Swanson active at Pitt

John A. Swanson is a popular name at Pitt. The Pitt alumnus and Board of Trustees member’s… John A. Swanson is a popular name at Pitt. The Pitt alumnus and Board of Trustees member’s name could be found prominently stamped upon T-shirts, pens, pencils and other student necessities after he gave Pitt’s engineering school the University’s largest single donation, $41.3 million, in 2007. Shortly after he made the donation Pitt honored him by renaming the engineering school the John A. Swanson School of Engineering This week the engineering school is celebrating E-week, a celebration that pits various branches of engineering against each other in events such paper airplane making and relay races. Though Pitt engineering students might see Swanson’s impact daily, his influence can be felt far, wide and high ‘mdash; tens of thousands of feet high. Swanson founded Swanson Analysis System, Inc., now ANSYS Inc., in 1970 and has watched it grow from a personal venture to a multibillion dollar company. ‘Have you ever flown on an airplane? Have you ever drunk soda from a plastic bottle? Have you ever had heart surgery?’ asked Swanson. If so, you are familiar with the products of ANSYS software. The ANSYS software allowed engineers to learn how a product would behave and how to optimize it before making a prototype. ‘I discovered computers and realized they could be used to simplify the work we were doing,’ said Swanson. ‘We looked at the technology available. We looked at what the customers needed and we did the best we could to meet those needs.’ Today ANSYS has found a wide range of applications, from use in the Benedum computer lab to aero technology. Swanson retired from ANSYS in 1999. He was recently named to the National Academy of Engineering, which is one of the highest professional honors an engineer can receive. Swanson shares this distinction with only three Pitt professors. Swanson’s work helps Pitt advance After graduating with his master’s and bachelor’s degrees in mechanical engineering from Cornell University, Swanson postponed his doctorate to work for Westinghouse. ‘I don’t recommend going to the doctoral level until you see what the real world is like,’ he said. So Swanson ‘went out and saw what the world needed,’ earned his doctorate in applied mechanics and left Westinghouse to develop engineering simulation software. He still does some consulting and lives in Florida with his wife Janet. When he has returned to Pitt in the past, Swanson has served as a judge for student competitions. Pitt’s engineering school has improved dramatically, he said. ‘It’s moved from an average state-supported school to become one of the top schools in the country.’ Chancellor Mark Nordenberg attributes his optimistic outlook of the engineering school’s future to Swanson’s recent donation. ‘It will help attract more of the nation’s most talented students and recruit some of America’s most accomplished faculty members to engage in top-echelon engineering research,’ said Nordenberg. ANSYS, a large employer in southwestern Pennsylvania, seeks these top students after graduation. However, ANSYS will look ‘wherever we can find someone with a particular skill,’ whether it is down the road at Carnegie Mellon University or across the world in Bangladesh, said Swanson. He commented that the U.S. education system is not up to par with international competitors. Engineers used to come to the United States to work, he added, but now the international students are returning home to work. ‘The future is going elsewhere unless we do something about that,’ said Swanson. As a member of the National Academy of Engineers, which provides advice to the federal government, Swanson hopes to redirect the future of engineering education in America. ‘Engineering is going to be critical in the next 50 years,’ he said, ‘because most of the problems we have coming are problems that fall in the daily work of engineers.’ Swanson cited water, food and power as three main problem areas, but he also has an interest in projects like nuclear rockets to Mars. ‘That’s actually what we were working on. Unfortunately, we were 50 years ahead of our time, or more,’ he said of his time at Westinghouse. With that exception, Swanson doesn’t look much to the past. ‘I’m afraid if I changed anything it might be worse, so I don’t go there. It’s hard to believe that I’d rather be anywhere else than where I am now,’ he said.