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Show Engineering center taps Bountifiilite ill j w A iAl I John C. Laing, a resident of Bountiful for the past 17 years, has been appointed manager of the Advanced Combustion Engineering Engineer-ing Research Center (ACERC) at Brigham Young University. L. Douglas Smoot, dean of the College of Engineering and Technology Tech-nology at BYU, said the appointment appoint-ment became effective May 1. ACERC is one of 13 centers funded by the National Science Foundation to boost U.S. knowledge know-ledge in engineering. It was established estab-lished in 1986 as a joint BYU-University BYU-University of Utah project with a five-year grant of $9.7 million from the NSF. Laing is responsible for admins-tering admins-tering ACERC's NSF grant along with a similar amount of funding from BYU, the U of U, the State of Utah and private industry. He also hosts visitors to ACERC, organizes orga-nizes conferences and industrial review meetings acts as a liaison with industrial associates, procures pro-cures computer and scientific equipment, oversees publications, and manages the administrative office and staff. ACERC is the only NSF-supported NSF-supported combustion research center in the nation. Its purpose, according to Smoot, is to develop and implement in U.S. industry advanced computer-aided design methods for combustion systems. The focus of its research is on clean and efficient use of low-grade fuels such as coal. In March, the center moved into new facilities in the basement of the Crabtree Technology Building, which houses the administrative offices and the Combustion Computations Com-putations Laboratory, featuring the Convex CI Mini Supercomputer, Supercompu-ter, one of the most powerful computers com-puters in Utah. Laing joined the BYU staff last September as administrative assistant assis-tant in the newly organized research re-search center. He earned his bachelor's degree in genealogy JOHN C. LAING technology with minors in German and Latin at BYU in 1971. He has completed all the course work for a master's degree in classical languages lan-guages and is now writing the thesis. From 1971 to 1984 he was a regional re-gional manager for field operations and micrographics with the Genealogical Department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Latter-day Saints. In that position, he negotiated with government officials offi-cials and managed the church's records-gathering program in several parts of the world. Before going to BYU, he was administrative vice president of Chroma International, a franchiser of personal appearance consulting systems. He is married to Susan Tate, formerly for-merly of Provo and they have three children. While in Bountiful he served as Elders quorum president in the Orchard 12th Ward of the LDS Church and as a stake missionary. mis-sionary. He served a mission to southern Germany. The Laings now live in Orem. |