PSU Magazine Spring 2004

robots-at about $1 million apiece– which students will have access to. ~tudems, of course, are the biggest reason the college is expanding. The Oregon Legislature, spurred by the state's high-tech industries, passed a bill in 1997 directing the state's univer– sity system to double the number o[ engineering graduates within 10 years. At that time, the college had 1,200 students, Dryden says. Enrollment now stands at about 2,000, and Dryden is shooting for 2,500. Although the state's economy has cooled since the high-tech gold rush of the late '90s, the need to produce more engineers is just as great, he says. It allows companies to recruit locally, keeping their costs down, and giving them greater opportunities for growth. With more students will come more faculty and more research money. The college had 44 faculty members in 1995, when Dryden became dean. lt how has 63, and he plans to push it to 100. His goal is to expand annual research funding to $17 million per year-up from the $1 million per year when he started at the University in 1995. 01ans also call for filling in the last remaining gaps in the college's degree offerings. Dryden wants to secure a Ph.D. program in engineering and technology management, and another in mechanical engineering. The first will happen this fall; the second a year from now. When this process is com– plete, all programs within the college will offer master's and doctoral degrees. Reaching the goal will earn more national recognition, which in turn will help both enrollment and research funding in a kind of symbiotic spiral of growth. None of these things would be pos– sible without a University-wide vision of what the college could be. Fortu– nately, a PSU graduate with the means to make things happen caught the same vision. D (John Kirkland, a Po,-i/and freelance w1ite1; wrote the articles "Payingfor Prisons" and "Is ll Live, or Is It? . .. " in the winter 2004 PSU Magazine. ) PSU made all the difference -----• What Fariborz Maseeh wanted more than anything in 1977 was an education. But that was an elusive goal at the University of Tehran. Maseeh describes a campus environment not unlike Berkeley in the '60s, in which anti-government political factions clashed openly with other groups, creating fear and chaos. . . -----• "Classes were being canceled all the time. I was looking for a more stable school environment. I was apolitical-I just wanted to finish my bachelor's degree," he says. ------ He hurriedly applied to universities in the United States, and signed up with the first to accept him: Portland State University. He arrived by taxi in front of Neuberger Hall on a Saturday in March of that year. It was the starting point for a bachelor's degree in structural engin_eering, a PSU master's degree in mathematics, a doctorate from M_IT, ~he founding of ~ su_ccessful high-tech firm, and ultimately the largest gift in Portland States h1s~ory. •----- A sister came to the United States soon after he did and for many of the same reasons. When the shah's regime fell in 1979, the rest of his family followed. •----- Maseeh's first impression of PSU? •----- "The instructors actually assigned homework and the students actually turned it in. I was shocked at how organized people were." -----• And that was a good thing; Maseeh seemed to thrive on the new challenge. Chik Erzurumlu, professor emeritus and the founding dean of the college, recalls those early days. . . ------ "I had him in my upper division structural engineering courses. From the get-go I knew he was going to be a star student. My defini– tion of a star student is one who has the right attitude, is intent to absorb everything in class, and expects more to come," he says. Maseeh became Erzurumlu's student assistant until he graduated, and the two have been friends ever since. -----• Although he studied large structures as an undergrad, his interests changed to the very small as he earned his doctorate at MIT. He became a specialist in micro-electro-mechanical systems-MEMS for short– which is the manufacturing of infinitesimally small devices ranging from sen– sors in cars to heart defibrillators that can be implanted in the human body. -----• Maseeh founded lntelliSense Corp. in 1991, a company that concentrated on reducing the time and expense of creating next-generation MEMS devices using some of the technology used in computer chip manufactur– ing. Under his leadership, lntelliSense began the first custom design, develop– ment, and manufacturing MEMS operation-and it became the ~orld's fastest growing MEMS corporation. Corning, Inc., acq~ire~ the company in 2~00. •----- The next chapter in Maseeh s hfe was to get married and start a family, which he says "is the best thing I ever did." They moved t? . Southern California, where he started The Massiah Foundation, whose m1ss1on is to make significant improvements in education, health, the arts, literature, and science. ------ He sees his gift to the University as an investment in its future, based in part on the progress the engineering and computer science program has already made. . ------ "When I started here, it was a different university. The engi– neering department was tiny; structural engineering was the only accredited major. As an alumnus, I looked at the progress it's made, saw that PSU needs more facilities, more growth opportunities, and I wanted to be part of it." D SPRING 2004 PSU MAGAZINE 11