ASME President, 1985 - 1986

L.S. (Skip) Fletcher, Ph.D., P.E., professor and associate dean of the College of Engineering at Texas A&M University, College Station, has been in engineering education for some 20 years.

Dr. Fletcher went to Texas A&M in 1980 after five years at the University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science, Charlottesville.  There he was professor and chairman of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, which was expanded to include aerospace engineering during his tenure.  He was also director of its Center for Energy Analysis in 1979-80.

From 1968 until 1975, he was with Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N.J., in its Mechanical, Industrial and Aerospace Engineering Department.  He began as an assistant professor of aerospace engineering, being promoted to associate professor and finally to full professor.  He was acting associate dean of the College of Engineering in 1974-75.

Before Rutgers he taught at Arizona State and Stanford Universities.  Earlier he was a project engineer with NASA’s Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, California.

He received his B.S. from Texas A&M in 1958; his M.S. and Engineer degrees from Stanford in 1963 and 1964, and his Ph.D. from Arizona State in 1968. 

He has consulted for various corporations, including Union Carbide, Technical Wire Products and Singer General Precision, Kearfott Division.

Dr. Fletcher has published widely, including half a dozen books of which he was author or co-author.

In ASME he has served on the Board of Governors and as chairman of the Council on Education.  He has been active in the Heat Transfer and Computer Engineering Divisions.

He is an ASME representative to the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology and has served on several of its committees.

A Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, he has served on its board and on a number of its committees.  He was associate editor of the Journal of Energy from 1979 to 1983 and was associate series editor for its Progress in Astronautics and Aeronautics, 1981-84.  He is a registered professional engineer in Arizona, New Jersey, Virginia and Texas.

He is also a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Astronautical Society, and American Society for Engineering Education.  He has received many awards and is a member of Tau Beta Pi, Pi Tau Sigma, Sigma Gamma Tau, Sigma Xi, Phi Kappa Phi.