G. Don Taylor, of Blacksburg, Va., professor and head of the Grado Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering in the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech, was named the Charles O. Gordon Professor of Industrial Engineering by the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors at its quarterly meeting Monday, Aug. 23.

The Charles O. Gordon Professorship in Industrial Engineering was established in 1976 by a gift from Charles O. Gordon, a 1942 graduate of the College of Engineering. The professorship recognizes and rewards an outstanding faculty member in the College of Engineering's Grado Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering.

Taylor came to Virginia Tech this year from his position as the Mary Lee and George F. Duthie Chair in the Engineering Logistics at the Speed Scientific School at the University of Louisville. In 2001, Taylor became the founding director of the Center for Engineering Logistics and Distribution at the University of Louisville. His expertise is in the logistical intricacies and potential economies of supply chain management from materials flow inside a factory to transportation dispatching and routing.

Prior to his tenure at Louisville, Taylor directed the University of Arkansas' Logistics Institute, a research center that worked with carriers, shippers, and government entities on materials handling and logistics problems. In 1991, he founded his own company, G. Don Taylor Consulting Services in LaGrange, Ky. He received his bachelor's degree and master's degree from the University of Texas at Arlington and a Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts.

The College of Engineering at Virginia Tech is internationally recognized for its excellence in 14 engineering disciplines and computer science. The college's 5,600 undergraduates benefit from an innovative curriculum that provides a "hands-on, minds-on" approach to engineering education, complementing classroom instruction with two unique design-and-build facilities and a strong Cooperative Education Program. With more than 50 research centers and numerous laboratories, the college offers its 2,000 graduate students opportunities in advanced fields of study such as biomedical engineering, state-of-the-art microelectronics, and nanotechnology.

Founded in 1872 as a land-grant college, Virginia Tech has grown to become the largest university in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Today, Virginia Tech's eight colleges are dedicated to putting knowledge to work through teaching, research, and outreach activities, and to fulfilling its vision to be among the top research universities in the nation. At its 2,600-acre main campus located in Blacksburg, and other campus centers in northern Virginia, Hampton Roads, Richmond, and Roanoke, Virginia Tech enrolls 28,000 full- and part-time undergraduate and graduate students from all 50 states and more than 100 countries in 170 academic degree programs.

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