Douglas Green, 71, former professor in the Thomas J. Watson School of Engineering and Applied Science, died Sunday, Sept. 29.
Green, a professor in electrical engineering, joined Binghamton University in 1988 and later served as the dean of Watson from 1991 to 1993. He was also director of the Center for Research in Engineering and Advanced Technology.
Green helped boost the Watson School to a nationally acclaimed position by acquiring funding for the University.
By building personal relationships with most of the faculty, he knew who needed what and when, and excelled at securing the appropriate funding through various methods. Sources of funding included the National Security Agency, Department of Energy and Department of Defense.
Kanad Ghose, department chair and professor of computer science, said that Green excelled at motivating faculty.
Ghose recalled writing his first grant proposal and being unsure whether or not to submit. Before boarding a 10:30 p.m. flight to Japan, Green called Ghose from the airport and convinced him to send it anyway.
“If it wasn’t for Doug,” Ghose said, “I would have chickened out and probably not have sent it in. That made all the difference to my career.”
The competitive federal grant ended up getting approved.
Green obtained his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering at Texas Tech University and his Ph.D. at University of Austin in biomedical engineering. In addition to being an associate dean at Binghamton, he worked as a dean at both John Hopkins University and Marquette University in Wisconsin, and finished his professional career in Texas A&M University.
Green once described his job as “the grease to get things moving”, according to James Pitarresi, assistant provost and executive director of the Center of Learning and Teaching. Pitarresi recalled one time Green had rented a cumbersome IBM computer in the late 1980’s and lent it to Pitarresi to use over winter break in order to write a research proposal.
Pitarresi also recounted a speedy car ride with Green to Albany in order to submit a proposal by 5 p.m.
“Doug was happy to let someone else get the credit,” he said. “And in that way he was an outstanding leader. It doesn’t matter if a freshman or the president was in the room, he could have a chat with anyone.”
Green started Tau Beta Pi, the National Engineering Honor Society, and uplifted the University as a national school in electronic packaging, which is the process of keeping delicate microchips safe no matter what product they are in. He also helped acquire funding from when IBM was a strong presence in Binghamton in the late ’80s and early ’90s.
Green was a key contributor in starting the University’s first research center, the Integrating Electronic Engineering Center (IEEC).
Charles Westgate, former dean emeritus of Watson School and currently director of the Center of Autonomous Solar Power (CASP), was an associate dean for research and external affairs at Watson alongside Green.
“He was a very positive person,” Westgate said. “We obtained a lot of large research grants together.”
Dustin Green, the late Green’s son, said that although his dad was busy, he always made time for his family.
“He kept me so busy that I didn’t have time to rebel as a teenager,” Dustin wrote in an email. “I highly recommend that parenting technique. When I was a young kid, we’d often eat dinner at a local cafeteria. As we joined the line, he’d ask me a logic/math puzzle question. If I solved it by the time we got to the dessert, the whole family could have dessert. If not, no dessert for anyone. Everyone wanted dessert, so there was considerable pressure. Later on, job interviews have always seemed like a piece of cake. And I’m only a bit fatter than I should be.”