UCLA Engineering: UCLA Engineer Magazine

Ensuring Support for Future Engineering Students

Michael Phelps, BS '71, MS '71

“It was easy for me to decide to make a planned gift to UCLA Engineering,” said Michael Phelps BS ’71, MS ’71. “The five years I spent at UCLA were the best years in my life, and I wanted to give back to the School.”

After reviewing his finances and trust, Phelps determined that he had enough to leave his daughter, and wondered what he could do for his alma mater. “Endowed scholarships really aren’t that expensive, and I realized I could do this,” he explained.

Now mostly retired from Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), where he worked for nearly 28 years, Phelps has a comfortable retirement package that will fund the scholarship from his estate.

After it is created, the scholarship will be available to all undergraduate students who have a good balance between academics and extracurricular activities.

“I really grew beyond being just a student when I got involved in student organizations,” said Phelps, who served was president of Tau Beta Pi, participated in SEAS Advisory Councils, and helped plan Engineers Week at UCLA.

“Getting away from the engineering books was the best thing I could have done – I gained a new perspective on things and got to know some of the professors really well.”

While at UCLA, Phelps received some financial assistance from university programs; first a small stipend as part of the departmental scholar program, and later a research fellowship through his graduate work with Stephen Jacobsen, now dean of academic student affairs.

“There have been other high points in my life – like the birth of my daughter – but for pure fun and hard work,my years at UCLA were the best,” recalled Phelps. “The rivalry between Tau Beta Pi and the Engineering Society, UC [ESUC] really stands out. Our chapter’s bent arrived while I was there, and we kept it in our office while polishing the rough cast. The ESUC guys would steal it and hide it around the engineering complex for us to find. One time, they threaded a line through a drain pipe from the roof of Engineering I and hung it half way down the side of the building, leaving us to figure a way to get it back up to the roof.”

Starting with the core engineering courses in his junior year, Phelps became part of a group of friends, known amongst themselves as the Front Four.

“Greg Rich, John Ripley,Tom Stone and I would sit in the front row of our classes – not to impress the teacher, but because it was the best place to sit. There was no one in front of us and we could see the board. However, it got Greg in hot water with Professor Viswanathan one day, when he decided to read the Daily Bruin during class.”

Phelps also formed strong ties with several of his professors. “I got to know Richard Stern, an acoustics expert, well on a personal basis. He taught me a lot about going through graduate school at UCLA. Professor Jacobsen was the type of teacher who made you think about everything you were doing. He demanded his students’ attention, and was a great teacher.”

After completing his master’s in 1971, Phelps worked at the Naval Undersea Center in San Diego as a general engineer, where he conducted research and development in anti-submarine acoustic warfare.

In 1975, he moved to Denver to join SAI (now SAIC), where he designed and programmed computer models for customers at the U.S. Department of Defense. Phelps had become an Assistant Vice President of SAIC by the time he left Denver for another position with SAIC in Washington, D.C. He was in his office inside the Pentagon when the building was struck on September 11, 2001.

The following year, Phelps took an early retirement and moved to Arizona to be closer to his daughter and granddaughter.

By establishing a new scholarship through a planned gift, he is helping inspire and support a new generation of engineering students at UCLA, and encouraging them to think outside the confines of their studies. “I hope the scholarship will provide assistance to a student each year, but also be an honor in which he or she can take pride,” Phelps added.

Planned gifts are a great way to give back to your School and support its faculty and students. If you are considering making a planned gift to help support UCLA Engineering in the future, please contact Molly Ann Mroczynski at 310-206-0681 or mollyann@support.ucla.edu.

- Marlys Amundson

Photo courtesy of Michael Phelps