Three to Receive UW Distinguished Alumni Awards

Oct. 9, 2003 -- Three University of Wyoming graduates who became leaders in their respective fields will be honored with Distinguished Alumni Awards during UW Homecoming Oct. 17-18. They are seismologist Ralph J. Archuleta, a native of Reliance; and Sheridan natives Nancy E. Gwinn, director of the Smithsonian Institution Libraries, and design engineer Vincent O. Smith.

They will attend several Homecoming activities, will ride in the parade that starts at 11 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 18, and will be recognized during the football game with BYU at 4 p.m.

Archuleta attended Rock Springs High School. He received a B.S. (1969) degree in physics from UW and an M.S. in physics and a Ph.D. in earth science at the University of California-San Diego. At UW, he was involved in the student organization, Iron Skull, and was enrolled in the Honors Program.

While in California, he was awarded a year-long fellowship with the National Research Council, conducting research on predicting ground motion from earthquakes, which led to his career in the field. In 1984 he became professor of seismology at UC-Santa Barbara. Being an expert in strong ground motion, Archuleta has been a consultant to many U.S. government agencies.

Archuleta has served in several national organizations, including the position of president of the Seismological Society of America, the leading association of seismologists and earthquake engineers. He has served on the National Research Council's committee for seismology. The past 10 years he has been in leadership positions with the Southern California Earthquake Center, a consortium of researchers from locales outside of California. He has collaborated with colleagues in Slovakia, Japan, France and Italy and recently was given a medal for "100 Years of Seismology in Slovakia," acknowledging his service to the country.

From her office in the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., Gwinn (B.A., '67 English) is a long way from her Sheridan origins. Nevertheless, she is right at home in her position as director of the Smithsonian Institution Libraries. She joined the Smithsonian in 1984 as assistant director for collections management, a position she held until being appointed director in 1997.

Although Gwinn majored in English literature and minored in music while at UW, she knew well before that time that she wanted to be a librarian.

Gwinn began working in jobs around the Washington D.C. area, including the Library of Congress and the Council on Library Resources, and then spent a few years in California at the Research Libraries Group. In 1984 she returned to Washington and went to work for the Smithsonian Institution but did not think her job there would be long term.

At the Research Libraries Group (RLG), she led the development of methods for sharing information about preservation microfilming as part of bibliographic records. She published a manual of standards and best practices for RLG members which was widely used in the profession.

She remembers fondly her days with the marching band, Delta Delta Delta sorority, SPURS, Chimes, Mortar Board, and other organizations while a student at UW.

Smith, a native of Sheridan, received a degree in civil engineering (1950) from UW after a stint as a land surveyor at the San Diego Naval Training Station and five years as U.S. Army operations officer for a construction battalion in the Pacific Theater.

After college Smith became a design engineer for the California Division of Highways, and later was promoted to district construction engineer. He joined Gordon H. Ball Inc. as a general manager in 1960, and eventually served as company president. There he was involved in the development of several projects of national significance, including the Bay Area Rapid Transit System; the Washington D.C. Metro, including Union Station and the Watergate-to-Pentagon tunnel under the Potomac River; and the Shuttle launch facility at Vandenberg Air Force Base.

For nearly 25 years Smith has owned and operated Mark-O-Engineering, which deals primarily with bond claims and completion of defaulted construction projects. He is a member of several professional organizations, including the American Society of Engineers and Associated General Contractors. He also was selected as a member of the UW College of Engineering Hall of Fame in 2000.

"UW got me started down the right road. Since age 8, I'd always wanted to be an engineer and build things," he says. "There's nothing more important and necessary in life than getting a good education in order to follow your dreams."

Posted on Thursday, October 09, 2003