Gene Humphrey

COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES

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2024 ALUMNUS EMINENT ENGINEER OR SCIENTIST

Alan E. “Gene” Humphrey was born and raised on a farm/ranch near Burns, WY. After graduating from Burns High School in 1964, Humphrey enlisted in the U.S. Army and graduated Warrant Officer Flight School as a Warrant Officer. He flew more than 1,800 combat hours in attack helicopters during two deployments in Vietnam. He was severely wounded in 1968 and spent over 8 months recovering where he took the opportunity to read extensively, before returning to active duty as a Cobra instructor pilot, the Army’s first attack helicopter.

Upon completion of his Army enlistment, Humphrey used the G.I. Bill to attend the University of Wyoming, graduating with a B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering in 1973. During his employment at the Laramie Energy Research Center as a project engineer on the Hanna Underground Coal Gasification (UCG) Project, he enlisted in the Wyoming Army National Guard (1975-2001) as a helicopter pilot and would be called to serve once again in 1990 when he deployed to Iraq during the Gulf War
supporting the 3rd Armor Division. 

Humphrey eventually leveraged his expertise and co-founded World Energy in 1979, where he served as President. Amongst other projects, Humphrey led the 

Byrne Creek Power Project, an effort to build a commercial UCG project in Wyoming. Around 1985, Humphrey went on to co-found and become President of Amwest International, an oil and gas development company before joining the Department of Defense in 1987 as a senior mechanical engineer working on weapons systems and based in Cheyenne. After retiring from the Department of Defense, Humphrey was touring a semiconductor manufacturing facility in Silicon Valley when inspiration hit him. He filed a patent for a “cleaning system, device and method” in the realm of semiconductor manufacturing. This led to the creation of the semiconductor wafer-test cleaning industry and his company, International Test Solutions (ITS), where he served as President and CEO from 1998 until 2022, when he sold the company. During that time, Humphrey not only led and managed the company, but was the main contributor to ITS’s technical portfolio as an inventor or coinventor of more than 70 U.S. and international patents. Humphrey has written and published numerous articles on the topic of cleaning properties of advanced polymers and has been a guest lecturer around the world. Humphrey has also been called to testify in front of Congress on July 7, 2016, on the topic of spent nuclear fuel disposal. 

Humphrey also co-owns and is the managing partner of the 9H Ranch, a 50,000+ acre ranch in Albany and Goshen County, Wyoming. Running more than 3,000 head of cattle at the ranch, Humphrey can be found operating the baler, building fences, or fixing irrigation ditches in the bright Wyoming sun. 

To give back to the state of Wyoming, its people, UW, and the way of life that he credits with his success, Humphrey founded the 9H Research Foundation, a non-profit that provides funding to Wyoming students for real-world practical projects, scholarships, internships, awards, competitions, and prototype building. Between direct contributions, endowed scholarships/professorships, and the 9H Foundation, Humphrey has contributed nearly $2M dollars towards student internships, scholarships, competitions, and project funding. 9H’s SmartRanch™ projects and internships have produced geothermal stock tanks, automated agricultural drone projects, and GIS entrepreneurship opportunities for students. The 9H Research Foundation has built a 500kW, 1,200+ panel, 5-acre solar research facility for the benefit of UW with student input via senior design projects and energy competitions; the power sold from the 30-year life of the solar farm will directly fund UW students. 

Humphrey has also funded two scholarship endowments in the names of Roberta Derr and Edna Humphrey, Humphrey's late sister and late mother, respectively. He also funded the Gene Humphrey Professorship in Engineering, which will be awarded to a distinguished University of Wyoming faculty member whose research and teaching focus is on material science and/or energy. Humphrey is also throwing his full support behind relocating the National Championship Air Races from Reno, NV, to Wyoming, where it is slated to generate $100 million per year in economic revenue to the state.