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Greg Young, M.S. 1974, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences

Greg Young is President and Chief Operating Officer of ENSCO, Inc. in Springfield, Virginia. ENSCO is a $100 million advanced research, development and engineering technology company. During his 25 years at ENSCO he has served as a practicing scientist, manager, director, executive and leader, helping to maintain the company’s roots in science and engineering as it tackles some of the worlds most difficult problems.

Before joining ENSCO, Greg was a scientist and manager in the Central Intelligence Agency and United States Air Force. He worked primarily on nuclear test detection, characterization, and discrimination. He served as the program coordinator of the threshold Test Ban Treaty Data Exchange Exercise and provided technical support to the negotiating team for the Peaceful Nuclear Explosions Treaty. He was also involved with the Air Force Office of Scientific Research in the Directorate of Physical and Geophysical Sciences supporting basic research in universities across the country.

Greg completed his Master’s in Geophysics at Purdue in 1974, graduating as a Distinguished Graduate. He received his bachelor’s degree in geology from the University of Buffalo (now the State University of New York at Buffalo). “I have long had an interest in physics and the physics of the Earth,” he says. “Geophysics and seismology was a natural for my strong interest in analytical processes and math.”

Greg completed his master’s degree with a thesis in about 16 months, a task that kept him busy night and day. “I remember carrying my thesis computer program, which barely fit on one IBM card box—about 2100 cards—across campus to the computer center in the dead of winter, with snow everywhere, at midnight,” he recalls. “You got the best turnaround on running your computer programs if you ran at that hour, and there were no remote job entry points for my first year at Purdue. We eventually got a terminal about half way across campus.”

Greg has strong memories of the challenges of his work at Purdue. “I remember working with Bill Hinze and Larry Braile, who was my advisor. Larry was a new assistant professor who started at Purdue a month after I arrived,” he says. “He brought with him a number of numerical codes which I used to synthesize seismic records based on source and path characteristics. I had to figure out how these worked on my own, and I later discovered this was Larry's way of getting me to understand what I was doing.”

Greg remembers a textbook error that cost him several weeks of work. “I worked on Knotts Energy and Zoeppritz amplitude equations and developed a computer program to calculate these numerical measures for a wave,” he says. “The algorithm kept blowing up at selected points and it took me three weeks to discover that the complex integral solution I was using from a textbook of integrals was wrong!” He points out with no small amount of pride that he discovered a textbook error and errors in several previously published journal articles on the subject.

Greg managed to find time for his personal life, though. He and his wife, Janne, were married in August 1974, just a few months before he finished his master’s program. “During my last four months at Purdue with my wife I would typically leave at 7:30 in the morning, returning after 11:30 at night,” Greg says. “Not a very good start to a marriage, but a necessity to finish my thesis in order to graduate in December. It has worked out, however; my wife and I just celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary last year!”

Greg was named a Distinguished Science Alumnus in 1999, and returning to the campus to accept the award re-established his ties to Purdue. “Coming back to Purdue after almost 25 years made me realize how much I had been missing in scientific research since entering the government work force and subsequently private industry in the early ‘80s,” he says. It was that realization that motivated him to take a leadership role as Chair of the College’s Dean’s Leadership Council. Greg led the Council’s Spring 2005 meeting that focused on ways to build relationships with the corporate and industrial world and capitalize on the benefits of such relationships for both academic researchers and corporate constituents. “The need for partnerships between industry, typically focused on applications and products, and the University, typically focused on research and discovery, couldn’t be greater today,” Greg says. “Economic models, the need to specialize and focus and the necessity to develop core strengths in your particular business necessitates collaboration in meeting your end objectives. Industry can no longer afford to make the necessary investments to build a world class research capability. Collaboration provides the opportunity to build such a capability through partnering.”

Research opportunities are just one of the benefits of strong corporate relationships, Greg says. “Students, one of the primary products of a research university, are the lifeblood of industry. Universities with a strong and vibrant corporate partnership program will provide greater opportunities for students to extend their learning and discovery knowledge to engagement and participation in solving application and product related challenges in industry.” Greg believes that by developing a strong corporate partnership program, the University will ensure that today’s students can meet the challenges of tomorrow and be better prepared for a lifetime of contribution and success in industry.

A review of the College of Science Strategic Plan outlines several important elements in corporate partnerships, Greg says. The College’s mission to exchange scientific skills and understanding as well as the application of science to address societal needs by interaction with communities beyond the University boundaries will be realized through strong partnerships, Greg says. The benefits span the College’s efforts in discovery, learning, and engagement. “Beyond the value proposition for Purdue’s students and the College’s Strategic Plan, engagements with industry strengthen the faculty, diversify the funding sources, and reduce the dependence on single sources of critical resources,” he says. “These relationships also provide broadening of perspectives on real world problems of strategic character and allow the melding of fundamental research and applied technology, which is so critical to our nation’s competitiveness and long term welfare.”

Greg is proud of his alma mater and committed to helping the College of Science achieve its goal of preeminence. “The College of Science represents one of the foremost caches of knowledge wealth in the United States today. The need to extend its value to the State of Indiana, our country and the world could never be greater,” he says. “We are working on numerous frontiers of science which will change the lives of the citizens of the world in measurable ways. How much more exciting could it get! What greater opportunity could we ask for!”

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