Interim Engineering Dean George Burnet will be retiring Sunday after 40 years of service at Iowa State.

Before he was named interim dean, Burnet served as associate dean for outreach and external affairs from 1973 to 1994. David Kao, who worked with Burnet as engineering dean, said that he was “outstanding, very thorough.”

“Burnet took leadership, planned, and developed the engineering extension program,” said Kao. “He understands the importance of integrating engineering education, extension and research, and developed a program to complement all three.”

Burnet was also the head of the chemical engineering department from 1961 to 1973. “Having the opportunity to recruit faculty was something that gave me a great deal of satisfaction,” Burnet said.

He said he looked for people who were technically superior and who really wanted to teach. “I was recruiting for 17 years, and the department grew rapidly during those years,” Burnet said “so I had a lot of opportunities.”

His career has also extended to teaching outside the United States. “I have been most active in India, Japan, Algeria and Mexico,” Burnet said, “and I mostly talk about engineering education.”

Burnet also said that his talks recently have mostly been on resource recovery. He was involved in the development of the Ames lime-soda sinter process. “It recovers minerals from solid wastes, particularly coal ash,” he said.

This process can be used to recover 30 to 35 percent of alumina, Burnet said. “The U.S. has almost no aluminum ore,” he said, “almost 93 percent of the aluminum ore we use is imported from Malaysia, Australia and Canada. This process will allow the U.S. to produce aluminum indigenously,” he said.

He was also recently appointed an Associate at the Ames Laboratory. “This will allow me to continue working with them,” Burnet said.

Burnet joined Iowa State in 1956, and has stayed since then because he “found it professionally very rewarding. Teaching is in my blood I guess,” said Burnet.

Though he is retiring, Burnet will still unofficially be team-teaching with colleagues Tom Wheelock and John Patterson next fall. They will be teaching a graduate course on the proper use of coal.

“We have been teaching it for some time now,” Wheelock said, “It has been a successful partnership.”

Burnet will also be getting married next month. With all these changes, Burnet says that it will “both be an end and a new beginning.”

The next Dean of Engineering will be John Melsa, who will assume the position on July 1.