Dr. John W. Nazemetz, the longest-serving faculty member in the history of the OSU School of IEM, retired in 2017 after a stellar 39-year career. After joining IEM in 1978, soon after completing his dissertation at Lehigh University, Dr. Nazemetz enjoyed a successful career contributing to the building of the skill sets of many generations of OSU students.
He taught numerous courses at Oklahoma State University and is most remembered by alumni for his effective teaching of the Introduction to Industrial Engineering, Project Management, Manufacturing Processes, Manufacturing Systems, Robotics, and the Senior Design courses. He was an early advocate of on-line learning and delivered one of the first satellite-delivered courses offered by OSU. His courses set aspirational performance goals and enabled students to acquire hands-on, real-world based experiences and assess their mastery of the topics. He provided abundant feedback on assignments in an effort to enable each student to enhance both their technical and presentation skills. Over the years, his Masters and Senior Design students executed over 250 industrial projects at a broad range of manufacturing and service organizations and a majority of his Ph.D. students have gone on to become Deans at their respective universities. Students appreciate the knowledge and skills they gained and were able to apply after their graduation.
Dr. Nazemetz was also active in research and service throughout his career. Over his career, he and his students successfully executed nearly $7 million in research contracts and, along with the Deans of Engineering at the University of Oklahoma and Tulsa University, he administered the $3 million Center for Aerospace Systems Infrastructure (CASI) programs that assisted Tinker Air Force Base and the Aerospace industries of Oklahoma. He organized the program for the first American Institute of Industrial Engineers (AIIE) international research conference and was later named "Outstanding Young Industrial Engineer of the Year" by that organization. He served on many University committees and served as Chair of the College and University Faculty Councils. He has co-authored and co-edited three books, was the Associate Editor of the Computers and Industrial Engineering: An International Journal, published by Pergamon Press and edited an ISO standard. In addition, Dr. Nazemetz has delivered many seminars on robotics and automation, trained instructors for Project Lead the Way - the high school pre-engineering curricula established to help address the national engineering shortage, and published numerous refereed journal and conference proceedings papers. He has served as a member and chair on the boards of the Stillwater Sheltered Workshop and Judith Karman Hospice and currently is an active volunteer, building houses with the Stillwater Habitat for Humanity.
