Drexel Engineering Inducts Six Members Into the Circle of Distinction

February 26, 2010 The following Drexel alumni have been unanimously selected by the Advisory Council to receive the honorary 2010 Circle of Distinction award.

Lou Bucelli ’83 Economics, CEO & President, Bucelli & Company LLC Lou serves as Drexel University’s Entrepreneur-in-Residence  as well as Entrepreneur-in-Residence  for high-tech startups. Other clients include St. Francis University, Loreto, PA, consulting to the CERMUSA program, Rowan University – Innovation Center, University of Connecticut, College of Engineering and Burlington County College, NJ, consulting to BCC Science & Technology Center.

Lou has twenty-five years experience in developing, managing and investing in high growth businesses. He has been a founder and investor in a software technology company focused on library automation and circulation asset management using barcode and RFID technology. He was publisher of educational books, newsletters and seminars for dental professionals. Previously he served as President and CEO of CMECourses.com — an e-commerce site and search engine promoting continuing medical education programs, which he co-founded in August 1999. HealthStream a publicly-traded e-learning company acquired the business in January 2000.

Lou served as President and CEO of CME Information Services, a company he co-founded in 1989. CME was a high growth, distance medical education company that partnered with leading medical institutions including Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, Johns Hopkins, Harvard, UCLA, and Memorial Sloan Kettering. The company was ranked on the Inc. 500 list of fastest growing companies in America and the Philadelphia Top 100 for three consecutive years. Lou was named Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year for emerging business.  

Prior to starting his first company, Lou directed the capital raising and M&A activities of a healthcare management company and preceding that he was employed by the New Jersey Department of Energy on the administration of a $200 million federal hospital energy grant program. Lou has an MS in Finance from Drexel University’s Le Bow College of Business, and has attended the University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School, and Temple University.

Kenneth Dabundo ’81 ’85 Materials Science, Engineering Management, Senior Manager Systems Engineering for V-22, BoeingKen has recently accepted a new assignment leading the integration of Systems Engineering on the V-22 Osprey Tiltrotor Team at The Boeing Company. Previously, Ken served as the Site Chief Engineer for Rotorcraft in Philadelphia. He had overall functional responsibility for Engineering support to the H-47, V-22 and Advanced Rotorcraft programs.
Ken represented Philadelphia on the Enterprise Engineering Multi-Skill Leadership team and led the team’s career development roadmap effort. Ken has also led the Materials, Process and Standards organization and held engineering assignments on the RAH-66 Comanche and V-22 Osprey programs since joining Boeing in 1984.

He currently serves as the Boeing’s Executive Focal, responsible for strengthening Boeing’s relationship with Drexel.  In this position, Ken has been responsible for spearheading a number of initiatives between Drexel and Boeing including recruitment of co-ops, hiring of Drexel graduates, support of educational programs and student organizations.

Charles “Chuck” Gershman ’86 Electrical Engineering, President & CEO, Bay Microsystems, Inc.Chuck was appointed President and CEO of Bay Microsystems, Inc. in 2002. Based in San Jose, CA, Bay Microsystems develops and markets data communication solutions including network architectures, systems, software and System-on-a-Chip (SoC) integrated circuits. Bay’s award winning ABEx™ multi-service transport and Infiniband gateways facilitate 10Gbps and 40Gbps data center extension over Wide Area Networks (WAN), legacy network migration, and protocol agnostic security.

During Chuck’s tenure he has guided the company through two high-tech recessions, from a pre-revenue start-up to a thriving profitable industry leader with over $85M in aggregate sales.  In 2007 the Global Semiconductor Alliance (GSA) voted Bay a finalist as the Most Respected Private Semiconductor Company.  In 2008, Bay was recognized by Deliotte for the Silicon Valley Technology Fast 50 (#15) and US Fast 500 (#136) with nearly 1400% growth.  The company has been selected as one of the Top 100 private technology companies in the world by Red Herring magazine (2007, 2008), as well as one of the top 500 fastest growing private companies in the US by INC magazine (2008).  For his leadership, vision and determination, Chuck was chosen as a finalist by EE Times for the prestigious 2006 ACE award as executive of the year.

Prior to Bay, Chuck held executive management positions at two venture backed communication start-up companies: SoftcomMicrosystems and Integrated Telecom Technology.  Both companies had successful exits with acquisitions by Intel and PMC-Sierra respectively.  He also held various positions at Texas Instruments, LSI Logic and Actel.

Chuck holds a patent for his work on Network Processor Architecture.  He currently serves on the emerging CEO Council of the Global Semiconductor Alliance, and is a member of the CEO leadership organization Vistage. He has just accepted an appointment as a member of the Alumni Review Board for Drexel University’s Innovation Philanthropy Fund.

Doug Sharp ’82 Chemical Engineering, Regional Group President, PMMA & Methacrylics Division, Arkema Inc. Upon graduation from Drexel, Doug began his career with Rohm and Haas Company as a Research Process Engineer.  During this time, he participated in the successful development and start-up of two highly profitable industrial chemicals programs, which took him to the UK in the early and mid-1980's. Doug then transitioned into the manufacturing arena, first as a Technical Manager and then as a Plant Manager at the Rohm and Haas Plexiglas Plant in Bristol, PA. In 1992, nominated by the Rohm and Haas Company, Doug completed the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton Management Program.

In 1998, Elf Atochem, now Arkema Inc., acquired the Plexiglas business.  Doug immediately transitioned into the role of Global Manufacturing Director for Arkema's Plastics Additives Division. For the past six years, Doug has held the position of Regional Group President for the Altuglas International PMMA (Plexiglas) and Methacrylate Division, leading growth and innovation with a renowned 75-year premier brand in the Plastics Industry.

Doug is married to Peggy Sharp.  Doug is most proud of his three daughters, Joanne, Jennifer, and Katie, and his stepsons, Kyle and Kees.  He shares Peggy's enthusiasm for sports and can often be found at the local basketball court watching Peggy coach her sons.  In their free time, Doug and Peggy enjoy collecting wine, sailing, competitive bicycling (against each other) and socializing with family and friends at the beach.

Ed Sullivan ’90 Electrical Engineering, CEO, Aria Systems, LLC iAs an undergraduate engineering student at Drexel, Ed and two fellow students received a Sigma Xi award for their senior design work with Dr. Mahmoud El Sherif. The experience of working with fiber optics inspired Ed, as an undergraduate student, to design an excimer laser system for a local ophthalmologist. Ed went on to design and build custom excimer laser systems for ophthalmologists all over the country, many of them pioneers in the now-popular LASIK procedure.

In 1996, Ed founded LaserLink.net, the world’s first and largest virtual Internet service provider. LaserLink provided billing and internet services to over one million end users and operated the Internet services for several ISP’s including American Express, Compaq, Gateway, Amway and IBM. LaserLink was acquired by Covad Communications in March 2000.

Ed has served as CEO of Aria Systems, LLC, since founding the company in 2003. Under his leadership, Aria has established itself as the market leader in on-demand billing and customer lifecycle solutions and currently supports over one million customer accounts in 236 countries.

William Allan Wood ’28 Mechanical Engineering William Allan Wood (Allan or Woody to friends and family) began studying mechanical engineering in Drexel night school in the fall of 1923 and received his certificate in 1928. While attending Drexel, he worked in a shop rebuilding machine tools.  He later worked at Southwark Foundry in Philadelphia, and then at the Baldwin Locomotive Works as a draftsman and engineer. In 1936 he started working for Florence Pipe Foundry, part of the R. D. Wood Company. He began as an engineer/draftsman, but by 1940 he became Plant Engineer. 

As Plant Engineer he oversaw expansion of the foundry’s capacity during WWII, adding the manufacture of heavy hydraulic machinery for shipyards and greater output of nonferrous products.  He remained Plant Engineer until he retired in 1961.
Allan married his wife Virginia in 1937 and moved to Delanco, NJ, where they raised a daughter and a son. His wife passed away in 1999. He has three grandchildren and five great grandchildren. Allan has always stressed the importance of family and friends.  He has served on many local and state boards and commissions.

Allan has been a lifelong sailor, first in small racing sailboats and then in cruising sailboats. Allan and his wife sailed their beloved 27-foot sailboat on the Delaware River and Chesapeake Bay, often in the company of family and friends, for 25 years. It was through a sailor friend that he started his second career at C-Lec Plastics in 1962 as an engineer designing tools and equipment for casting, curing and machining large high tech plastic components. When his wife became ill he cut back to working three days a week and for the past five years has been working three half days per week. Even at 105 years of age, Allan is one of the most reliable employees at C-Lec and is appreciated by everyone there.

Allan claims “The time a person spends sailing is not deducted from his life span.” He must be right.