FPE Professor Emeritus Recognized for Exceptional Commitment to Education

Legacy Campaign

Professor Frederick W. Mowrer has been selected to receive the Society of Fire Protection Engineers’ (SFPE) 2015 John L. Bryan Award. Named in honor of the late Founding Chair of the Department of Fire Protection Engineering (FPE) at the University of Maryland (UMD), the award is presented to an individual who “exemplifies commitment and dedication to educating, training and advising fire protection engineers.” Recipients are recognized for “freely and unselfishly providing their expertise to other individuals in order to assist them in enhancing their education, advancing their careers, and expanding their experience and knowledge in fire protection engineering.” Mowrer will be presented with the award at the SFPE’s annual conference in Philadelphia in November.

Mowrer served on the FPE faculty before retiring with emeritus status in 2008. Since then, he has served as the Director of Fire Protection Engineering Programs at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, Ca., where he also teaches and mentors graduate students in the program.

“This award means more to me than all the other awards I have received during my career,” he says. “I had the honor of working with Professor Bryan for seven years and with [FPE Professor and Chair Jim] Milke for twenty-one years while I was at the University of Maryland. They both inspired me to focus on the success of our students and I have done my best to carry on that tradition at Cal Poly.”

Shortly after Professor Bryan passed away in late 2014, Mowrer mounted a fundraising challenge for his former students at the University of Maryland that raised more than $10,000 toward the department’s Legacy Campaign for a Professor of the Practice, which, along with support from Clark School Dean Darryll Pines, has enabled the hiring of its first clinical professor, Ken Isman (B.S. ’86, fire protection engineering). Isman will help ensure that the department’s curriculum includes applications in FPE, and that it continues to conduct applied research for industry.

“The Legacy Campaign is still short of its goal,” Mowrer notes, “so I would like to encourage friends and alumni of the University of Maryland to continue to support the Legacy Campaign until the goal is reached.”

For more information, and to learn how you can help the FPE maintain its long tradition of exceptional education and mentorship, please visit fpe.umd.edu/legacy-campaign.

Published September 23, 2015