Four FEATI University Administrators have been named among the Top 100 Engineers being awarded by the U.P. Alumni Engineers on the occasion of the U.P. College of Engineering Centennial on June 13, 2010. As part of the centennial celebrations of the U.P. College of Engineering, which was founded on June 13, 1910, the alumni association of the College, the U.P. Alumni Engineers launched an international search in December 2008 to determine the “100 Outstanding Alumni Engineers of the University of the Philippines” from among the thousands of U.P. engineering graduates “to pay tribute to the great minds of the U.P. Engineering Alumni”. Included in the guidelines for nomination is the requirement that nominees must have “made outstanding contributions and notable impact to the society from National Level point of view, or should be able to inspire or have inspired the [U.P.] CoE [College of Engineering] community”. The U.P. Alumni Engineers will hold the Awarding Ceremony for the 100 Outstanding Alumni Engineers on May 28, 2010 at the University Theater of the University of the Philippines.

In November 2009, the first 35 awardees were named, among them Dean Jose M. Segovia U.P. EE ‘44, former Dean of FEATI University Institute of Engineering and Technology from 1963 to 1980 and President of the University from 1980 to 2001; and Dr. Leopoldo V. Abis U.P. ME ‘53 and EE ‘54, FEATI University Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs since 2003. In January 2010, the rest of the Top 100 awardees were named. Among them are Prof. Felisberto G.L. Reyes U.P. CE ‘48, President of FEATI University from 2003 to 2005 and presently Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the University; and the current FEATI University President, Dr.-Ing. Adolfo Jesus R. Gopez U.P. MetE 78mcl.

Dean J.M. Segovia, the personification of FEATI University for several decades, was topnotcher of the 1947 Electrical Engineering Board Examination, and designed building electrical systems as well as power plants and electrical distribution systems, in Manila and the Visayas. He earned an MS in Electrical Engineering, Major in Industrial Electronics & Automatic Control in 1954 at Rennselaer Polytechnic University in New Jersey, U.S.A. Prior to joining FEATI University, he was Associate Professor and Chairman of the Department of Electrical Engineering at the U.P. College of Engineering. In 1957, he was one of the founders of DCCD Engineering Corp., a premier engineering consulting and construction management firm. He presided over the unprecedented growth of FEATI University to close to 40,000 enrollees with thousands of engineering graduates spanning three decades. After his presidency he became Chairman of the Board of Trustees of FEATI University. In 2008, he retired from this position and the FEATI Board bestowed upon him the title of Chairman Emeritus.

Dr. L.V. Abis earned his MS ME from the University of Kansas in 1958, and returned to obtain his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering in 1969. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 1970. He was Chairman of the U.P. Department of Mechanical Engineering from 1972 to 79 during which time he was named full Professor. He was also concurrently Associate Dean of the U.P. College of Engineering from 1974 to 1979. He served a Co-Chairman of the Technical Panel for Engineering Education (TPEE) upon its inception in 1978, at that time under the DECS. He was the first Executive Director of the National Engineering Center when it was established in 1978 (until 1987). He was named Executive Director of Metals Industry Research and Development Center (MIRDC) in 1989 until he was designated Undersecretary for Regional Operations of the Department of Science in Technology from 1992 to 1995. He was also a Mechanical Engineering Consultant and Resource Person in energy and materials conservation, engineering education, heat transfer and solid waste management throughout this period, having his share of technical publications and reports published locally and internationally. He also served on the Board of Directors and as Vice President of the U.P. Engineering Research and Development Foundation, Inc. (UP ERDFI), which manages endowment funds for the assistance of the U.P. College of Engineering. He joined FEATI University in 2003 and continues to be Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs. Since May 2004 he has been President of the UP ERDFI. Dr. Abis was the UP Alumni Engineers’ Most Distinguished Alumnus of 1995 and the UP Alumni Association Professional Awardee in 1996. Dr. Abis is presently Chairman of the Board of Test Consultants, Inc. and President of Lauds Technologies, Inc.

A topnotcher of the 1949 Civil Engineering examination, Prof. F.G.L. Reyes is a founder of DCCD Engineering Corp. where he headed the Structural Engineering Department from 1957 to 1988. After serving as Treasurer and officer of DCCD, he was its President in 1989 to 1990. He became Chairman of the Board of DCCD in 1995 until his retirement in 2003. Prior to this Prof. Reyes earned his Masters in Industrial Management from U.P. in 1954. Soon after, he was promoted Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering. He served as College Secretary from 1963 to 1964 and Chairman of the Civil Engineering Department from 1967 to 1979. He became Associate Professor in 1964 and was appointed full Professor in 1971, retiring from U.P. in 1988. Prof. Reyes was named Outstanding Civil Engineer of the Year by the Professional Regulation Commission in 2001. After his retirement from DCCD, he was recruited by Dean Segovia and became the fifth President of FEATI University serving from 2003 to 2005. In 2008 he was voted Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the University, fittingly, to replace Dean Segovia. Prof. Reyes is a Fellow of the Philippine Institute of Civil Engineers, a Fellow of the Association of Structural Engineers of the Philippines and a Director of the Philippine Institute of Construction Arbitrators. He has been the Principal Structural Engineer of more than a score of high rise buildings, industrial plant facilities, commercial centers and malls as well as government buildings and office complexes. Prof. Reyes has several technical and research publications, the most notable of them dealing with the Accreditation of Engineering Schools in the Philippines, written in 1972 and the book “Project Planning and Management; An Integrated Approach” published in 1980 by Pergamon Press in cooperation with the East-West Center in Honolulu, U.S.A. for which he was a contributing author.

Dr. A.J.R. Gopez earned his Diploma of Higher Studies (Masters) and Doctor of Engineering in Materials Science from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de la Metallurgie et de l’Industrie Minière of the Institut National Polytechnique de Lorraine in Nancy, France in 1981 and 1983 respectively on a French government scholarship. As part of his program, he learned to speak and write in French for one year so that he could take his courses and write his thesis in the language. He served as U.P. Engineering College Secretary from 1985 to 1987, being in that administrative function during the EDSA revolution. He was seconded to the Department of Science in Technology, serving successively as Deputy Director of Industrial Technology Development Institute (1987 to 1989), Deputy Executive Director of MIRDC (where Dr. Abis was the Executive Director) and Executive Director of Philippine Council for Industry and Energy Research and Development (1990 to 1991). He then moved to the private sector where he served in Engineering Management positions in the IC packaging, steel making and technical training sectors. He was Project Manager of the construction and installation of the Continuous Galvanizing Line of Bacnotan Steel Corp. and Assistant Project Manager of the PhP 4 Billion Electric Arc Furnace and Bar Rolling Plant of Bacnotan Steel Industries, Inc. a joint project of the PHINMA Group with Kawasaki Steel Corp. and Mitsui. He served in the Professional Regulatory Board for Metallurgical Engineering of the Professional Regulation Commission, starting as a member in 1999 and becoming Chairman in 2003. He was also a member of the Task Force, later Technical Committee on Metallurgical Engineering of CHED from 2003 to 2008. He became a member of the Technical Panel on Engineering and Technology in 2009. He joined FEATI University as Director of the Office of Research, Development and Extension Services in 2003 and assumed the presidency on June 16, 2005. Dr. Gopez was named 1995 Outstanding Metallurgical Engineer by the Professional Regulation Commission. He has received outstanding alumnus awards from Philippine Science High School (“Gawad Lagablab”) in 1998 and from the U.P. Alumni Engineers as Outstanding Alumnus of the Department of Mining, Metallurgical and Materials Engineering in 2005.