Above: Patrick Gardner, principal scientist for WCU's Center for Rapid Product Realization, adjusts the cameras and plate on a three-dimensional imaging system.

Patrick Gardner, a former U.S. Air Force engineer, has joined Western Carolina University’s Center for Rapid Product Realization as principal scientist.

Gardner is the first person to hold this new position. His responsibilities include identifying outside funding and developing new technology, then matching technologies with businesses best able to capitalize on any related commercial potential.

Housed in the Kimmel School of Construction Management and Technology, the Center for Rapid Product Realization is focused on education and applied research. The center’s mission is to serve Western North Carolina by forming effective partnerships to grow the region’s economy, assisting in generating value-creating jobs and improving quality of life for the region’s residents.

Gardner’s depth made him a natural for the position, said Phillip Sanger, director of the center. “His knowledge of technology, as well as his ability to deal with the business end of a new product, make him the perfect fit for this job,” Sanger said. “He brings to the job a wealth of experience.”

Gardner holds doctorate and master’s degrees in electrical engineering from the Air Force Institute of Technology, both with a heavy emphasis on physics. He retired from the Air Force as a lieutenant colonel after 25 years of active-duty service, where his responsibilities included research, development, acquisition and testing of aircraft control systems, munitions guidance, electro-optical sensors and chemical, biological, radiological and explosives detectors.

In 2003, he joined the General Dynamics Corp. as chief scientist for detection and countermeasures. There he directed a team of chemists, biologists and engineers in the development of chemical, biological and explosive systems, as well as infrared threat detection and counterexplosives. Gardner, who also holds the position of associate professor of electrical engineering in the Kimmel School’s department of engineering and technology, started his work at Western in the fall.

One of Gardner’s first projects is refining a process that uses three-dimensional technology to scan feet and create models as part of an overall plan to create orthopedic inserts for people with podiatric trouble, such as individuals who have diabetes or foot and ankle problems. While orthotics are not new, the method is. Gardner is conducting the project with a $10,000 grant he received from the Carolina Photonics Consortium. Gardner said he will attempt to transition the process to podiatry and orthopedic clinics.

“It’s not a huge project but I think it has some huge potential for the region,” he said.

Gardner, who said he is “thrilled to be in academics,” has past school affiliations including teaching and advising at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, as well as serving on the Optoelectronics Center board of advisers; serving on the Central Piedmont Community College advisory board for engineering technology; teaching at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Saint Leo University and the Air Force Institute of Technology; and advising the University of Dayton’s graduate program in laser radar technology.

He is widely published and founded the Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and Explosives Sensing Conference, part of the annual International Society of Optical Engineering Defense and Security Symposium, which draws more than 6,000 international attendees. In 2003, he won an adjunct professor of the year award at Embry-Riddle’s Tampa Center.

Gardner and his wife, Katerina, moved to the area from Charlotte. The couple has five grown children and two grandchildren.

For more information about the Center for Rapid Product Realization, contact Phillip Sanger at (828) 227-2435 or sanger@email.wcu.edu.

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Last Modified: Thursday, Jan. 24, 2008