Portland State Magazine Fall 2017

10 PORTLAND STATE MAGAZINE FALL 2017 RELATIONSHIP BUILDER IN THE EARLY 2000s, Lockheed Martin Corporation had fighter jets and communication satellites to build, and a shortage of engineers with advanced degrees to design them. A program to pay their graduate school tuition had floundered because universities were reluctant to adjust their class hours to accommodate the working engineers' full-time schedules. That is, until a Lockheed Martin executive met Rahmat Shoureshi, then dean of the engineering school at the University of Denver. Shoureshi offered to schedule evening graduate-level classes. Then he went a step further, remembers Michael Ragole, retired Lockheed Martin director of engineering resources and development. Shoureshi sent the professors to teach on Lockheed Martin’s Littleton, Colorado, campus. Ragole wanted to make it worthwhile for the university and promised that at least 10 engineers would enroll in those first master’s in engineering classes. Today, more than 300 engineers have earned master’s as well as doctorate degrees through an expanded program now offered by video- conferencing in additional Lockheed offices. The company’s pipeline of highly skilled engineers looks fuller these days. “Without Rahmat, it never would have happened,” Ragole says. Shoureshi hopes to put that same resourcefulness and problem-solving to work as Portland State’s new president. He formally took over on August 14, following six years as the provost and interim president of the New York Institute of Technology. Colleagues, partners and former students of Shoureshi say the PSU community can expect a leader who is keenly focused on students’ needs and who will find new ways to collaborate across the campus, city and region to build the University’s stature and strengthen it financially. Rahmat Shoureshi begins a new era as president of Portland State University. WR I T T E N B Y PA I GE PARKE R The University’s new president Rahmat Shoureshi is an experienced leader and an accomplished researcher who puts students’ needs first. Photo by Nikki De Leon.