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Topic: Mechanical Engineering

Mark Yoss

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Mark Yoss, B.A., is the Lockheed Martin endowed director for the Advanced Manufacturing Sciences Institute at Metropolitan State University of Denver. Yoss assists students with acquiring skills needed for rewarding careers in advanced manufacturing industries including both technical and soft skills. From 2015 to 2020, he served as the Lockheed Martin Focus School Advisor to MSU Denver, where he was instrumental in creating the curriculum for the advanced manufacturing sciences bachelor’s degree.

Yoss also helped to establish the Lockheed Martin co-op program, which has converted 75% of MSU Denver student participants into full-time employees at Lockheed Martin upon their graduation. In 2020, Yoss received the Cooperative Education and Internship Association Charles F. Kettering Award, which recognizes an employer from industry, business or government who provides outstanding resources and service to the cooperative education and internship field.

Prior to his current role at MSU Denver, Yoss was a production principal at Lockheed Martin and retired in 2021. He was responsible for the design, development, manufacturing, inspection and testing of space flight hardware/software for launch vehicles, communications satellites and interplanetary spacecraft products used by the United States Airforce, NASA and the National Reconnaissance Office. He also served as a manufacturing senior manager and strategically lead a 90-person operation to design, develop and produce critical electronics products.

Yoss is an advocate for STEM education, and in conjunction with Lockheed Martin he has helped organize events for K-12 schools throughout Colorado, including hosting an annual space day for elementary school children as well as a manufacturing day that provided a facility tour of Lockheed Martin to high school and college students.

Yoss received his bachelor’s degree in industry technology in 1983 from the Illinois State University.

Stan Trout

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With forty years’ experience in the permanent magnet and rare earth industries, Stan has a wealth of problem-solving abilities, gained from a wide variety of technical and commercial roles, that he is eager to share. He has been very fortunate to confer, study, meet and collaborate with many international luminaries along the way. He is particularly proud to have trained many of today’s active industry professionals. Stan has a B.S. in Physics from Lafayette College and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Metallurgy and Materials Science from the University of Pennsylvania. He is a registered Professional Engineer in both Colorado and Pennsylvania.

Mingli He

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Mingli He, Ph.D., is a professor in the Department of Engineering and Engineering Technology at Metropolitan State University of Denver. His areas of expertise include mechanical engineering, thermal, fluids, HVAC and energies. He currently teaches Introduction to Engineering Technology, Machine Design, Thermodynamics I, Machine Elements and Mechanical Systems, and Thermodynamics and Heat Transfer and oversees senior projects.

Prior to joining MSU Denver, He worked at Aeroengine Research Institute in Shenyang, China, the Center for Research and Education in Optics and Lasers, the AT&T Microelectronics Plant and the Gulf Coast Regional Maritime Technology Center and taught courses at the University of Central Florida. He currently serves as the coordinator of the Mechanical Engineering Technology Program at MSU Denver. He served in the role as chair of the Engineering and Engineering Technology Department from 2013-2019 and has served in various MSU Denver faculty positions since August 1998.

He is a member of or has been associated with various organizations such as the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, SAE International, the Society of Manufacturing Engineers and the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, among others. He has worked on various projects such as the DEMOSAT Project – NASA and the Colorado Space Grant Consortium to develop interest in STEM programs in education. He is currently working with the Colorado Community College System, on the CHAMP program and on the Denver Public Schools Career Connect program.

He received his doctorate in Philosophy and master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Central Florida. He received his bachelor’s degree from Nanjing Aeronautical Institute in Nanjing, China. He holds a certification as a Professional Engineer from the National Society of Professional Engineers.

Dave Gingerich

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Dave Gingerich, M.S., is an affiliate professor in the Department of Aviation and Aerospace Management at Metropolitan State University of Denver.

Gingerich has been employed with Lockheed Martin since 1980 where he developed simulation software used to test the power and attitude control subsystems for two large, earth-orbiting spacecraft; developed spacecraft bus and instrument flight software for numerous planetary exploration missions and payloads, such as the Descent Imager, the Cassini-Huygens Probe and the Mars Observer Gamma Ray Spectrometer. In the early 1990s Gingerich was a member of the flight software development team for the marvelously successful and still flying Mars Global Surveyor.

In 1997, he started developing the payload and science flight software for the Stardust and Genesis missions and was asked to join the LMA Mission Operations team. In 2002, Gingerich implemented a change to the Stardust Navigation Camera flight software and was presented a Technical Excellence award for it from Lockheed Martin in 2003. He is also the recipient of several NASA Group Achievement awards.

Gingerich received a master’s in space operations management from Webster University in 2004, a master’s in mechanical engineering from Colorado State University in 1980 and a bachelor’s in mathematics in 1979 from Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington.

Aaron Brown

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Aaron Brown, Ph.D., is a professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering/Engineering Technology at Metropolitan State University of Denver. His areas of expertise include humanitarian engineering and international education. Brown currently teaches Materials of Engineering, Materials Science, Life Cycles, and System Engineering and oversees internships.

Prior to joining MSU Denver, he worked in the aerospace industry. Brown was a mechanical engineer for Starsys Research and Ball Aerospace. During his time at Starsys Research, Brown contributed design work on the landing mechanism for the Mars Science Laboratory Rover Mission, a.k.a. Curiosity. He has also worked at the National Institute of Standards and Technology designing test equipment to measure stress-strain relationships to superconductor performance. Brown has been awarded the College of Professional Studies Outstanding Service Award and the Outstanding Undergraduate Research Leadership Award from MSU Denver. A recent project of his aims to build resilience in a local community through the installation of solar furnaces he and his students designed. This project helps low-income families reduce their energy bills and is a collaborative effort with an established nongovernmental organization focused on improving the lives and health of people in a west Denver neighborhood.

Brown co-authored “Quantitative Assessment of Appropriate Technology,” which was published in Procedia Engineering. His current research interests include electric-vehicle optimization and design, robotics, and harvesting solar energy, green energy, and humanitarian engineering.

Brown received his doctorate in Civil Systems Engineering and a master’s in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Colorado-Boulder in 2015 and 2004, respectively, and a bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering from California State University-Chico in 2001.