Jun 25, 2010 - Claremont, CA -

Thomas Theodore Woodson, senior professor of engineering emeritus and former Engineering Clinic director at Harvey Mudd College, died June 11 in Claremont, Calif., at the age of 100.

Woodson arrived at HMC in 1969 and chaired the engineering department from 1972 to 1973. As director of the Engineering Clinic from 1972 to 1977, he is credited with significantly accelerating the growth of the program. He retired as Clinic director in 1977, but continued to teach part time and twice more led the Engineering Clinic in 1980-81 and 1984-85 when J. Richard Phillips, James Howard Kindelberger Professor of Engineering and director of Engineering Clinic, was on sabbatical leave. Along with Sam Tanenbaum, professor of life sciences and engineering and dean emeritus, Woodson initiated the HMC Mathematics, Engineering, Science Achievement (MESA) program in 1978, which brought underrepresented students from area high schools to the campus. HMC hosted about 250 middle and high school students each summer until 2004 when the MESA program ended.

Tanenbaum said, “Tom was a great designer and engineer, but he was also a wonderful person with a strong moral commitment to serve society--whether that meant motivating and providing opportunities for low income high school students to become engineers through the MESA program, arranging pro-bono clinic projects to help handicapped children, or building homes for low income families with Habitat for Humanity. It was a privilege for me to know and work with Tom for many years."

Founding HMC President Joseph Platt wrote in his history of the college, "We were very fortunate in the optimism, persistence, know-how and drive of Tom Woodson, our Clinic director, as this educational transformation took place. Tom, who had decades of industrial design experience...set out to find substantial client funding for every Clinic project, which he pointed out, guaranteed the attention of students, faculty and client. The time came when the number of Clinic projects we had was limited by the number of students, not by the number of clients."

"The Clinic was invented well before Tom came to HMC, but he was the one who really established its reputation as the most popular part of the engineering curriculum and a valuable source of solutions to real-world problems for Clinic sponsors," said Tanenbaum.

A design engineer for 25 years with GE and Waste King, Woodson invented the first GE automatic clothes washer. One of his early washing machine agitators is still used in HMC classes today as an example of a new technology that had an enormous impact on society.

Woodson was a graduate of Purdue University (B.S. in electrical engineering, 1932) and Ohio State University (M.S., electrical engineering, 1935). Before coming to HMC, he taught at the University of California, Los Angeles where he authored Introduction to Engineering Design.  He is named on 30 U.S patents in the electromechanical field and published many articles, papers and reports on engineering design. During the 1960s and 1970s, Woodson worked as a consultant for the United Nations on industry-related issues in developing countries. He was responsible for administering industrial development projects in Brazil for the United States Agency for International Development in 1967-69, together with assignments in India, Iran, Africa and the Far East.