Dr. Mary Good, dean of UALR’s Donaghey College of Engineering and Information Technology, is one of six safety and quality experts named to a new independent board to advise Toyota’s North American affiliates on quality and safety issues.

Good’s selection was announced Thursday by former U.S. Secretary of Transportation Rodney E. Slater, named in March to lead the new panel.

UALR’s Dean Mary Good is a nationally-recognized leader in technology, and Toyota will benefit immediately from her considerable knowledge,” said UALR Chancellor Joel E. Anderson. “Like the students, faculty, and staff of UALR, Toyota customers will discover the advantages that come from Dean Good’s indefatigable drive for progress and excellence.”

Good, former president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, will be joined on the panel by Roger Martin, dean of the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management; Brian O’Neill, former president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety; MIT Professor Sheila Widnall, former secretary of the Air Force; Norman Augustine, former chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin Corp.; and Patricia Goldman, former vice-chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board.

Panel members and Slater will have unfettered access to information concerning Toyota’s quality and safety procedures and direct communication with Toyota Motor Corp. President Akio Toyoda as well as with the newly-formed Special Committee for Global Quality, led by Toyoda. The panel will also be able to commission additional outside reviews and will have the resources necessary to pursue its mandate.

Good, the founding dean of the 10-year-old Donaghey College and former member on the Acxiom Board of Directors, received the 2004 Vannevar Bush Award, the National Science Foundation’s highest honor. She also was the first female winner of the AAAS’s prestigious Philip Hogue Abelson prize for outstanding achievements in education, research and development management.

Two of her more than 27 awards include the National Science Foundation Distinguished Service medal and the esteemed American Chemical Society Priestly Medal. She is also the 6th Annual Heinz Award Winner.

During the terms of Presidents Carter and Reagan, Good served on the National Science Board and chaired it from 1988-1991. She was the Undersecretary for Technology in the U.S. Department of Commerce and Technology during President Clinton’s first term. This agency assists American industry to advance productivity, technology, and innovation in order to make U.S. companies more competitive in the global market.

She joined UALR to build from the ground up a college of engineering for the 21^st Century. Her reputation in science circles has drawn top-flight faculty to UALR from across the world, including professors who gained their doctoral degrees from MIT, Princeton, Yale, Rice, Renssalear Polytechnic University, Georgia Tech, Purdue, Tulane, University of Texas, and Texas A&M.

“The idea of putting together a college of engineering for the 21^st century appealed to her. And that’s what she’s done. She took those embryonic ideas we sketched out and made them reality,” said Chancellor Emeritus Charles Hathaway.

In May, the Donaghey College will open its second decade in a new $34 million, 115,000 square-foot building. The entire fourth floor and half of the sixth floor are designed as research space for graduate students and faculty. A high-performance computing center will have the capacity to grow six times larger than the current center.