College of Engineering
4183 Bell Engineering Center
Fayetteville, AR 72701
Phone: 479-575-7780
John A. White, Jr.
2020
John A. White, Jr.
BSIE 1962
John A. White, Jr., is a 1962 industrial engineering graduate
of the U of A.
After a brief period of employment at Tennessee Eastman Company, he embarked on an
academic career as a tenure-track instructor at Virginia Tech, from which he received
his MSIE degree in 1966. From 1963-1966, he taught full time at Virginia Tech. For
the next 3.5 years, he taught at Ohio State University while pursuing his doctorate.
After completing his PhD in 1969, he returned to Virginia Tech’s faculty, where he
remained until 1974, at which time he joined the Georgia Tech faculty. He remained
on the Georgia Tech faculty until 1997, when he returned to his undergraduate alma
mater to be its chancellor. White stepped down from the chancellor position in 2018
and served as a distinguished professor in the UA industrial engineering department
until May 2019, when he retired. He continues to teach an online advanced engineering
economics course for the University of Arkansas. Except for a three-year period (1988-1991)
when he was “on loan” by Georgia Tech to the National Science Foundation to lead the
Engineering Directorate, White has taught 56.5 years and more than 4,000 engineering
students.
In addition to holding three degrees, he is the recipient of honorary doctorates from
the Katholieke Universitiet of Leuven in Belgium and George Washington University.
White is co-author of six textbooks, a handbook editor, and author of many papers.
He is currently working on a book to be published.
White is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and served on the National
Science Board. In addition, he served as president, director or chairman of many groups
and societies. Plus he was a Fellow of ASEE, INFORMS and IIE. White is included in
numerous Who’s Who listings, and ranker.com ranks him the seventh “most famous” industrial
engineer.
White has earned many awards for teaching, research, excellence, publications, administration
and more. He has been honored by being named a Distinguished Alumnus at Virginia Tech,
Ohio State and the University of Arkansas. White served as a member of the Board of
Directors for companies like J. B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc., Motorola, Inc.,
and CAPS Logistics, Inc. His industrial and consulting experience included employment
with Eastman Chemical Company, Ethyl Corporation and Rockwell, Inc. He served as a
consultant to AT&T, Briggs & Stratton, Coca-Cola, Texas Instruments, U.S. Navy and
Xerox, among others. He founded a logistics consulting firm, SysteCon, Inc., and served
as its chairman until its acquisition by Coopers & Lybrand.