Class of 2017

Captain Mark L Bathrick, USN (Ret) graduated from the United States Naval Academy, earning a Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering and receiving his commission as an Ensign in the U.S. Navy. He immediately reported to flight school, where he was recognized with numerous academic and flight performance awards. After receiving his Wings of Gold as a Naval Aviator, Mark was selected to fly the Navy’s top of the line fighter, the F-14A TOMCAT.

In his first of many extended deployments aboard aircraft carriers, Mark participated in opposed strike and reconnaissance operations over Lebanon in support of the Multi-National Peacekeeping Force. This gave him an opportunity to apply his engineering background to a practical application, developing guidance to help pilots avoid image distorting shock waves during high speed photo reconnaissance missions. Returning from deployment, Mark was selected to attend the prestigious TOPGUN Navy Fighter Weapons School. Mark was later selected as the Navy’s top test pilot school candidate and reported to the prestigious Empire Test Pilots School (ETPS) in England for graduate engineering study and test pilot training. Following graduation, Mark served as an Experimental Test Pilot at the Patuxent River Naval Air Test Center where he conducted numerous high risk “first-flight” tests in areas of flying qualities, supersonic performance, flutter, and weapons/systems integration. For this work, Mark was accepted as a Member of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots (SETP). In his follow-on sea tour, he was instrumental in the successful maiden deployment of the F-14B, an aircraft he helped field as a test pilot. Subsequently, Mark served in the Pentagon on the Chief of Naval Operations and Joint Staff, receiving subspecialty designations in financial management and test and evaluation.

Mark’s Navy executive experience included command of a carrier-based F-14 squadron, Chief Test Pilot and commander of a Navy flight test squadron, and commander of the Naval Air Engineering Station at Lakehurst, NJ. Through his visionary leadership, the organizations he stewarded received numerous service level and national awards including the Commander-in-Chief Installation Excellence Award, awarded to the top installation of each service, worldwide.

Following retirement as a Navy Captain, Mark was appointed to the federal Senior Executive Service (SES) as the Director of the Office of Aviation Services with the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI). Here he directs a nationwide aviation services business in support of managing over 500 million acres of public land across the United States and its territories (about 1 in every 5 acres). Mark oversees a headquarters office in Boise Idaho as well as regional offices in Boise, Anchorage Alaska, and Atlanta Georgia. Mark is the senior aviation official in DOI and is responsible for the safe operation of over 1,200 contracted and government-owned manned and unmanned aircraft. Mark has over 25 years’ experience in unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) and has been called on to consult with the highest levels of government, industry, and academia (including the University of Idaho) on UAS technologies and policy. Under his leadership DOI has become a leader in the domestic use and safe integration of UAS.

Mark has logged over 3,700 flight hours and more than 800 arrested landings aboard 10 different aircraft carriers. He has flown over 40 different fixed wing, rotary wing, lighter-than-air, and unmanned aircraft, having qualified as pilot-in command in 12 different models. Mark is a Life Member of the Naval Academy Engineering Honor Society and National Engineering Honor Society, Tau Beta Pi. In addition to his engineering degree, he earned a Master of Business Administration. Mark is an avid supporter of the Idaho entrepreneurial ecosystem as a Board Member of the Boise Angel Alliance and Advisory Board Member of the Idaho Virtual Reality Council. Mark currently resides in Meridian, Idaho, with his wife Marybeth.

Candis Claiborn graduated from the University of Idaho in 1980 with her bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering. She obtained her Ph.D. in chemical engineering in 1991 from North Carolina State University. She is currently a Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Dean Emeritus of the Voiland College of Engineering and Architecture, at Washington State University.

Claiborn became Dean of the Voiland College of Engineering and Architecture in 2006. Prior to that, she served as interim dean, and also as associate dean for research and graduate education in the Voiland College. In August of 2016, after serving 14 years in academic leadership roles, she returned to her faculty position in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

After graduation from the U of I, Claiborn worked in the petroleum industry, first for Chevron Corporation, Western Region Production, in San Francisco, and then for Atlantic Richfield Corporation Cherry Point refinery in Ferndale, WA. She later left industry to pursue an advanced degree at North Carolina State University. She joined the faculty at Washington State University in 1991.

Claiborn is an expert in environmental engineering, specifically air quality, air pollution, and atmospheric chemistry. A member of the WSU Laboratory for Atmospheric Research, her research is in chemical characterization, source apportionment, emissions, and health effects of atmospheric aerosols. She has worked with public health scientists to examine the health effects associated with exposure to particulate air pollution in several cities in Washington State, and measured emission factors of organic carbon species such as PAHs, methoxyphenols, and levoglucosan, from field burning operations.

As Dean of the Voiland College of Engineering and Architecture at WSU, Claiborn focused on strategic priorities, performance metrics, and fundraising. After multiple years of budget cuts during the recession, during which enrollments and performance metrics nevertheless continued to increase, the college received state funding to grow engineering and computer science enrollments. Under her leadership, from the period of 2009 – 2014, undergraduate enrollment in the Voiland College increased by 85%; PhD enrollment grew by 90%; faculty research productivity doubled; and new invention disclosures roughly doubled every year. The Voiland College also opened engineering programs in Bremerton and in Everett to serve place-bound students as well as area industry; and modernized facilities, including adding a new research building on the Pullman campus in 2015, the Frank Innovation Zone “maker space” for students in 2015, and a new engineering building in Bremerton that was completed in 2017. She also raised other funds for the college and university, leading a $3.75 million, NSF ADVANCE program aimed at increasing representation and advancement of faculty women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines. The WSU ADVANCE program was responsible for the development of new strategies for faculty recruitment, retention, and advancement, many of which were later adopted by WSU when the grant matured. She oversaw numerous other initiatives aimed at recruitment and retention of students, including women and underrepresented minorities, in engineering and computer science. Claiborn also led the successful completion of a $130 million fundraising campaign for the Voiland College.

Claiborn is author or co-author on 61 publications, book chapters, and reports; she has given 22 invited presentations or lectures; and along with her students, given 96 presentations at regional or national/international scientific conferences. There are over 2200 citations of Claiborn’s publications, according to Google Scholar.

Claiborn currently serves on the Executive Advisory Board for the University of Houston Center for Advancing UH Faculty Success, as well as the advisory board for the University of Idaho Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering. She is a member of several professional societies, including the American Society for Engineering Education; the American Association for the Advancement of Science; the Air and Waste Management Association; and the American Association for Aerosol Research. Her awards include Outstanding Teaching Faculty in Civil Engineering; the Leon Luck Faculty Award for the Most Effective Professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering; the Richard Crain Faculty Award for Distinction in Ethics Teaching; WSU Woman of Distinction Award; and the CBE Distinguished Alumni award from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at North Carolina State University.

In her spare time, Claiborn and her husband enjoy working in their garden and riding their horses on their “own little Idaho” ranch outside of Moscow.

Mark Durcan is a seasoned business executive with over 32 years of experience in the semiconductor industry. As Micron Technology CEO, he managed a global enterprise with annual revenue run rate of approximately $20B and over 30,000 employees. During his roughly 5-year tenure as CEO revenues more than doubled, and market capitalization and share price more than tripled. He has extensive experience building new technology and product roadmaps and teams, and in operating a large international business. Mark has been the key driver in the formation and operation of numerous international technology partnerships, joint ventures, and manufacturing companies. He has extensive domestic and international mergers and acquisitions experience, having acquired multiple large international companies. He has had significant corporate financing experience and investment analyst interaction and exposure. He has many significant domestic and international government relationships. He holds approximately 100 U.S. and overseas patents.

In his over 32 years at Micron Mark not only served as Chief Executive Officer but also as President and Chief Operating Officer, Chief Technical Officer, Vice President of R&D and in engineering and engineering manager roles.

He is also a current member of the boards of St. Luke’s Medical System in Idaho and the Semiconductor Industry Association. In the past has served as Chairman of the Micron Foundation and been a member of the Idaho State Governor’s Technology Advisory Board.

Mark is the recipient of several prestigious awards, notably for accomplishments and excellence in Environmental, Health & Safety (EHS) and Sustainability. In 2015 he received the Inoue award for outstanding achievement in EHS by SEMI -- the global industry association serving the manufacturing supply chain for the micro- and nano-electronics industries. This November he will receive the Semiconductor Industry Association Noyce Award for contributions to the U.S. semiconductor industry. This is the semiconductor industry’s highest award, and is presented annually to one recipient. Previous recipients include Jack Kilby, inventor or the integrated circuit, and Gordon Moore, founder of Intel and the first to describe Moore’s Law.

Originally born in London U.K. Mark is a Naturalized US. Citizen. He earned his Bachelors and Masters of Science degrees in Chemical Engineering from Rice University. He is married, has three children ages 10, 14, and 15 and enjoys outdoor sports and gardening.

Bryant Lemon graduated from Boise High in 1953 and immediately entered Boise Junior College on a football scholarship, where he played two years. In 1955 he graduated with an Associate of Science degree and entered the University of Idaho’s Civil Engineering program. Upon graduation from the U of I he worked shortly in design with the Highway Dept. At that time President Eisenhower invited him to serve in the Armed Services and he spent two years in the U.S. Navy Seabees, building projects in Guam, Okinawa and in Laos.

Upon discharge Lemon entered George Washington University in Washington D.C. and earned a Master’s Degree in Engineering Administration. He wrote his Thesis on Critical Path Scheduling in construction. The Critical Path Scheduling Method, utilizing computer tracking, was a new technology in 1960. In fact computers, themselves, were a new thing in construction in 1960.

In 1962 Lemon joined the construction firm of Morrison Knudsen. His first field assignment with M-K was on two concrete dams on the Pit River in Northern California. At that time M-K landed the Launch Complex 39 Project at Cape Kennedy, Florida. Lemon transferred to the project to initialize the Critical Path Scheduling program specified by NASA for the Project. President John Kennedy had promised the U.S we’d put a man on the moon within 10 years. Tight scheduling of the construction was of ultra-high importance.

In 1965 Lemon took a position as Project Engineer and eventually Project Manager with the George A. Fuller Co. of New York for construction of Launch Complex 39, Pad B, which was the Pad at Cape Kennedy that launched the rocket putting Neil Armstrong on the moon.

When Launch Pad B was finished Lemon joined the Design-Build team to build the National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois. This 200BeV Proton Accelerator, later re-named “Fermi Lab”, was situated 50 miles west of Chicago. It consisted of a Linear Accelerator (LINAC), a Booster Accelerator and a one mile diameter Main Accelerator. After the proton beam was accelerated to nearly the speed of light, it was guided off to Experimental Areas where its increased velocity and mass was used to knock sub-atomic particles out of targets. One particle the physicists wanted to find was the “quark”, a supposedly anti-gravitational particle. Unfortunately those that were discovered had an extremely short half-life and, so far, haven’t been harnessed for anti-gravitational benefit.

In 1973 Lemon went to Fuller’s main offices in New York. Soon he became Project Construction Manager for the New York Giants Football Stadium at the Meadowlands in East Rutherford, NJ. This major complex, located within 8 mi. of downtown Manhattan had steel pile foundations and was structural steel and precast. It included all mechanical, electrical and architectural systems, playing field, seats, landscaping, walkways, lighting, concessions, electronic scoreboards and graphics. A notable engineering event happened at half-time during the opening game against the Dallas Cowboys. 80,000 beer drinking fans hit the lavatories all at once. The event, later known as the “Super-Flush”, resulted in several hundred toilets and urinals being repeatedly flushed simultaneously. The Stadium’s big water supply booster pumps kicked on and much of the debris, rocks, sand, and asphalt chunks lying in Northern New Jersey’s water systems were washed into the Stadium’s systems. The grit clogged the flushing mechanisms in all the fixtures and they hung open in the “on” condition. It wasn’t for several days and the toils of many, many plumbers that things were restored to normal.

In another unrelated event, the Teamster’s Boss, Jimmy Hoffa, came up missing and no one could find him. A few years later a story broke in the news that Jimmy Hoffa was buried under the end zone at Giants Stadium. News-people searched out Lemon in New Mexico. Lemon informed them that the base under the artificial turf is asphalt and it is improbable that anyone dug through that and buried Hoffa there.

In 1980 Lemon joined the Rust Engineering Co. of Birmingham, AL. Soon he became Project Manager for the first of several semiconductor plants built for Intel Corporation in New Mexico and elsewhere. Intel was just an infant in the computer chip industry at the time but they were very successful. They grew into one of the largest semiconductor manufacturers in the world. Lemon managed many of the projects they built in expanding their manufacturing capabilities. In 1990 Lemon took a risk and founded Brycon Corporation. He was successful in landing many semiconductor construction projects and other projects in the Southwestern U.S. Today Brycon is a leading contractor in the area having upwards of 1,000 employees. Presently the company is managed by Lemon’s son and a group of talented managers. Lemon serves as C.E.O.

Lemon credits his time at the University of Idaho as a major contributor to his formative years giving him the judgment and knowledge needed for success. He has also learned that most accomplishments in this world result from the cooperation of people and that people skills are of the utmost importance. Without a doubt his great wife and family have been major contributors to an accomplished career.

Tom Mueller, Propulsion Chief Technology officer at SpaceX, has 30 years of propulsion development experience and is one of the world's foremost rocket engine designers. As one of SpaceX’s founding members, he is responsible for building and managing SpaceX’s propulsion development group which develops propulsion systems and engines for both the Falcon launch vehicles and the Dragon spacecraft. Prior to joining SpaceX, Tom spent 15 years at TRW where he managed the Propulsion and Combustion Products department.

At SpaceX, Tom has led development of the Merlin rocket engine, the highest-performing US-made hydrocarbon engine ever developed and the first American hydrocarbon booster engine built in 40 years. More recently, Tom has focused on development and flight operations of the Merlin 1D engine, a 190,000 pound thrust engine that improves the performance and reliability of the Falcon 9, and has the highest thrust to weight ratio of any rocket booster engine. Tom is also currently involved in development of new propulsion systems, including the next generation Raptor full flow staged combustion engine and Mars systems to further improve the reliability and reduce the cost of access to space, and eventually enable human life to be interplanetary.

Tom has a Master of Science in mechanical engineering from Loyola Marymount University (1992) and a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering from the University of Idaho (1985). He has received many awards, including an Honorary Doctorate degree from LMU, and the TRW Chairman's Award, the company's most prestigious award for technical achievement. He holds several US patents in propulsion technology.

Yogi Sarin is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Petron Scientech, Inc., Princeton, New Jersey. Sarin has more than 35 years of experience in the global chemical industry. He holds a M.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Idaho and a post-graduate degree in Petrochemical Engineering from ENI in Milan, Italy.

Petron Scientech Inc. develops and licenses the chemical technologies for converting renewable Ethanol, into bioEthylene, bioEthylene Oxide, bioGlycols, bioPolyethylene, and other chemicals used in a wide range of day-to-day renewable plastics. Its innovations have resulted in Petron establishing a unique portfolio of intellectual property. Petron's patented technology reduces overall energy consumption, saving plants millions of dollars in operating and equipment costs. Its technology has been independently verified to use less electricity, generate less waste, use less Ethanol, and to be safer than alternative approaches. 75% of the world's standalone Ethanol-to-Ethylene plants run on Petron processes making Petron Scientech Inc. a pioneer and leader in its field.

As founder and CEO Sarin has extensive hands-on global experience in sustainable/renewable technology development and project execution. He has personally been involved with various projects, governments, cultures and businesses in India, China, Russia, Brazil, Mexico, Europe and the US. He has been involved from concept to commissioning, including design, development and operations of many Ethylene Oxide, Ethylene Glycols and Maleic Anhydride technology plants worldwide. He has handled small to mega projects and business ventures in biomass, agro processing and bio fuels.

Sarin is co-inventor of two patents Dehydration of Butanol to Butylenes (2016) and Dehydration of Propanol to Propylene (2015).

Patrick Taylor is a registered professional engineer with over 40 years of experience in mineral processing and extractive metallurgy engineering, research, teaching and consulting. He has worked or given invited presentations in Canada, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Colombia, Brazil, India, England, Turkey and Egypt. He is experienced and trained in pyrometallurgy, hydrometallurgy, and mineral processing. He has been responsible for lab work, pilot plant work, research, and process development for mineral processing and extractive metallurgy processes related to a wide variety of metals. He has authored or co-authored numerous papers and presentations, and holds 9 patents. He has served as a consultant for more than 20 companies and has been an expert witness. He has been an Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, Professor, department head (at two universities) and is currently the G.S. Ansell Distinguished Professor of Chemical Metallurgy at the Colorado School of Mines (CSM). He is the director of the Kroll Institute for Extractive Metallurgy. He has directed research for more than 100 graduate students and post-docs. He has taught extractive metallurgy and mineral processing university courses for the past 40 years. He has developed and taught 10 short courses to industry. He wrote professional engineering exam questions for 25 years. He is active in many professional organizations including participation in the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) Distinguished Member, the Minerals, Metals & Materials Society (TMS), the American Society for Metals (ASM) Fellow, and the Mining & Metallurgical Society of America (MMSA).

In 1982 he was named Outstanding Faculty Member in the College of Mines at the University of Idaho In 1990 he was named Distinguished Faculty Member at the, University of Idaho. In 1994 he received the Research Excellence Award from the University of Idaho. In 1996 he was named Fellow of ASM International. In 2003 he received the Milton E. Wadsworth Award from SME. In 2004 he was the TMS Extraction & Processing Division Luncheon Speaker. In May 2006 he was the CSM Alumni Association MME Graduating Senior Outstanding Faculty Member. In December 2006 he was the CSM Alumni Association Metallurgical and Materials Engineering Graduating Graduate Student Outstanding Faculty Member. In 2006 he was the TMS Extraction and Processing Division Distinguished Lecturer. In 2008 he was named a Distinguished Member of SME. In 2010 he received the TMS EPD Distinguished Service Award. He received the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers (AIME) James Douglas Gold Medal in 2013.