Published: Feb. 19, 2024

The College of Engineering and Applied Science recognizes alumni achievements with annual awards. We are pleased to announce our 2024 recipients representing the Department of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering. 

2024 Distinguished Engineering Alumni Award (DEAA): Michael D. Fricklas (ElEngr'81)Michael Fricklas photo

  • DEAA honors graduates and friends who have distinguished themselves through outstanding personal qualities, knowledge, and significant contributions to their fields

Michael D. Fricklas became chief legal officer and secretary of Advance in April 2018. From 1993 to 2017, he was one of the top executives at Viacom, for 19 years as executive vice president, general counsel and secretary, reporting to the CEO. Fricklas received a BS in electrical engineering from the University of Colorado’s College of Engineering and Applied Science in 1981 and a JD, magna cum laude, from Boston University School of Law in 1984. Fricklas’s practice started in Silicon Valley, representing technology companies in a variety of financing transactions and in technology licensing.

Read Michael's bio

2024 Alumni Engagement Medal Award (AEM) recipient: Jonathan Haines (MElEngr'91) Jonathan Haines photo

  • The AEM recognizes highly engaged alumni who impact their areas through volunteerism and/or philanthropy. Each academic degree program and the BOLD Center is able to select one alumnus/a annually who has been significantly engaged during the previous year.

Jonathan Haines earned his BS in electrical and computer engineering at the State University of New York at Buffalo and his master’s in electrical engineering, with an emphasis in communication theory, at CU Boulder. After working as a research assistant on digital signal processing and atmospheric radar, Haines worked at a military contracting company writing software before moving to the storage industry. Other than a few years writing firmware for telecommunications, Haines has been in storage for his entire career. His technical career has included  writing software to make electrical controls and data transformations happen. He began as a firmware coder, and then revolved through firmware architecture, program management and now personnel management. The technology that Haines helped develop has helped hard disk drives continue the amazing storage density growth that so much of our world depends on. In the process, he  has authored over 50 U.S. patents. Haines feels lucky to have experienced such a rich mix of science and engineering in industry, and he is enthusiastic about sharing his experience in embedded systems engineering as he continues to work in the storage industry and recruits the next generation of storage engineers.

Read Jonathan's bio

All awardees will be honored at the Engineering Awards Banquet in April 2024.

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