威廉·B. Cottingham

He came to General Motors Institute in 1975 as Dean of Academic Affairs and became President of the school a year later. 7月1日, 1982, the Institute gained its independence from General Motors and became GMI Engineering & 管理学院，与博士. 科廷厄姆担任总统.

1933年12月1日出生于芝加哥的威廉. Cottingham grew up attending public schools and the Lane Technical High School. He admits to an early interest in engines, working on them “from age eight or so.他的父亲是亨利·普拉特公司的总裁, whose primary product was large butterfly valves and boilers for power plants.

在他十几岁的暑假里, he worked as a “re-tuber” for steam condensers for Consolidated Edison in Chicago and later “graduated” to building new boilers for the same company. He recalls with pride his hands-on approach to engineering and his status as a “card carrying member” of the Boilermakers and Steamfitters local union. Small wonder that he became a life-long advocate for cooperative engineering education.

Following graduation from Lane Tech, he planned to enter Cal Tech to study astronomy. Unable to meet all the rigid entrance requirements, he decided to join a buddy at Purdue. 他1952年进入大学，打算主修物理学. “第一年之后, I was so bored with the slow pace of the physics program that I switched to engineering.” In 1955, he graduated with a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering. A year later, he earned his master’s degree and completed his doctorate in 1960. While attending graduate school, he found it necessary to supplement his income to meet expenses. He found employment with a professor who was working on increasing the firing rate of the army’s 50-calibre machine gun. 这个项目很有趣，也很合他的意. 他继续这项研究, 以及在朝鲜战争中被征召入伍时, he was granted a “scientific exemption” to continue on the machine gun project.

在完成博士学位之后, he became a member of the technical staff of Bell Telephone Laboratories in New Jersey. In 1963, he returned to Purdue as an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering. In July 1970, he was appointed to head the School of Mechanical Engineering. 1972年，他与普渡大学的四位同事创立了Tec-Tran公司., 一家位于拉斐特的工程咨询和出版公司, 印第安纳州, 专门从事低容量技术书籍与有限的市场吸引力.

Dr. Cottingham served as a consultant to many companies and organizations including the National Science Foundation, 工程与教育委员会, 美国.S. Army Science Foundation, 工程与教育委员会 and 美国.S. 陆军科学顾问小组. He also spent six months in 1970 as a guest researcher in the area of infrared radiation patterns from surfaces for Medisch Fysisch Instituet-Tno in the Netherlands. Cottingham is the author or co-author of more than 200 technical and educational publications and presentations and co-author of five chapters in a major work entitled Physical 设计 of Electronic Systems. 他参与了“低温恒温器”设计专利的开发。, a vessel for containing super conduction magnets suspended in liquid helium. This resulting patent was later assigned to the Bell Telephone Laboratories.

He came to General Motors Institute in 1975 as dean of academic affairs and became president of the school a year later. 7月1日, 1982, the Institute gained its independence from General Motors and became GMI Engineering & 管理学院，与博士. 科廷厄姆担任总统. Over the next several years he, in many ways, presided over the creation of a new institution. A member of his staff commented, “That is entrepreneurship on a big scale. 学校从一个企业赞助商发展到400多个.”  He successfully steered the college through the troubled waters of transition, maintained its reputation as one of the country’s top engineering and management schools and established a solid base for GMI’s future.

在他的一生中. Cottingham was active in a number of professional and civic activities -- a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers, 曾任工程教育委员会主席. Other professional associations included the National Commission for Cooperative Education, the 陆军科学顾问小组 and the Distance Education and Training Accrediting Commission, 他至今仍在任职.

His interest in music (mainly classical) goes back to his childhood when he took piano lessons for a while but did not retain any proficiency. 在普渡大学, he served on the Board of the Lafayette Symphony and in Flint continued that service, 担任美国童子军松树委员会主席, the Flint College and Cultural Center and was founding member of the consortium of local colleges. 他继续担任NBD-Flint Bank的顾问委员会成员.

当被问及他的管理哲学时, he said he preferred to “hire good people and get the hell out of their way.“他把自己视为教练或天使，而不是独裁者. He recalled only twice during his tenure at GMI when he felt the coach type of administrator was not appropriate. The first time was when he arrived to find GMI in “disarray and its administration emasculated” following the cut-back of 1974-1975. He sensed that immediate and decisive action was imperative to the future of the Institute. The second time he resorted to “acting a lot like a dictator” was when GM “turned us loose.” But after the trauma settled down, he returned to his preferred style of administration.

在博士. Cottingham的领导, 研究所满怀信心地迈向未来, proud of its well-earned reputation as one of the nation’s foremost private colleges, yet mindful of the expectations inherited from the past to remain at the cutting edge of innovative, productive and meaningful education of young men and women in management and engineering.

Dr. 科廷厄姆于9月去世. 2009年29日，在佛罗里达州的家中.