Frederick Buie
B.S., M.S. Industrial Engineering
Fred Buie is president and owner of Keystone Electrical Manufacturing Company in Des Moines, Iowa. Serving electric utilities throughout the nation, the company manufactures elements used in the generation, transmission and distribution of electric power.

Buie’s professional career includes thirty years of assignments in manufacturing and engineering management across seven industries and eight geographic locations. He began with the General Electric (GE) Company where he held project engineering and production supervisory positions. He later spent two years in the consulting business and joined McDonnell Douglas Aircraft Company as a manufacturing methods engineer.

After rejoining GE, he held positions as a functional manager of teams engaged in activities from the development of composite materials, to quality engineering, materials systems and product design. In 1998 Buie left GE, where he was serving as a plant manager, to purchase Keystone Electrical Manufacturing Co.

Buie earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in industrial engineering from MSU. In addition to his service on the Engineering Advisory Committee, he currently serves on the board of directors for the Iowa Association of Business & Industry, YMCA, Center for Industrial Research and Service at Iowa State University, and the Architects, Contractors, and Engineers Mentorship Program. He is married to the former Valeska Lemon, a fellow MSU graduate. They have three children; MSU graduate F. Vinson, Alexander and Vanessa.

Allen Butler
B.S. Biological Engineering
Dr. Allen Butler enrolled at MSU in the fall of 1991 with two goals: to receive an engineering degree and further his education in medical school. Four years later, he realized both dreams when he graduated with honors in biological engineering and earned a scholarship to Tulane University School of Medicine.

While at Tulane, Butler used his engineering background to secure research positions at Tulane and Louisiana State University. As a medical student, he co-authored over $3 million in research grants and multiple peer-reviewed articles on orthopedics. After receiving his medical degree, he was asked to stay at Tulane for residency training. He completed a research fellowship in adult reconstructive surgery in 2002 while continuing to publish articles and book chapters in the orthopedic sub-specialty of joint replacement.

In 2005, the American Orthopedic Association named Butler a future leader in orthopedics. He also was named chief of Tulane Orthopedic Service at Charity Hospital. When Hurricane Katrina struck, he rode out the storm in his call room, spending five days evacuating patients from both Charity and Tulane Hospitals, including two ventilator dependant, premature infants that were brought to safety in a canoe.

He returned to Starkville in 2006 where he began private practice in orthopedic surgery. He continues to work closely with the biological engineering program in the BCoE as an adjunct professor and a member of the advisory board.

Randy J. Cleveland
B.S. Petroleum Engineering
As the U.S. production manager for ExxonMobil Corporation, Randy Cleveland has been responsible for the company’s upstream-operated production since 2006. A native of Union, Miss., he earned his petroleum engineering degree in 1983. While at State, he was active in several honors organizations and was named to the Mississippi State Engineering Student Hall of Fame.

He joined Exxon’s New Orleans office in 1984 where he held a variety of technical and planning assignments in their Gulf Coast regional operations. In 1994, he moved to Houston, Texas to oversee the company’s onshore operations in Texas and Oklahoma.

In 1997, he became the business development manager for Exxon’s pipeline company and served on the board of directors. In 1997, he returned to New Orleans as technical manager of Exxon’s operations for the Gulf Coast and offshore California.

In 2001, Cleveland moved to Scotland where he managed operations for ExxonMobil’s assets in the North Sea region. In 2003, he was based in London where he assumed responsibility for the company’s non-operated business in the United Kingdom and Netherlands.

Cleveland is a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers and is active in several charities and the local community. He and his wife, Nina, reside in The Woodlands, Texas.

Elliott Dubuisson
B.S. Civil Engineering
Elliott Dubuisson began his career in New Orleans after earning his civil engineering degree at Mississippi State in 1968. He has since worked worldwide implementing projects for Texaco.

Dubuisson’s early role as a structural engineer transitioned to project management responsibilities for design and construction of several international drilling and production platforms and pipelines. For more than ten years, he served in Texaco’s corporate engineering department in New Orleans and Houston, Texas. There he was responsible for the overview of worldwide offshore field developments.

Between1994 and 1998, Dubuisson managed planning and evaluation of prospective ventures located in the Russian arctic region and the deep water sector west of the Shetland Islands, United Kingdom. Assignments as general project manager for an oil field in Bohai Bay, China and development director for a field located in Kazakhstan followed his European experiences. The Kazakhstan project was the biggest internationally funded venture at the time.

Dubuisson is a licensed professional engineer and currently serves on MSU’s Civil and Environmental Engineering Advisory Board; chairing the peer review subcommittee, which helps develop facility requirements for the new $24 million civil and environmental engineering complex.

A native of Picayune, Miss., he resides in Starkville with his wife, Tani. They have two children, Jenny and Mark, and one grandson, Sam.

Rob Hunter
M.S. Mechanical Engineering
After graduating in mechanical engineering at Mississippi State, Rob Hunter received his doctorate of law from Cornell University. In 1976, he joined the Alabama law firm of Lange, Simpson, Robinson & Somerville (LSRS), where he used both his engineering and legal backgrounds to defend manufacturers in product liability litigation for 23 years.

Following his years with LSRS, he accepted the position of general counsel for Altec, Inc. and its subsidiaries. In addition to successful defenses in trials around the country, his career in private practice was marked by other notable achievements. He has represented the last five governors of Alabama and was nominated by former President George Bush to serve as a federal judge.

Hunter has successfully defended the state before both the Alabama and United States Supreme Courts. While in private practice, he was lead counsel for the state of Alabama in its long running higher education desegregation case and later resumed that position at the request of the governor.

Hunter serves on the boards of directors for the Defense Research Institute and Lawyers for Civil Justice. He is actively involved with the President’s Export Counsel, the Business Roundtable, and the National Association of Manufacturers.

Outside of his professional endeavors, Hunter sits on advisory boards for the Bagley College of Engineering and the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Sam H. Lee
B.S. Electrical Engineering
Having grown up in Hattiesburg, Miss., attending MSU was an obvious decision for Sam Lee, which provided him a strong basis for his career in engineering, marketing and investments. In 1982, he received his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and continued his engineering education at Texas A&M University where he received a electrical engineering master’s degree in 1983.

He started his career as an research and development (R&D) engineer with leading technology companies such as Hewlett Packard and Advanced Micro Devices. After several years in R&D positions, Lee transitioned into marketing and product management positions with LSI Logic Corporation, where he was exposed to the business aspects of the high-tech industry.

To pursue his new-found interest in business and the world of start-ups in the Silicon Valley, Lee decided to take a break from his high-tech career and finish his education. In 1990, he received a master of business administration from the University of Pennsylvania. Upon graduation, he began a new career by joining Philadelphia Ventures where he served as vice president and an investment officer. In 1994, he founded Infinity Capital and currently serves as managing director.

Lee currently lives in the outskirts of Silicon Valley, Calif., with his wife, and fellow State graduate, Sandy, and his sons, Christopher and Jonathan. When he is not busy with his family or work, he finds time for aerobatic flying and sports car racing.

Kenneth E. Miller
B.S. Aerospace Engineering
Kenneth E. Miller, a member of the Senior Executive Service, is special assistant for acquisition governance and transparency to the Secretary of the Air Force. He assists in discharging the responsibilities in the direction, guidance and supervision of Air Force programs.

A native of Columbus, Miss., Miller began his career in 1975 as an aerospace engineer with the Naval Air Systems Command. He advanced to weapons systems acquisition management as the assistant deputy program manager for the H-3 antisubmarine helicopter, later serving as deputy program manager in the A-6/EA-6 Weapons Systems Program Office.

In April 1989, Miller was selected to be the first deputy of acquisition for the new Program Executive Office. He was then appointed to the Senior Executive Service as the second deputy program executive officer for tactical aircraft programs, providing advice on acquisition-related issues for a variety of aircraft and weapons programs.

In 1994, he was selected as the assistant commander for corporate operations, where his responsibilities included the strategic planning and corporate business functions of Naval Air Systems Command. Additional duties included chief information officer. After being appointed principal assistant for acquisition, programming and budgeting in 1998, Miller was named assistant deputy, chief of naval operations, warfare requirements and programs for the department of the Navy. He is a frequent speaker at government, industry and national forums.

George Newbill
B.S. Chemical Engineering
George A. Newbill was promoted to executive vice president – manufacturing operations of Albemarle Corporation in 2007. Prior to his promotion, he served as senior vice president – manufacturing operations, although he has held numerous positions in the company throughout his career.

He previously served as general manager of Ethyl’s Process Development Center in Baton Rouge, La., with additional responsibility for Chemicals’ Group environmental quality. Newbill joined Ethyl’s research and development department in 1965 as a chemical engineer in the process design section. Over the next several years, he served in a variety of technical service, operations and engineering service positions at Ethyl’s facilities in Baton Rouge, Greece and Magnolia, Ark..

From 1975 to 1980, he was superintendent of operations at Ethyl’s Arkansas plant. He transferred to the Orangeburg, S.C., plant in 1980 as general superintendent of operations. After serving as plant manager at Orangeburg for six years, he was named general manager of Ethyl’s former Bromine Chemicals Division. In 1989, he was appointed director of the Process Development Center.

A native of Milan, Tenn., Newbill received a chemical engineering degree from Mississippi State University in 1965 and his master’s in the same field from Louisiana State University in 1970.

Terry L. Turnipseed
B.S. Nuclear Engineering
Professor Terry L. Turnipseed currently teaches at the Syracuse University College of Law. He is an experienced estate planning and tax advisor. As an attorney with Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C., he developed and implemented complex tax planning strategies for more than $1 billion in assets. He has expertise in complex domestic and international estate planning, including substantial asset protection experience.

Turnipseed has served as an estate and gift tax specialist with Deloitte & Touche’s national office. He has an LL.M in tax, cum laude, and a J.D. from Georgetown University and two graduate degrees from MIT where he was a National Science Foundation Fellow. He graduated summa cum laude in nuclear engineering from MSU where he was a Harry S. Truman Memorial Scholar.

Before attending law school, Turnipseed worked as a nuclear energy policy expert at the Nuclear Energy Institute and the Department of Energy headquarters, both in Washington, D.C.

He has been a contributing author in the areas of nuclear energy policy, eminent domain, spousal property rights upon death, trust fiduciary law, and transfer taxation. He currently teaches courses in eminent domain, estate planning, wills and trusts, estate and gift taxation, and first-year property.

Turnipseed has made dozens of media appearances, including Newsweek, Special Report with Brit Hume, and the New York Daily News.

John E. West
B.S. Electrical Engineering, M.S. Computational Engineering
John E. West is the director of the Scientific Computing Research Center at the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) in Vicksburg, Miss., an organization that includes one of the top 20 scientific supercomputing centers in the world.

West is also a Senior Fellow in the Department of Defense High Performance Computing (HPC) Modernization Program, with responsibility for strategic communications about the impact of HPC in the Department of Defense. Until recently, he was the acting deputy director of the Information Technology Laboratory at the ERDC, a $100 million organization supporting IT-related research and development (R&D) for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

West began his career at ERDC while a graduate student at Mississippi State working in computer graphics and virtual reality, and moved on to work in scalable parallel algorithm development. In addition to other awards, his computational research was awarded the Department of the Army‚ Äôs R&D award in 1997. He was selected, in 2006, as one of “People to Watch in HPC,” and is a frequent writer and speaker on supercomputing technology, leadership and career directions for young technologists.

West is married to Bobbie, his lifelong sweetheart, an emergency medicine physician. They have two sons -- John David, 6, and Jacob, 4.