Hello, my name is David Van Kleeck. I'm a Professor in the Practice at the Center for Engineering Leadership at Rice University. Here on campus, I teach two courses, an undergraduate course for freshman and sophomores and a higher level course for seniors and graduate students but a little bit about myself first. I, too, am an engineer, I did my undergraduates studies at Princeton University and graduated with Bachelors Degree in Chemical Engineering in 1973. While I was at Princeton, I was enrolled in ROTC and was commissioned as a second lieutenant when I graduated. After graduation, I was stationed by the army in Italy and German for four years before I decided to return to graduate school here at Rice University and I finished by PhD here in 1981. Following my studies here at Rice, I joined Shell Oil Company as a research engineer and spent over 34 years doing individual research and as a manager in their organization. During my last 15 years at Shell, I also was a campus recruit, so I had many opportunities to be on campus, to interview students, looking for those skills that I thought would help those candidates fit best into Shell's organization. I was specifically interested in their leadership abilities. I also draw in my leadership philosophy from my experience as a Boy Scout adult leader. So you will see throughout the specialization that I will use concepts from military, industry and my boy scout experience present to you those skills that I think will be most valuable for you as an engineer leader. As I close, I'd like to leave you with this thought and it comes from my LinkedIn profile. I help engineers learn leadership skills so they can leverage their creative and technical skills to make a better world for all of us. My passion is teaching and my joy is seeing others use what I show them. [MUSIC]
