Professor Emeritus John Farrow to receive Honorary Doctorate at Winter Commencement on Feb 23.
| Published: 01/29/2008 |
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Professor Emeritus John Farrow, former chair of the Mechanical Engineering Department, will receive an Honorary Doctor of Engineering Degree at the Winter Commencement on Feb 23.
Although he is a professor emeritus of mechanical engineering at MSOE, John Farrow's original degree is in electrical engineering. He returned to his current position at MSOE when he retired from the Public Service Commission (PSC) of Wisconsin upon the completion of his term as commissioner in March 2001. In February 2004, when MSOE became the state of Wisconsin Affiliate University for Project Lead The Way, he assumed the additional duties as affiliate director.
During his term as a commissioner, Farrow served as an active member of the Committee On Electricity of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners and a member of the Committee on Energy and the Environment. He has spoken to many groups on various facets of the utility industry and on electric utilities in particular.
Prior to his appointment to the PSC, John Farrow was the chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at MSOE. He spent part of his career in academia at Marquette University, where he developed and implemented the industrial engineering program.
Upon his graduation from college, he was commissioned as a naval officer and spent two years on a destroyer, becoming the head of the engineering department. He was then transferred to instructor duty at the Naval Electronics Officers School at Great Lakes.
After leaving the service, he spent more than twenty years in the electric industry working in design, manufacturing, marketing and quality. While he was the director of corporate quality at the RTE Corp., he instituted the program of quality audits and total quality assurance. He also worked with a number of utilities to convince various state regulatory commissions to consider life cycle costing of transformers and similar equipment in place of original cost when evaluating rate validity.
He has been an active member of many professional organizations, serving on both the local and national levels. He was very active in the Quality Audit Technical Committee and the Product Liability Loss Prevention committee of ASQC. He has published many papers and articles and has received a number of awards for his contributions. He is listed in Who's Who in Engineering and International Who's Who. In 1996, he was named Engineer of the year by the Engineers and Scientists of Milwaukee. He was named Educator of the Year 2006 by Wisconsin Builder and the Daily Reporter.
He currently serves on the Rural Energy Management Commission in the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection.
During his tenure on the board of directors of the Marian Catholic Home, they acquired the Marian Franciscan Home. While he was chair of the board, they completed a merger of the two homes with the Wheaton Franciscan Medical System. He also served on the Board of Trustees of the Wisconsin Maritime Museum and the Energy Center of Wisconsin.
During his career, he managed to earn his master's degree and complete the course work for a doctorate. John and his wife Margaret, the 42nd lieutenant governor of Wisconsin, have five sons and eleven grandchildren.