The Outstanding Engineer Award is designed to recognize members of IEEE Region 4 who have made outstanding contributions to their profession through their technical abilities. IEEE, which has close to 300 local sections, is organized into regions to administrate and facilitate services to its members. Within the US, there are six Regions and the Southeastern Michigan (SEM) Section is one of 30 sections belonging to Region 4. Region 4 encompasses 10 states of the Midwest including Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Nebraska. David A. Horvath, PE was awarded the IEEE Region 4 Outstanding Engineer Award for invaluable contributions and achievements in the areas of power production, aging assessment and management approaches, information management improvement, standards activities, and local section support. He has over 25 years of experience in the areas of research, engineering consulting, design, and project management and has authored or supervised the preparation of over 50 publications, major technical analyses, and engineering reports. In recent years, his technical contributions have been in five important but diverse areas. He has:

• Developed an innovative approach for determining remaining life in electrical cable insulation resulting in two patent applications. It is widely accepted that one of the most potentially limiting roadblocks to achieving life extension in electric power plants (as well as in other facilities) is the inherent difficulty in predicting residual useful life of electric insulation.
• Assisted Professor Terry Kammash of the University of Michigan's to further refine Dr. Kammash's gas dynamic mirror rocket propulsion system concept. This concept is one of only a few considered viable and achievable in the near term as a means for deep space exploration (including a manned mission to Mars).
• Completed participation in and management of a major information management improvement project for an electric utility client. This project emphasized the importance of controlling and tracking design basis requirements. Extensive cost savings as well as improved regulatory compliance is anticipated to result from this project for Advent's client.
• Supervised and guided the successful completion of a major reanalysis of a client's power plant cooling system in a way which both improved and redefined margin availability.
• Chaired two IEEE standard working groups which revised and vastly improved the usability of standards IEEE 692 (Security Systems) and IEEE 1205 (Aging Assessments). Mr. Horvath is part-owner and President of Advent Engineering Services, Inc. In this role, he serves the industry as Principal Consultant, Project Manager, and Research Investigator. Mr. Horvath received his BSEE from West Virginia University in 1972 and an MSE in Nuclear Engineering and an MSE in Electrical and Computer Engineering both from the University of Michigan in 1979 and 1981. He is a past Chair of the IEEE SEM Section and has previously chaired the local section and local chapter of the American Nuclear Society and Michigan Society of Professional Engineers, respectively. He is a registered professional engineer in six states as well as a certified energy auditor technical analyst.