ECE Hall of Fame: Brian Manhire

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Manhire

Distinguished alumnus Brian Manhire earned his BSEE/MSEE in 1972 and his PhD in 1980 from The Ohio State University. He specialized in
Electrical engineering and Electric power systems.

Manhire's career and life were spent pursuing a balance of academia and music. Before his passing in 2020, he served as an Electrical Engineer for the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), 1972 to 1976, and went on to become a Professor at Ohio University from 1976 to 2007. He was designated as Professor Emeritus, Ohio University, since 2007.

The distinguished alumnus became respected for his work at TVA developing a new probabilistic simulation technique for multiple energy storage devices for electric utility generation system expansion planning models. This project was his PhD dissertation at Ohio State as well.

At Ohio University, Manhire had engineering and educational projects related to power system loss calculations, economic dispatch models, three-phase reactive power analysis, and simulation techniques. The educational projects were related to engineering higher education systems in various countries, academic standards, ethics, degree completion time analysis, and most importantly, a series of studies and analysis of the grade inflation in engineering education, including its causes, consequences, as well as remedies to be introduced for counteracting it.
            
Manhire received several teaching awards from Ohio University, and was invited as Visiting Professor in South Africa and in Australia, and taught in Malaysia and Thailand as well.

The alumnus was an IEEE Region 10 Distinguished Lecturer in Australia, India, Indonesia, New Zealand and Singapore, and gave seminars to electric power industry engineers in Yugoslavia (JUGEL) and at the University of London. He was a consultant in Malaysia for the Asian Development Bank and the International Atomic Energy Agency of the United Nations, and in Pakistan, for the U.S. Information Agency.
            
Throughout all his academic achievements, Manhire was an accomplished and talented classical and bass guitar player. He played music for 50 years, solo and in groups.