomass, and other life sciences into Deere's equipment and non-equipment businesses. John has actively worked with engineering, product planning, strategic planning, marketing, business development, and public affairs to assure that new equipment designs and business opportunities meet customer needs in a rapidly changing world.

Dr. Hickman has been a Associate Professor at Kansas State University, has served on a number of national agricultural associations and councils and has been a member of USDA/Dept of Energy Biomass Technical Advisory Committee and the US Global Change Research Program.

Dr. Hickman has authored an extensive number of publications and given numerous presentations. This includes greater than 50 non-technical press articles, 200 newsletters, 20 invited lectures, seminars, and symposia presentations.

Lifetime Achievement Award:

Roy E. Harrington

Mr. Harrington was presented the Lifetime Achievement Award for his outstanding, life-long contributions to the Engineering and Science Profession and Service to the Quad Cities Community. 

This includes his 35-year career at John Deere, where he retired, supporting the development of farm equipment with 21 U.S. patents including the introduction of plastic bearings in tubular power take-off (PTO) shields that are now used by most manufacturers worldwide. In addition, his patents for tractor seat suspensions were utilized for more than two decades on more than 80 models of John Deere tractors and self-propelled equipment.  He has authored two books on Deere’s farm equipment history and three books introducing young readers to farm machinery.

Mr. Harrington's international commitment included being an Agricultural Engineering Consultant responsible for farm mechanization on the 20-member Ford Foundation team working with the Government of India from 1966 to 1971 on their Intensive Agricultural District Program.  In addition, he worked on restructuring the Hungarian agricultural machinery sub sector for the World Bank in Budapest, Hungary in 1986.

As a 57-year member of the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE), he has held various offices including Chairman of the QC Section, International Director, Administrative Vice President, and co-Leader of a 15 member ASAE Tour to Exchange information on farm mechanization at the invitation of the Chinese Government in 1979. He is a member of Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) for 48 years and India Society of Agricultural Engineers for 41 years.

Mr. Harrington  has received numerous awards and recognition over the span of this career including ASABE Quad City Section Engineer Year, Fellow in ASABE and Indian Society of Ag Engineers, and Leaders in American Science, 6th Edition.

He also has been active in the local community including on the Arrowhead Ranch Board of Directors, Quad-Cites World Affairs Council for 35 years including being President, and has served on the area board of Directors for the Churches United of the Quad Cites.

Society of the Year Award:



The Society of American Military Engineers (SAME) – Rock Island Post was selected as the 2007 QCESC Society of the Year.

The selection this year was based on the excellent service it is providing its local members, its support of engineering and science in the local community, and the on-going support it has provided the Quad City Engineering and Science Council. This includes holding 13 local meetings in 2007 and special events with an average attendance of 50 people, donating over $21,000 for scholarships, student activities, and training and providing strong on-going support for the QCESC through volunteers. In the last 31years, 12 of the Chairpersons for the QCESC have been SAME members.

The Rock Island Post of SAME was established in 1950 and currently has 238 local members. Its mission is to promote and facilitate engineering support for national security by developing and enhancing relationships and competencies among uniformed services, public and private sector engineers, and related professionals

Further information about SAME is available at it’s website @ http://posts.same.org/rockisland

SAME Post President, Col. Robert A. Sinkler receiving Award from Patrick Barnes, QCESC Award Chair/President
 

Mary Daniels

Ms. Daniels. was presented the President's Award of Merit by QCESC President Patrick Barnes, for her outstanding contributions to the QCESC and service to the Quad Cities Community.  During 2007-2008, she was instrumental in initiating the partnership with the Putnam Museum for the Leonardo Da Vinci Man – Inventor – Genius Exhibition and the associated four workshops. In addition, she lined up a significant number of the prices for the workshops and made arrangements for the National Engineers Week Banquet Guest Speaker, Dr. Kenneth J. Klabunde, Distinguished Professor – Kansas State University.

Ms. Daniels is the Manager of Industrial Hygiene & Safety at Trissel Graham & Toole in Davenport.  She is a past president of the Quad City Engineering and Science Council, past president of the American Industrial Hygiene Association Iowa-Illinois Section, and on the board of advisors of Heartland Center for Occupational Health & Safety. Mary also serves on the Industrial Safety and Health Advisory Committee for the Eastern Iowa Community Colleges and is a member of the Quad City Chapter of the American Foundry Society (AFS), the Cast Metals Institute Occupational Health and Safety Committee, the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE) Quad City Chapter, and the Council for Accreditation in Occupation Hearing Conservation.

Mary Daniels receiving Award from Patrick Barnes, QCESC Award Chair/President