COLLEGE STATION, Texas - A recent gift to Texas A&M University honors the legacy of Dr. Harry H. West, an international authority on process safety management issues.

Olive E. and T. Michael "Mike" O'Connor of Houston honored the memory of their longtime friend with a $500,000 engineering endowment at Texas A&M University. BP provided one-to-one matching funds, bringing the total gift to $1 million.

The Harry West Memorial Endowment for Process Safety was created through the Mary Kay O'Connor Fund at Communities Foundation of Texas. The gift will provide scholarships and fellowships to students pursuing academic and research programs in process safety.

"We are grateful to Mike and Olive O'Connor for this generous endowment in memory of their good friend, Harry West. His contributions to process safety on an international scale in the chemical industry are well-renowned, and this gift will help educate the engineers of the future who follow in Dr. West's footsteps," said Dr. G. Kemble Bennett, vice chancellor and dean of engineering.

West was in demand as a consultant to investigate catastrophic process accidents, provide expert testimony and teach short courses on process safety. He was president and principal engineer of Houston-based Shawnee Engineers and served as an adjunct professor and research engineer with the Mary Kay O'Connor Process Safety Center at Texas A&M.

"Harry cared deeply about process safety and even more passionately about engineering students learning the fundamentals of process safety. I believe he would like nothing better than an endowment that helps accomplish that objective by providing fellowships and scholarships to engineering students to study and conduct research in process safety," said Mike O'Connor, president of O'Connor Ventures in Houston and a guiding force of the O'Connor center since its inception in 1995.

Before founding Shawnee Engineers in 1986, West was president and technical director of EDG Engineering with offices in Houston, Tulsa, London, Cairo and Abu Dhabi. He previously had been cofounder of Norman, Okla.-based Energy Analysts, a founding member of ChemShare Corp. of Sugar Land and principal engineer with University Engineers Inc. also of Norman.

West was involved in over 20 peak-shaving or base-load LNG plants worldwide and was the leader of the group that introduced quantitative hazards analysis to the petrochemical process industry. He was a process safety consultant for OSHA, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and a registered professional engineer in Texas, Pennsylvania and Oklahoma. He held one patent on tank fire tank control system.

He was a member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), System Safety Society, National Academy of Forensic Engineers, Instrument Society of America and Oklahoma Energy Advisory Council.

A native of Pennsylvania, West received the B.S. degree from Bucknell University and the Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma, both in chemical engineering. He had served on faculties at the University of Pittsburgh, University of Oklahoma and University of Texas at Austin as well as Texas A&M.

West served on the steering committee and chaired the technical advisory committee in the formative years of the O'Connor center, continuing to advise and help as the center grew in stature and size. His main passion always was to work with and motivate students to study and conduct research in process safety.

Mike O'Connor earned a B.S. degree in chemical engineering from the University of Missouri and worked 15 years at M.W. Kellogg where he developed two patents. He is a member of AIChE and the National Fire Protection Association. His present interests include residential real estate development and the Great Southwest Equestrian Center.

At Texas A&M he serves on advisory councils for the engineering college and chemical engineering department. The O'Connors previously endowed two faculty chairs in the chemical engineering department and contributed to the construction of its new headquarters building. The couple also provides significant funding to the Mary Kay O'Connor Process Safety Center each year.

Olive O'Connor's favorite activity is the time she spends with two granddaughters. She has contributed time almost daily at the older's elementary school. She also volunteers at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and has been an unofficial patient advocate for many friends and acquaintances.

"Though not graduates of Texas A&M, Mike and Olive care deeply about Texas A&M's potential impact on process safety and chemical engineering. They have helped build a legacy that will benefit all of society for years to come," said Sara Lillehaugen, director of development for engineering with the Texas A&M Foundation.

The couple's gift counted in the One Spirit One Vision Campaign, a $1 billion multiyear fund-raising effort with the goal of helping Texas A&M attain national top 10 status among public universities while sustaining the distinctive Texas A&M spirit.

The volunteer-led campaign, which concluded Dec. 31, encompassed all private gifts benefiting Texas A&M and was coordinated by the Texas A&M Foundation. The foundation accomplishes its mission through fund-raising and managing assets that benefit Texas A&M.

For more information, contact

Reporter: Megan D. Ehrhardt
meganehrhardt@tees.tamus.edu

News Story 1597, October 31, 2007

Direct page link:
http://engineeringnews.tamu.edu/news/1597

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