Engineering Advisory Board
The Edward F. Cross School of Engineering is fortunate to have an external advisory board consisting of several distinguished individuals.
Bob Butterfield
Mr. Butterfield's engineering career began at Puget Sound Naval Shipyards whose sponsorship enabled him to complete his engineering degree at WWC/U in 1973. The next year he was invited to join the Clinical Engineering department at LLUMC. He soon took the role of department director and used the opportunity to learn about medicine through ‘on the job’ experience as well as course work. In 1984 his research in intravenous infusion led to a position in industry at IVAC in San Diego. He remained with IVAC and its successors until 2018 serving in technical and management roles, working in hospitals around the world and continuing academic course work in fields including digital signal processing, anesthesia and cardiovascular medicine.
Mr. Butterfield has received over sixty patents and awards from his employer Becton-Dickinson (BD) and the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) where he continue participating in development of standards for medical devices. However his most rewarding work has been serving as an industry liaison with Harvey Mudd College and the University of San Diego, sponsoring more than 20 academic-year student ‘engineering clinics’ focused on creating and solving problems in biomedical instrument design. Currently he is consulting for several medical device firms.
He has a Bachelor of Science in Engineering with a concentration in Electrical Engineering from Walla Walla College.
Robert G. Olsen
Dr. Olsen is a Professor of Electrical Engineering at Washington State University and was, until early 2014, Associate Dean of the College of Engineering and Architecture for Undergraduate Programs and Student Services.
He is a Life Fellow of the IEEE, and an Honorary Life member of the IEEE Electromagnetic Compatibility Society. He is past Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Electromagnetic Compatibility and Radio Science. As Associate Dean he was responsible for the accreditation process, recruitment and retention of students, community college visitation, management of the scholarship program and services to university and state committees.
In addition to these activities, he has created the Harold Frank Engineering Entrepreneurship Institute in cooperation with the College of Business that exposes engineering students to the realities of the business aspects of engineering and better prepares them to work in the changing global marketplace. This work resulted in the 2008 Kauffman Foundation award for contributions to entrepreneurship education. Given the global nature of the economy, he has also worked to make it possible for engineering students to get general education credit for the study of foreign language. Finally, he has (with NSF support and in conjunction with the University of Washington and several community colleges) begun a major effort to recruit students into engineering who have not traditionally considered or entered the study of engineering.
He received a BS degree from Rutgers University and MS and PhD degrees from the University of Colorado, all in electrical engineering.
Bernard Pham
Bernard Pham is currently a Principal Program Manager in the Azure Identity Division at Microsoft. He led the Identity GDPR compliance team of over a hundred engineers. He is currently focusing on developing Identity and Office 365 solutions for Mergers and Acquisitions and Divestitures.
Bernard has been part of three startups. He was a software development manager at Nimble Technology that raised 30 Million dollars venture funding, which was subsequently acquired by Actuate.
He received a Bachelor of Science in Engineering from Walla Walla College (1983), a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from Washington State University (1985).
Richard E. Raymond, Chair
Mr. Raymond served as Chief Engineer of the CH2M HILL Plateau Remediation Project until his retirement in 2014. He has 34 years of experience in Engineering (as manager of Plant Engineering, Director of Reactor Engineering and Chief Engineer for Hanford Tank Farms), Operations (including Plant Manager for the Hanford N-Reactor and as the Vice President for Hanford Single Shell Tank Farms), and Project Management (including Vice President of Projects for CHM HILL Hanford Group) and has been responsible for annual budgets up to $30 Million and projects with cumulative budgets of $1 Billion. In his current position as the Chief Engineer he is responsible for development and deployment of new innovative technologies to treat and dispose of transuranic, mixed low level and high level waste.
Mr. Raymond was the project manager for a team that solved what was once the top safety issue nationwide in the Department of Energy. Under Mr. Raymond’s leadership, all safety issues associated with Hanford’s infamous Tank SY-101, once known as the “burping” tank because of the buildup and periodic release of flammable gas inside the tank, were resolved. The project was one of three finalists in an international project of the year competition held by the Project Management Institute in 2001.
Currently Mr. Raymond is providing engineering consulting services in Japan, United Kingdom, and the United States in the areas of radioactive waste management. In addition to his duties on the Edward F. Cross School of Engineering advisory board he is the chairman of the advisory board for the Applied Research Center of Florida International University.
Mr. Raymond received his bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Washington (Summa Cum Laude, Tau Beta Pi) and a graduate certificate from the Bettis Reactor Engineering School (operated by the DOE Division of Naval Reactors) while working on the headquarters staff of Admiral H.G. Rickover.
His professional registrations include Certified Reactor Plant Manager, PMI Certified Project Manager, and Professional Engineer.
Chad Rhynard
Chad Rhynard is currently Chief of the Electrical Design Section in the Walla Walla office of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, where he has been employed since 2003, except for four months in 2007 when he was Chief of Operations for one of the Corps’ dams and another four months in 2012 at the Corps’ headquarters in Washington, DC.
As well as being responsible for the supervision and management of the Section to ensure product quality and adequate resources on such projects as large, multipurpose hydroelectric, navigation, flood control, fish hatchery, and fish and wildlife facility designs, Mr. Rhynard is Program Coordinator of the Career Program 18 within the District. This intern program typically has 15 - 20 career interns for which he provides training, development and oversight in their developmental programs.
Mr. Rhynard has a Bachelor of Science in Engineering with a concentration in Electrical Engineering from Walla Walla College.
Jim Ruff
Jim Ruff is currently Vice President of Process Systems and Integrated Solutions at Key Technology Inc. in Walla Walla. Prior experience includes General Manager of the company's Integrated Solutions Group in 2010, and in 2016 was additionally appointed General Manager of Process Systems. He served as Vice President of Research and Development of the company from 2007 to 2010. From 2004 to 2007, he held the expatriate position of Managing Director of Key Technology B.V., a subsidiary of the company located in Beusichem, the Netherlands. Jim served the company as Engineering Manager from 2002-2004, and as Project Engineering Manager for Specialized Conveying Systems from 1999-2002. Between 1996 and 1999, he completed a special expatriate assignment in the Netherlands as Engineering Manager of Key Technology B.V. from 1993,, when he joined the company, until 1996, he served as Project Engineering Manager. Prior to joining Key, Jim served a a Lead Propulsion Systems Engineer at the Boeing Company. Jim holds a BS degree in Mechanical Engineering from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology. He earned his Professional Engineering license in the state of Washington in 1990.
Gilbert Springer
Gilbert Springer has founded and led a number of successful technology companies over the past 35+ years. Since 2009 he has been serving as founding CEO of AppBank, an innovative, well-funded and profitable social media startup bringing quality social games and applications to the masses.
He was previously chairman, CEO, and/or founder of 4D-S, a next generation memory company focused on developing the high capacity, high performance successor to FLASH, D-RAM and S-RAM, for use in portable electronic devices (cell phones, laptops, music players, smart phones and embedded systems); Upstream Engineering Oy, a Finnish optoelectronics company supplying designs and modules for the world smallest LED-based integrated and accessory projection devices; and Marqlin Corporation, which engineered and manufactured Compact Flash type I microdrives for use in the computing and consumer electronics industries; and other companies.
He received a Bachelor of Science in Engineering degree with a concentration in Electrical Engineering at Walla Walla College.
Jill S. Tietjen
Ms. Tietjen is the President and CEO of Technically Speaking, Inc. She has spent 37 years in the electric utility industry with such companies as Stone & Webster Management Consultants and Duke Power Company, and provides planning consulting services to electric utilities and organizations serving the electric utility industry. Ms. Tietjen serves as an expert witness before public utility commissions and other government agencies.
Ms. Tietjen regularly speaks on women in engineering, historical women in engineering and science, and leadership topics. Books she has authored include the award-winning and bestselling Her Story: A Timeline of Women Who Changed America, Keys to Engineering Success; and three books in the Setting the Record Straight series. She has written articles for and been profiled in numerous magazines on careers and women in engineering.
Her technical papers have been published in Public Utilities Fortnightly, Transmission and Distribution, and publications of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). She has served as an electrical engineering program accreditor on behalf of IEEE.
Ms. Tietjen has received numerous awards and honors. She serves on a number of non-profit boards and was Chair of the Board for Girl Scouts – Mile Hi Council. She served as the 1991-1992 National President of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE). She is a member of the Board of Directors for the Georgia Transmission Corporation of Tucker, Georgia and serves as an outside director (and Vice Chair) for Merrick & Company. Ms. Tietjen was a Commissioner on the Engineering Accreditation Commission of ABET, Inc., and served as the Western Zone Vice President for the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying. She is a Fellow Life Member of SWE and a Senior Member of the IEEE Power and Energy Society. She has been inducted into the Colorado Women’s Hall of Fame.
She graduated from the University of Virginia (Tau Beta Pi, Virginia Alpha) with a B.S. in Applied Mathematics (minor in Electrical Engineering) and received her MBA from the University of North Carolina – Charlotte. Ms. Tietjen is a registered professional engineer in Colorado.
Keith Willard
Keith Willard is both a physician and an electrical engineer, currently serving as Chief Enterprise Architect and Technical Fellow for Surescripts, which operates the nation's largest clinical health information network. He focuses on development of infrastructure for addressing the problems of semantic interoperability of clinical information that is just starting to flow electronically between medical record systems.
Dr. Willard previously served as VP of Clinical Architecture for McKesson Clinical Solutions, and was a co-founder of Abaton.com, the first web based EMR solution. He was also Instructor (1981-88) and Assistant Professor of Laboratory Medicine (1989-1995) at the University of Minnesota.
He received a Bachelor of Science in Engineering from Walla Walla College (1975), a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University (1979), and an MD degree from Loma Linda University (1981).
Christopher Wilson
Dr. Wilson earned his Ph.D. in Physiology from the University of California, Davis. His concentration topics were Neurophysiology, Biomedical Engineering, and Biostatistics. Most of his work has focused on signal theory and dynamical systems analysis of cardiac and respiratory time-series. His laboratory’s goal is to understand how prematurity impacts autonomic control in preterm infants using developing rodents as an animal model. He and his team specialize in applying control theory to understand the neural network that controls breathing in mammals. Dr. Wilson has received funding from the NIH and NASA to support his research.
Dr. Wilson is an Associate Professor in the Center for Perinatal Biology at Loma Linda University and is the Associate Director of the Neurosciences, Systems Biology, and Bioengineering program at LLU.