Pratt & Whitney Engineers Honored as ‘Distinguished Engineers of the Year’

EAST HARTFORD, Conn., Feb. 24, 2021 –The Hartford Section of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) honored seven Pratt & Whitney employees as 2022 Distinguished Engineers of the Year, as part of National Engineers Week celebrations.

To promote excellence in the field of engineering, the ASME Hartford Section honored Scott Ackroyd, Ken Bedard, J. Axel Glahn, Bill Greene, Scott Hjelm, Lindsay Landry and Vasisht Venkatesh for their exceptional performance.

“Aircraft propulsion is among the most rewarding careers that an Engineer can pursue,” said Geoff Hunt, senior vice president of Engineering, Pratt & Whitney. “We challenge our engineers every day to operate at the very edge of the possible, using the most advanced tools and techniques, always assuring the highest levels of product safety and reliability. These seven individuals rose to the top in their fields over the last year and have been some of the driving forces that enable our products that connect people, grow economies and protect freedom.”

Pratt & Whitney 2022 Distinguished Engineers of the Year are:

• Scott Ackroyd,director, Systems Engineering, used digital tools in better serving the company’s customers in military engines. His work has become the gold standard for military programs and the application of Agile methodology has reduced the time for technical work by one-third.
• Ken Bedard,associate director, Systems Engineering for Development Operations, advanced state-of-the-art rotating telemetry with the design and production of new transmitter electronics enabling engineers to acquire the critical thermal and stress data for rotating engine applications, supporting both commercial and military programs development. This work is a critical enabler to future engine validation.
• J. Axel Glahn, senior technical fellow, Internal Flow and Heat Transfer, is a leading authority on air and lube systems, including developing the discipline health review for core air systems. In this role, he pushed the development of new capability for bleed air quality, oil containment, and air-system concept initiation and concept optimization tools.
• Bill Greene,director and program chief engineer, System Engineering, has been critical to the systems design and integration of the Pratt & Whitney GTF™ engine with the Airbus A320neo. His ability to work as a partner with Airbus helped Pratt & Whitney secure an Airbus engine selection. Bill is a recognized and respected expert in the aviation industry.
• Scott Hjelm,senior fellow discipline lead, Engine Design Systems Integration, led a team through challenging rotor quality issues. Scott pulled together a cross-functional team within Pratt & Whitney and because of his leadership, timely safety board reviews and actions were taken to keep the fleet flying.
• Lindsay Landry,director, Component Integrated Product Team for Operational Commercial Engines, led a team tasked to resolve issues with the PW4000-112 engine. Her strong leadership on these issues didn’t go unnoticed and is recognized at all levels of the company and by customers. Her work was recognized as a model of best practices for relentless root cause and fault tree investigation.
• Vasisht Venkatesh,a technical fellow in Materials Modeling and Behavior, helped develop key tools and methods to identify, classify and quantify microtexture regions (MTR) to predict their effect on cold dwell fatigue in titanium alloys—an issue critical to safety. These characterization and fatigue life prediction tools havebeen successfully deployed at Pratt & Whitney during military and commercial safety investigations.

The American Society of Mechanical Engineers is a not-for-profit organization that represents more than 100,000 engineers in more than 140 countries. The society serves the diverse technical community through outreach, and by promoting collaboration, knowledge sharing, career enrichment, and professional development.