Cal Poly Update | April 2007 | CAED Professors Lauded

Professors Receive Awards

SAN LUIS OBISPO – Two professors have received professional awards: Environmental Engineering Professor Emeritus Harold Cota and Architecture Professor Allan Cooper.

Professor Emeritus Harold Cota will receive the Charles W. Gruber Association Leadership Award during a ceremony on June 28 for outstanding service to the Air & Waste Management Association.

The award was established by the A&WMA Board of Directors in 2003. It recognizes an individual who has contributed to the A&WMA in leadership positions at national, international, and local levels.

“Hal Cota has been an active member of the A&WMA for 38 years and has provided outstanding service to the association at all levels,” said Cota's peers, who nominated him for the award.

Most notably, Cota has been an inspiration to hundreds of Cal Poly Environmental Engineering students who have joined the profession, many of them continuing as A&WMA members.

“The West Coast Section has found that his steadfast support of the student chapter at Cal Poly and the entire WCS student/scholarship program has been a major key to our success,” said Sara J. Head, regional program manager and director of the West Coast Section for A&WMA.

Under Cota's leadership, the Cal Poly Chapter of A&WMA has received the award for the category of Best Student Chapter (Midsize University) consecutively for the past six years.

Allan Cooper, a professor of architecture in Cal Poly's College of Architecture and Environmental Design, has received the 2006 Octavius Morgan Distinguished Service Award.

Each year, the California Architects Board presents the award to volunteers for their contribution to the profession and the people of California.

Cooper, a professor of Architecture at Cal Poly since 1975, was honored in early February at a ceremony in San Francisco for his years of service to the board and its committees, including the Professional Qualifications Committee and the IDP Development Committee. The board, a division of the Department of Consumer Affairs, is responsible for regulating and licensing architects practicing in California.

Cooper received his Bachelor of Architecture from Rice University and his Master of Architecture in Urban Design from Cornell University. He has served as a commissioner and master commissioner for the California Architects Board for more than 21 years.

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