Engineering Alumnus Spurs Research at UWM

Engineering alumnus Richard (Dick) Grigg ’70, ’75, ’04 devoted his career to the creation and distribution of energy, and now his legacy gift is propelling energy research at UWM. Dick and his wife, Joanne, gave the UWM Foundation $2 million through the proceeds of their life insurance policy to fulfill the greatest needs of UWM’s College of Engineering & Applied Science. The funds are being used to support faculty, students and research through a named professorship, scholarships and a research stimulus program.

Professor Adel Nasiri became the inaugural holder of the Richard and Joanne Grigg Professorship in January of 2020. The professorship supports Nasiri’s research on sustainable energy systems. This timely research addresses the rapidly changing needs of society as we continue to use more and more electricity to power cars, trains, machines and more.

“I am proud to be the Richard and Joanne Grigg Professor,” Nasiri says. “This gift will help me explore how we can benefit from medium electrical voltage. Today we are primarily limited to low voltage, but to meet the energy needs of the future, industry will need medium voltage, which significantly increases power levels and converts energy at a higher rate.”

Last year, the Grigg gift funded a stimulus program that advanced the research of 10 faculty members. These projects ranged from 3D vision artificial intelligence inference systems to data-driven analysis of wound healing.

Additionally, the college will use a portion of the Grigg gift to award scholarships and fellowships to undergraduate and graduate engineering students beginning in the 2020-21 academic year.

“I am so grateful to Dick and Joanne for the incredible foresight they showed in making this generous gift,” Dean Brett Peters says. “By making it unrestricted, they allowed the college to tailor their gift’s use to best meet our needs. The impact of their generosity will serve as a long-lasting tribute to Dick and Joanne’s commitment to UWM and the college.”

After earning his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in engineering from UWM, Dick went on to become the president and CEO of We Generation, the electric generation arm of We Energies. In 2004, he joined FirstEnergy Corp., an Akron, Ohio-based power company, where he retired as executive vice president and president of FirstEnergy Utilities in 2010.

During his career, Dick became an expert on traditional generation and transmission of electricity. As his career advanced, he fully embraced new technologies, including clean-power generation, renewable fuels, energy efficiency and improved productivity. Energy, he believed, offered one of the most important career opportunities for engineering students.

Dick was awarded an honorary doctorate from UWM in 2004 and received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the UWM Alumni Association in 1998. A devoted alumnus, he served on the Industrial Liaison Council for the College of Engineering & Applied Science for many years.

Dick and Joanne died in 2018 and 2016, respectively.

To learn more about gift planning as a way to ensure the future of programs close to your heart, please contact Gretchen E. Miller, J.D. at gemiller@uwm.edu or (414) 229-3067.