By Lindsay Lewis

When Raymond Flumerfelt stepped back onto the UH campus in 1998 as dean of the Cullen College of Engineering, he accepted the many challenges associated with an urban university in a state with some of the top institutions in the country.

“The University of Houston has always had an interest in becoming a leading top-tier research institution,” he said. “I was excited about the challenge of coming here and advancing that goal.”

Flumerfelt was no stranger to nationally recognized programs. Before being appointed dean of engineering, he was a faculty member in the UH Department of Chemical Engineering, from 1968 to 1985, during its rise to a Top 10 program nationally. In fact, in his last two years at UH he served as the department’s associate chair, and it was during this time he began to pursue engineering administration.

“I never wanted to be in administration, to go to the dark side,” Flumerfelt laughed. “But, as my career developed I started to drift in that direction.”

After serving 17 years at UH, Flumerfelt became department chair at the University of Tulsa and, over the next decade, served in several administrative positions, including chair of the Department of Chemical Engineering and deputy vice chancellor of engineering at Texas A&M University, and dean of engineering at the University of Alabama. Two years following his move to Alabama, Flumerfelt found his way back to UH in 1998 as Cullen College’s fifth dean of engineering.

“I realized early on that as a lead administrator, you had a great influence on the direction of an organization, particularly if you were fully engaged with your faculty and staff,” he said. “My experience in chemical engineering at UH fostered a desire to move programs forward, hire outstanding people, and enhance excellence. People like Dan Luss, Neal Amundson, Ernest Henley and others at UH had an important influence in this view, something that I carried throughout my career in engineering education and research. So when the opportunity arose for me to return to UH, I was happy to return and take on the challenges of continuing its development as a leading engineering program in the country.”

Before Flumerfelt returned to UH, the college had experienced major financial challenges, among others, including a decreased faculty and staff roster, and a diminishing student body, partially due to the state’s shift in weighted credit hours. In fact, when he had left previously in 1985, the college had well over 100 faculty members; however, that number fell over the next decade below 80.

“We had some challenges,” he said, “but I worked with the university administration to not only replace some of the positions lost in the early ’90s, but also to improve the stature and quality of the faculty.”

Since then, the college has experienced a remarkable shift in its faculty—over one-third of the current faculty were hired during Flumerfelt’s tenure. He worked to identify and recruit within nanotech and bio-related areas, among others, to encourage interdisciplinary research partnerships within the college and to improve overall research funding.

“We’ve been able to attract very bright, young, enthusiastic faculty members and researchers to join our well-established senior faculty,” he added. “This has resulted in the development of several key research programs that have attracted significant funding to the college. As we continue to grow in that direction, we’ll continue to attract that level of faculty researcher to our college.”

Early on he focused on department leadership, installing new department chairs partly from existing senior faculty, but mostly from national searches for key people. “Leadership really happens at the departmental level, and to move the college forward, we needed new people with new ideas in these key positions,” he said.

In addition, Flumerfelt began building up the college’s staff. He believed a strong programmatic and operational staff was critical to the ultimate success of the college. “People make the organization and create the ideas and programs,” he noted.

As he continued to expand the college’s faculty and staff, Flumerfelt oversaw the development of key educational initiatives. He was concerned about the quality of the student body and its numbers, and launched several programs and initiatives to attract high-quality students, including the Industrial Scholars Interns Program, the Engineering Leadership and Entrepreneurship Program and a center for technical communications. He also developed a strong foundation for educational outreach programs to more effectively recruit and retain the area’s promising students. Summer programs like Girls Reaching and Demonstrating Excellence (GRADE) Camp were launched, which not only function as a recruiting tool in general, but address the shortage of female engineering students nationally. The now extremely successful Engineering Career Center was also launched. Only four years in operation, the career center routinely places participating students in employment positions long before graduation, with most receiving multiple offers.

“These programs helped us improve the quality of the student body and our graduates, and better prepare these graduates for a changing work environment and a global economy,” he said. “In many cases our programs were at the leading front of such educational developments, and I was very proud of our faculty and staff who worked to make this possible.”

During his tenure as dean, the scope of college academic programs began to shift as well. Flumerfelt was instrumental in developing a new biomedical engineering program and expanding the petroleum engineering program, two disciplines that have gained widespread interest in recent years. Given the college’s location in Houston near the Texas Medical Center and in the heart of one of the world’s most important industry hubs, he recognized the opportunity these programs would give prospective students, as well as faculty researchers.

“We needed to capitalize on the unique opportunities afforded to our college because of our location,” he said. “We have been able to foster many partnerships with other institutions and industries in the area, giving our students more practical experience and our faculty the ability to collaborate on research.”

“Dean Flumerfelt did an excellent job reaching out to and connecting with industry representatives and alumni,” said Bill Fendley, co-founder of Cobb, Findley & Associates. “He created and implemented many successful programs, like the Industrial Scholars Interns Program, which have been invaluable to my firm and to other industrial partners. We are grateful for his contributions as dean.” Loyal engineering alums Odis Cobb (1971 BSCE, 1979 MSCE) and Bill Fendley (1971 BSCE), co-founders of Cobb, Fendley & Associates, a civil engineering firm, continued to support the UH Cullen College of Engineering under the leadership of Dean Flumerfelt by serving as members of the Engineering Leadership Board and by participating as industrial partners for the Industrial Scholars Interns Program.

Flumerfelt has also been a successful liaison to the greater-Houston community and industries throughout the region. He has been intricately involved with regional leaders to work specifically on national energy issues. Several years ago, he was a key principal in the creation of the Texas Energy Center in cooperation with the Fort Bend Economic Development Council. Most recently, he worked in a key leadership role with Su Su Wang, Distinguished University Professor of Mechanical Engineering, in bringing a U.S. Department of Energy-supported national wind turbine testing facility to Texas, a major step in the future of renewable energy development in the state. He also worked with the Greater Houston Partnership in the creation of the Greater Houston Energy Collaborative, serving as the first director of its research and technology committee and was one of two masterminds behind the newly proposed Global Integrated Energy Institute at UH, which will serve as a platform for members of industry, government and academia to identify and solve some of the challenges currently facing the energy sector in Houston.

“The world will definitely have major challenges in meeting its energy demands in this century and concurrently addressing related environmental and global warming issues,” he said. “We’ve facilitated community, industry and academic collaboration to work towards developing solutions to the challenges facing our city and our country. If it’s not done in Houston, the ‘energy capital,’ where else will it be done?”

With continued interest in the future of the college, Flumerfelt has been working for the last two years on his vision for a new engineering complex and will continue these efforts as he transitions from his leadership position. The state-of-the-art facility will include a new student center with improved computing facilities, space for student organizations and expanded student services operations, plus an energy wing, with space allotted for the petroleum engineering program and the developing energy institute.

“This will be one of the most influential projects we’ve worked on for the future of the college. To attract high-quality students and researchers, we critically need expanded and improved facilities. It’s essential if we want to remain competitive as we move forward.”

Throughout his career in higher education, Flumerfelt has been recognized by engineering societies and organizations, along with students, faculty and staff colleagues. And, though he has stepped down as dean, he will continue to be recognized for the direction he has moved the college throughout his tenure.

“I’m pleased to be leaving the college in good shape for the next dean,” he said. “We’ve come a long way, and though we still have a long way to go, we’re heading in the right direction.”

For now, Flumerfelt will be on sabbatical for a year and will return in a leadership capacity as the vice director of the wind energy center and as a professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, where he looks forward to returning to the classroom and lab once again.

“My tenure as a faculty member and as dean of the college has been an immensely gratifying and rewarding experience. I still owe a lot to UH, and will continue to work on its behalf,” he said.