Kathryn Clark to Chair Board of Trustees

Kathryn Clark was elected to a one-year term as chair of Michigan Tech’s Board of Trustees Thursday, June 23. Russell Gronevelt was named vice chair.

Clark has served on the board since 2001 and has been vice chair for the past year. A former chief scientist with NASA, she is president of Docere, a consulting company specializing in science and education. Among its clients are the Jean-Michel Cousteau Society, the Argos Foundation, the National Marine Sanctuaries and the Sea World Hubbs Institute.

“This is an ideal time to be board chair,” Clark said . “University President Glenn Mroz is doing a really good job, the strategic plan is establishing a great direction for Michigan Tech, and the capital campaign is being set up to implement it.

“The university is running in the right direction, so I’m coming in at the perfect time.”

Clark was chief scientist for the International Space Station Program for two years before being named chief scientist for NASA's Human Exploration and the Development of Space Enterprise program in 2002.

In August, she was awarded the NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal, the highest honor NASA accords to nongovernment personnel, in part for her work on the Stafford-Covey Task Group, which was formed to oversee NASA's response to the Columbia Accident Investigation Board.

Clark, of Ann Arbor, earned her master's and PhD from the University of Michigan and then joined the faculty of the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology in 1993. Clark received the Outstanding International Award from Women in Aerospace and was recently inducted into the National Women's Museum in Dallas. She is also a pilot and is a member of the International Society of Women Pilots.

Gronevelt has served on the Board of Trustees since 2004. He is the president of Orchard Hiltz & McCliment, Inc., a civil engineering consulting firm headquartered in Livonia, which employs over 200 engineers and technicians. Prior to joining OHM, Gronevelt served 11 years as the assistant county executive for Wayne County, making him the executive in charge of the fifth-largest public works organization in the nation.

Gronevelt earned a BS in Civil Engineering from Michigan Tech in 1969 and an MS in Civil Engineering from Wayne State University in 1982.

He served on the Michigan Tech Civil and Environmental Engineering Professional Advisory Board and is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Michigan Tech Fund.

Gronevelt was named one of America's Top Ten Public Works Administrators in 1994, and was inducted into MTU's Academy of Civil and Environmental Engineers in 2002.

Michigan Technological University is a public research university founded in 1885 in Houghton, Michigan, and is home to more than 7,000 students from 55 countries around the world. Consistently ranked among the best universities in the country for return on investment, Michigan’s flagship technological university offers more than 120 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in science and technology, engineering, computing, forestry, business and economics, health professions, humanities, mathematics, social sciences, and the arts. The rural campus is situated just miles from Lake Superior in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, offering year-round opportunities for outdoor adventure.