Alumni initiative to honour Hugh Peacock

Are you one of the many who benefited by your contact with former Western Engineering professor Hugh Peacock?

Although he is now retired, and not well enough to attend events offered at Western, Hugh Peacock enjoys the special efforts many alumni and former industry partners make to visit him at his residence when they are in London.

Most recently, after the 2010 Homecoming celebrations, a group of alumni and friends contacted the Western Engineering Alumni & Development Office to express an interest in establishing an endowed award in honour of Peacock. They felt their former professor was instrumental in mentoring them as students and today as alumni, so they wanted to create a lasting legacy to honour Peacock for the positive influence he made in their lives by encouraging them along their path to professional achievement.

This group has set an ambitious goal to raise $150,000 to create the Wm. Hubert (Hugh) Peacock Award which will provide an award of $6,000 each year to an undergraduate student who exemplifies the qualities that Peacock valued in his students - a good work ethic in both academic and extracurricular interests. As tuition and books are more than $9,000 a year for undergraduate engineering students now, this award will provide significant support to qualifying students in the years ahead.

Thus far, this group has raised $50,000 and they believe other Western Engineering alumni would also be willing to make a gift as a tribute to Hugh Peacock - perhaps you are one of them! In addition to alumni, a number of businesses, who have benefited from Peacock’s placement initiatives, have also made contributions.

Hugh Peacock began his career teaching civil engineering at Western in 1960. At the age of 33 he decided to return to life as a student in order to complete a PhD at the University of California, Berkeley in 1962. Fortunately, Peacock returned to Western in September 1966 and continued teaching until his retirement in May 1994.

He is fondly remembered by those alumni he taught for his stimulating lectures, his ability to see the potential in his students, his great sense of humour and for introducing the internship program to Western Engineering; allowing aspiring engineers an opportunity to work with industry to develop practical skills that would help them gain essential ‘hands-on experience’ to ease their transition into the work place. The internship program is now an integral part of Western Engineering.

Alumni who would like to contribute toward the Wm. Hubert (Hugh) Peacock Award can do so by contacting Virginia Daugharty, Western Engineering Alumni & Development Officer at 519-661-4209 or vdaughar@uwo.ca 

Alumni leaders of this initiative include:
• Alan Macnab, D.GE., BESc. ’72, author of Earth Retention Systems Handbook, which is broadly used professionally and even found in Universities & Colleges offering civil engineering in North America. Macnab particularly enjoyed the field trips Hugh Peacock organized and attended with his students so they could see new engineering developments first-hand.

• Martin Halliwell, BESc ’82, President of HC Matcon, visited with Hugh Peacock in October 2010 and said “I gave him a big hug and thanked him for all he did for me to recommend me many years ago to Bill Lardner who gave me my start.”

• Nadir Ansari, BESc  84, MESc ‘87, President of Isherwood, says “the way I see it, Hugh Peacock was an exceptional academic, and stood for all the good things that many academics miss.”

• Matt Janes, BESc ’85, MESc. ‘91, President of Resonance Technology, recalls “Dr. Peacock was the guy who impressed upon me that some poor person has to build what we design. He told us about the large bridge girder connection plates that were once riveted and then became bolted connections, which had to be torque tested. By designing the plates such that each bolt was accessible and each bolt had enough room for the tool, the fabricators would execute our designs well, but if we ignored constructability they could or would not, which translated into both poor fabrication and the inability to quality assure and quality control it.”

• Bill Starke, BESc ‘85, MEng’99, President, Deep Foundations Contractors Inc., wrote “Hugh was one of many outstanding professors at Western who made my undergrad a great experience. Upon graduation, jobs were hard to come by and when I needed help I turned to Hugh, and he was able to open doors for me. Hugh cared about students the most.”

Also from this web page:

Contact

.: Virginia Daugharty
Spencer Engineering Building, Room 2073
T: 519-661-4209
F: 519.661.3808
vdaughar@uwo.ca