Principled Productivity (PDF)

Dr. Gerald J. Watson, Jr. earned B.S. and M.S. degrees in Industrial Management from the Georgia Institute of Technology, was commissioned and spent two years in the U.S. Army with the last tour in Vietnam. He returned to school to earn a Ph.D. degree in Industrial Engineering from North Carolina A&T State University in 2009 after working as a manufacturing engineer/manager and safety manager for various companies and consultant for over thirty years. His teaching experience includes the community college and the university level for over twenty years. He retired from the Department of Applied Engineering Technology at North Carolina A&T State University in 2019. He is the author of two books; Critical Thinking: Learning from Mistakes, How to Prevent Them and Integration of Methods Improvement and Measurement into Industrial Engineering Functions. He also co-authored a text with a former colleague at NC A&T, Dr. Aixi Chout, Applied Engineering Design and ten papers at various conference proceedings. His research interests include the reshoring of manufacturing and the application of the sub-optimal theory of Dr. John Nash of Princeton to real world applications.

Jesse Derouin (Illustrator) has worked for over ten years accumulating valuable industry experience. Jesse has had the benefit of having worked in several capacities gaining an understanding of how to successfully combine people, equipment, and processes to create favorable outcomes. As an adult returning student, he set about achieving an undergraduate degree in engineering, where he met Dr. Watson. He is now a graduate student studying for his advanced engineering degree in sustainable design.