Fran and Eric Gebhardt, AE '90, have made a commitment to the School of Aerospace Engineering to support the Fran and Eric Gebhardt Distinguished Lecture series.  The Gebhardt Lecture Series is intended to recognize leading experts worldwide who will share their prospects and visions on how to shape aerospace education and research in the future.  The primary audience will be aerospace engineering faculty and graduate students in our School who work within and across a wide range of disciplinary areas including structures, controls, propulsion, fluid dynamics, design, and systems engineering.

Eric Gebhardt is GE Energy Vice President Thermal Engineering and Chief Technology Officer of the General Electric Company.  He is responsible for setting technology strategy for a $15B business unit, and represents GE's interest in global technology forums.  He was named to his current position in July, 2011.

Prior to his current position, Mr. Gebhardt served as Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Energy Services for GE Energy.  He led a global team of 3,500 engineers for the company's Energy Services business, a leading supplier of power generation, transmission, distribution, industrial and measurement solutions, and has provided direction for emerging energy solutions such as the Smart Grid.  He was named to this position in October, 2006 and as a Vice President in July, 2010.

Mr. Gebhardt's career with GE Energy began in 1991 when he joined the company as a field engineer where he gained experience in installation, commissioning, operation and upgrades of power plan equipment around the world.  He took this experience into Product Service where he held several roles with increasing scope of responsibility including being appointed to General Manager, Product Service in 1999.

Mr. Gebhardt has also held roles as GE Energy Services Quality Leader, General Manager of Technology for GE Energy's Optimization and Control business, where he focused on integrating and advancing the technology of six recent GE Energy acquisitions in the areas of sensors, controls, and software and as General Manager of Engineering for GE Energy's Wind business, managing key development centers in the U.S., Germany, Spain and China.

He actively speaks on energy and powering the grid and has presented at INCOSE, IEEE Power Engineering Society, the U.S. Department of Energy Wind Symposium and King Fahd University in Saudi Arabia, to name a few.