Page 26 - Penn State Civil and Environmental Engineering Magazine

GIVING
The Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Penn State received a $1 million estate commitment to establish the Barry and Shirley Isett Professorship in Civil and Environmental Engineering.
This gift from Barry Isett (‘58 CE), and his wife, Shirley, of Perkiomenville, Pennsylvania, will fund a new professorship to improve the quality of education and research in the civil and environmental engineering programs at Penn State.
“On behalf of the CEE Department at Penn State, I sincerely thank Barry and Shirley for this most generous gift,” said Patrick Fox, the John A. and Harriette K. Shaw Professor and Head of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Penn State. “Their vision to create the Isett Professorship will provide strong support to our mission of teaching and research excellence into perpetuity.”
The fund will be used to provide vital support to an outstanding department faculty member to further the scholar’s contributions to teaching, research,
and public service. Proceeds from the endowment can be used for research expenses; release time to develop new courses and programs; education and travel expenses; innovative research and emerging technology; administrative assistance; and support for
By Jennifer Matthews
undergraduate and graduate students.
“This gift for the civil and environmental engineering department will support good educators,” Barry Isett said. “It will allow the department to recruit another really high-level faculty member to come on board and improve the education of our students.”
Barry Isett began his career working as a structural civil engineer for several engineering firms before starting his own firm, Barry Isett & Associates,
Inc., in 1977. He founded the firm to provide civil and structural engineering and surveying services. Since then, he has grown the company into a highly regarded multi-disciplinary business serving a broad range of public and private sector clients. Their services include mechanical, electrical, and plumbing engineering; environmental services; municipal engineering; landscape architecture; traffic planning; grant writing; transportation engineering; code services; water and waste water engineering; construction services and the development of geographic information systems.
Barry Isett is a member of the National Society of Professional Engineers, the American Society of Civil Engineers and the American Consulting Engineers Council. He is the former president of the Pennsylvania Society of Engineers and former chairman of Pennsylvania
Engineers in Private Practice. He is a longtime board member of the Central Division of the Pennsylvania Economy League, a non-profit that works in partnership with government, business, civic groups, and others to present non- partisan, fact-based insight on issues that can be developed into sound public policies. He is also a registered Professional Engineer in eleven states.
Barry Isett has been recognized
many times for his achievements.
He was named a Fellow Member of
the National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE) in 2005 and served as the Northeast regional vice president for NSPE from 2004 to 2006. For
this, he was honored with the NSPE Distinguished Service Award in
2014. He served as president of the Pennsylvania Society of Professional Engineers (PSPE) in 1995 and was
the state chairman of Professional Engineers in Private Practice. He was honored with the Penn State College
of Engineering Outstanding Alumnus Award in 2007; the Distinguished Alumni Award from Parkland High School in 2016; the Engineer of the Year Award by the Pennsylvania Society of Professional Engineers (PSPE) - Lehigh Valley Chapter in 1989; and the Community Spirit Award by the Eastern Pennsylvania Business Journal in 2001.
“This gift for the civil and environmental engineering department will support good educators.”
Isett Professorship
to advance civil and
environmental engineering
This gift will advance “A Greater Penn State for 21st Century Excellence,” a focused campaign that seeks to elevate
Penn State’s position as a leading public university in a world defined by rapid change and global connections. With the support of alumni and friends, “A Greater Penn State” seeks to fulfill the three key imperatives of a 21st-century public university: keeping the doors to higher education open to hardworking students regardless of financial well-being; creating transformative experiences that go beyond the classroom; and impacting the world by fueling discovery, innovation and entrepreneurship. To learn more about “A Greater Penn State for 21st Century Excellence,” visit greaterpennstate.psu.edu.
26 CEE NEWSLETTER • VOLUME 36, 2020