The University of Tulsa's Petroleum Engineering Department

This month's Alumnus of the Month is Dan Bradley. Dan became President of Fairmont State University as President in February of 2001. Since that time he has focused of developing the campus infrastructure and its new graduate programs. He currently serves on the ABET Board of Directors and will be its Treasurer starting in November 2006.

He was born in Portage La Prairie Manitoba, Canada, immigrating with his parents to California when he was seven years old. He attended the University of California at Berkeley for several years, then entered the US Army. After his honorable discharge from the Army, he attended Lansing Community College for one year. He then transferred to Michigan State University where he graduated in 1973 with a BS degree in Biochemistry and in 1978 with a PhD in Physical Chemistry. During graduate studies he spent two years at Oak Ridge National Laboratory performing his research. After graduate school he was a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California, Berkeley in the Chemistry Department. He joined the faculty at Montana Tech in Butte, Montana in 1979 as an Assistant Professor of Chemistry. While teaching, he became interested in Petroleum Engineering and obtained a BS in1982 from Montana Tech and went on to obtain an MS at the University of Tulsa in 1983. Returning to Montana Tech he held a number of administrative and teaching positions (Interim Dean of Students, Director of International Programs, Department Head, Dean) culminating with his appointment as Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Research in 1998. His research interests center on flow in porous media and the thermodynamics of high temperature salt solutions, and have resulted in a number of publications in scientific and engineering journals. A significant part of his efforts have been devoted to outreach activities to K-12 students and teachers (Upward Bound and NSF Young Scholars), which are an indication of the importance he attaches to helping students reach their education goals and potential.

He lives on the FSU campus in the President's Home with his wife Cher who is also a Tulsa University graduate and Assistant Professor of Education. Their three sons all graduated from Montana Tech in the spring of 2001. Clayton, the youngest, graduated this year with a PHD in Chemistry from Virginia Tech and is now a Post Doc at the University of Melbourne Department of Chemical Engineering. John, the oldest, is an engineering project manager for Bio-Source fuels building bio-diesel plants. Joe is starting a career in cosmetology, in Portland. Dan spends his free time reading, riding his mountain bike, hiking and hunting. He also enjoys plays and other live performances and the excitement and education of travel.

Dan in his own words:

Why did you choose TU?

Tulsa became my choice because of a relationship that the Head of the Petroleum Engineering Department at Montana Tech had with John Day who was Department Head when applied and was accepted. They arranged for a Phillips Petroleum fellowship for me working with Professor E. T. Guerrero. Since I was married with 3 kids and my wife was also going to be a student at TU, money was very important. The personal attention that ET gave us was also a very big positive. He helped find us a house near campus to live in and was there when we arrived with our U-Haul.

Did TU prepare you well for your future endeavors?

Since I was to be returning to Montana Tech to teach after I completed my masters obtaining a rigorous education was critical. I got all of that and more. While there is no such thing as too much education I feel that the TU Petroleum Engineering faculty did a great job in preparing me. I would also add that the other graduate students also played a major role in my education. The fact that TU has a large enrollment is important in turning out well prepared students.

Any fond memories you would like to share?

The fond memories generally revolve around working with fellow graduate students, particularly Reidar Bratvold, on homework assignments in Professor Reynolds and Raghavan’s classes. It seemed we worked around the clock. I ended up renting a terminal to use at home with a 300 baud modem just so that I could spend a little time in the same building as my wife and kids. We lived a block from the football stadium so Cheri and the boys enjoyed renting space on our lawn (against the rules) to fans. We all have great memories of our time in Tulsa.