Notable Alumni
Since 1930, Indiana Tech has graduated more than 19,000 students, many of whom have gone on to achieve prominence in their chosen fields. Indiana Tech is proud of our graduates and the many contributions they have made to society. In aerospace, business, engineering, marketing, teaching, human resources, criminal justice, and more, our alumni have built upon the strong, career-focused education they received at Indiana Tech and gone on to pursue innovative and illustrious professions.
Below are a few alumni who have taken their degrees (and athletic prowess) to careers of distinction. If you have a success story you’d like to share we would love to hear it.
Stanley Clemenz, BSEE, 1942
Stanley Clemenz spent 61 years in telecommunications engineering (satellites, manned spacecraft, network sites), aerospace (Mercury, Gemini, Apollo), shipbuilding (cruisers, destroyers, amphibious warfare ships), automobile production (Ford), subway systems (BART, Metrorail), and oceanography (sonar, atomic bomb testing). He was also a Lt. (JG) in the Navy during World War II.
Clarence Forrest, BSAEE, 1943
Clarence “Casey” Forrest worked his entire career in aerospace with Bell Aircraft. He worked on the X-1 and completed his career as senior vice president at Textron in charge of flight test for LCAC (Land Craft Air Cushion) vehicles used by U.S. Marines. He was inducted into the Niagara Frontier Aviation Hall of Fame.
Joseph J. Foster III, BSAE, 1950
Joseph Foster is a Lt. Col. USAF (retired) and 2007 Alumni Hall of Fame award recipient. Foster logged 5,750 hours in 19 different prop, turbo-prop, and jet aircrafts and flew 1,165 combat support sorties in Vietnam from 1966 to 1967.
Josh Judy
Josh Judy was drafted by the Cleveland Indians in the 2007 Major League Baseball draft. He had great success in the minor league system and was called up to pitch relief for the Indians in the 2011 season where he pitched in 12 games.
Jesse Hoover, BSBA, 2004
Jesse Hoover was drafted by the New York Yankees as a pitcher in the fifth round of the Major League Baseball draft in 2004. Hoover quickly became a top prospect in the Yankees organization. A back injury slowed his progress, but he had some great success in the minor league system.
Lowell G. Krandell, BSEE, 1963
Lowell Krandell designed Indiana’s first fiber optics system. He also designed the original fiber optics educational TV network, linking all participating colleges and universities in Indiana.
Young Jung Paik, BSCE, 1959
Young Paik came to the United States almost 40 years ago with a small scholarship from Hungsadan in Korea and went on to build one of the largest Korean-American owned steel engineering companies in the United States. Named Entrepreneur of the Year in 1999 by Ernst & Young, Paik was the founder and chairman of Paco Steel and Engineering Corp., the nation’s largest producer of patented light-steel I-beams used in the framing of everything from huge commercial buildings to big-rig tractor-trailers.
Stanley John Puskarz, PE, BSME, 1959
John Puskarz invented the pop-top lid and the screw-off bottle cap. He was named Engineer of the Year in Industry in 1995 and retired in 2001 from Fowler Products Company in Athens, Ga., where he was partner and vice president of engineering. Puskarz also established the Puskarz Scholarship Fund in 2002 for Indiana Tech students.
Adolf Vartanian, BSME, 1957
Adolf Vartanian is a senior member of the Brotherhood of St. Andrew. Incorporated by Congress in 1908, the brotherhood begins mission churches and parishes and assists in strengthening communities. Vartanian’s particularly impressive role with the Brotherhood is his administrative responsibilities to the children’s orphanage in Uganda, Africa. He has made several trips to Uganda and plans to continue his role.
Walter T. Weller, BSEE, 1942
Though he never became a WWII pilot like he dreamed, Walter Weller played an important part in aviation history. An electrical engineer, Weller was responsible for calibrating the instruments on the first plane to break the sound barrier. He also worked in “Little Joe” capsules that later became part of the Mercury space program. He donated his brain to the Parkinson’s Disease Research Center of John Hopkins University.
S. Thomas Wong, BSCHE, 1966
Tom Wong is responsible for the creation of Shake N Bake. Wong came to the United States at the age of 10. He and his wife, Millie, made possible the construction of a chemistry lab at Indiana Tech as well as established the Tom and Millie Wong Scholarship Fund for students.