When Ann Batchelor was a freshly accredited raw materials chemist, the discipline of systems engineering was still new to academia. She played no small part in its establishment, eventually becoming one of the first faculty members of the Colorado State University Department of Systems Engineering. She retired December 14, with 47 years of experience.
As a highly accomplished systems engineer, Batchelor was instrumental in bringing an industry-focused perspective to CSU. She helped establish the Doctorate of Engineering in Systems Engineering degree program. This program provides career-focused students an opportunity to gain a terminal doctoral degree better suited for industry jobs outside of academia.
“I just want to teach students what I wish I had known,” she said. “I think I would have done a lot of things differently if I’d had the knowledge that I share with my students now. And I think that it makes them more comfortable in their jobs to have knowledge.”
An expert in designing signature management systems, Batchelor has a storied career in industry. In 2004, as technical lead, she helped BAE Systems North America land a $252 million U.S. Department of Defense contract for an ultra-light camouflage netting system. Previously, she held various influential roles where she used biochemistry and systems engineering to advance object sensing and sensor avoidance technology.
Her primary work focused on hiding sensitive objects from multispectral visual, infrared, near-infrared, thermal, and radar detection.
With a brother in the Navy, Batchelor wanted to help keep servicemembers safe. Through her work on classified engineering projects, she was elected as a Fellow with the Military Sensing Symposium. To become a MSS Fellow, candidates must have made “outstanding contribution to the military sensing profession,” according to the MSS.
“I used to tell people we were trying to make something the size of an elephant look like a mouse,” she said. “Different sensors can see using various wavelengths in the entire electromagnetic spectrum, so our job was to make a product that would be hidden to as many sensors as possible.”
Batchelor also worked with others to design thermal sensors that could spot things hidden with camouflage material, always working to keep sensor-avoidance technology a step ahead.
Once she had made her contributions in industry, she decided to pay it forward by helping Georgia Tech and later Colorado State University establish graduate programs in systems engineering.
Former NASA astronaut Ron Sega founded CSU’s SE programs in 2007, which became a full department in 2019. Batchelor joined this effort in 2008 through CSU Ventures, now known as CSU STRATA. She became the assistant director of SE programs and a faculty member in 2013.
“Ann is a brilliant systems engineer who brought a crucial industry perspective to our program,” Sega said. “She was instrumental in making graduate education accessible and relevant to working engineers globally. I am proud to have worked with her.”
The unusual path of an original systems engineer
Batchelor didn’t start her career intending to be a systems engineer.
In the mid 1970s, Batchelor worked at the Greenville Zoo in Greenville, South Carolina, where she conducted environmental testing of air, waste, stream and drinking water. Her master’s, from Clemson University, was in nutrition with coursework in biochemistry and physiology.
“They taught us absolutely nothing about food nutrition; it was about how the body processed individual chemicals,” she said. “Biochem was still a pretty new field back then.”
She later became a technical manager who coordinated engineering operations. Interested in having more influence on financial decisions, she left the technical side of business to become a director and associate director at several organizations.
“We systems engineers come out of a lot of places as we gain experience doing different things,” she said. “I like to see something tangible come of what I do, and that’s one reason I like this field so much.”
A woman in engineering
Batchelor was one of very few women working in her industry, resulting in a lifetime of challenges, learning, and opportunities.
“There certainly was some prejudice, but I decided early in my career that people who felt that way, it would stay with them. The problem was theirs, not mine,” she said. “I chose to very clearly react exactly the way I wanted to, and coming to that decision was a big turning point for me.”
She occasionally found it necessary to call out problematic behavior and prejudicial thinking, but ultimately, she was grateful for the support she received through her career from both men and women.
“It’s important that people understand that both men and women can think systemically, and both can and should think relationally also,” she said. “The engineers of today need both skillsets.”
She gives thanks to her husband Steve, Ed Katkic, Richard Thompson, David Schoeneman, Gary Caille, John Meadors, Mark Wdowik, Sega, Don Radford, Thomas Bradley (SE Department Head), and many others who mentored her throughout her career.
“It was a team effort in many ways,” she said.
Reluctant retiree, always thinking, always learning
Batchelor worked her whole life. She recalled helping her dad work on a small airplane as a child. She’s always felt the need to learn more as she witnessed some of history’s most significant technological advancements. From the advent of sensors that could warn drivers of worn-out brakes to using computers in the workplace.
Because of what she’s witnessed, Batchelor said it’s important to embrace collaborative digital engineering, something that requires constant learning from a systems engineering perspective. Digital tools must be more than just repositories of information, but rather used actively to improve engineering and to free up intellectual capital.
She also said it’s important to pay attention to the complex consequences of our technological advancement. She used plastic as an example.
“I was there almost at the beginning of plastic, and I thought it was great like most of us back then,” she said. “We knew there was a risk, but now that we have the ability to measure more things, we know that we probably underestimated that risk. So, I’d like to study how better to prevent cancers associated with environmental factors like plastic.”
Retirement is unlikely to stop Batchelor from her commitment to lifelong learning.
“I think that’s one thing that I really enjoy and that’s what drives me, is learning, and in seeing something come out of what I’ve learned.”
