Dan G. Dimitriu

I was born in 1947 in Bucharest, Romania. In 1970 I graduated from Polytechnic Institute of Bucharest with a degree in Mechanical Engineering and in 1979 I obtained the International Economic Relations from the Academy of Economic Studies also in Bucharest, Romania. I worked as an engineer at IPROCHIM designing chemical plants from 1970 to 1978, and then I moved into foreign trade at ROMCHIM and INDUSTRIALEXPORTIMPORT from 1978 to 1982 when I defected to the refugee camp in Traiskirchen, Austria. I arrived in the United States in 1982 and started teaching engineering as a lecturer at North Dakota State University in Fargo, North Dakota. Between 1985 and 1989, I was the director of engineering at Dynamic Industries, a manufacturer of construction equipment, from Barnesville, Minnesota, and in 1987, I received my professional engineer license. In 1989, I returned to NDSU to finish my Ph. D. degree in engineering, graduating in 1993. That year I came to San Antonio to work as a senior design engineer for Kinetic Concepts, Inc. a medical equipment company, and then, from 1997 I was vice-president of engineering at Prism Enterprises until 2001 when the company was sold to a competitor. At that time, I decided that it was time for a career change and I became the engineering program coordinator at San Antonio College. I knew that with my real-life engineering experience with several patents and published papers, I can make a difference in educating better engineers. The first proof came in 2006 when I received the national award for excellence in teaching from NISOD, then came the research fellowship from NASA in 2010, and in 2015, I received the highest engineering education recognition in the nation, the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring. In the fall of 2019, the Hispanic Outlook Magazine ranked our engineering program in the Top Ten Two Year engineering programs in the United States. As for hobbies, I enjoy traveling, reading, and creating challenging educational materials such as books and games.