In the history of the University of Arizona College of Engineering, Swalin stands astride two very different centuries. He was appointed dean of the UA College of Mines in 1985 as the UA looked back on its first 100 years and pondered its next 100: “Between two worlds, one dead, one struggling to be born,” as James P. McCormick paraphrased in his centennial history of UA Engineering, Rah for the Engineers! A Century of Change.

Dick Swalin

Swalin proved more than equal to the task of guiding UA Engineering into its second century. He successfully reunited the College of Engineering and the College of Mines, and in his contribution to McCormick’s book he identified nascent technologies that would come to form major planks of the College of Engineering’s research portfolio 40 years later: microelectronics, artificial intelligence, superceramics, advanced manufacturing, and biotechnology.

“Society will benefit greatly by such developments,” Swalin wrote. “With continued investment, Arizona will be in a good position to attract and develop these new high technology industries.”

Swalin was born in Minneapolis and attended the University of Minnesota, where he earned a BS in metallurgy in 1951 and a PhD in metallurgical and electrical engineering in 1954.

He joined UMN’s metallurgy department as assistant professor in 1955, and by 1963 was head of the newly established School of Mineral and Metallurgical Engineering. He became associate dean of the UNM Institute of Technology (now the College of Science and Engineering) in 1968, and dean in 1971.

“His academic reputation was established while he was professor of metallurgy at the University of Minnesota,” said Dave Poirier, UA professor of materials science and engineering. “During this period he wrote an outstanding book, Thermodynamics of Solids.” The book was published in the acclaimed Wiley series on the science and technology of materials. “The authors of books in this series are all historical figures in materials,” Poirier said.

Swalin left academia in 1977 to join Electra Corp. as vice president of technology. The company was merged with Allied Corp. in 1980, when he was named vice president of research and technology for both companies. He returned to academia in 1985, serving as dean of the UA College of Engineering and Mines before becoming professor emeritus of materials science engineering.

When Swalin spearheaded the reunification of the College of Mines and the College of Engineering, “he weathered incredible pressure and dire warnings that merging the colleges would be a disaster,” said Jeff Goldberg, dean of the College of Engineering. “The reality is that by uniting the College of Engineering and Mines he put us on the path to interdisciplinary research, a concept that in 1985 was a decade ahead of its time.”

Swalin loved dogs, the outdoors, sailing and fishing. He was an avid skier, and was inducted into the Million Mile Club in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He was also a member of the Minneapolis Club and Phi Delta Theta.

“Dick Swalin was an individual of warm humanity and great accomplishment,” said Don Uhlmann, UA professor of materials science and engineering. “Among his many attractive characteristics were his keen intelligence, the breadth of his knowledge and interests in matters both technical and nontechnical, his ability to get to the heart of matters even through a fog of detritus, the sagacity of his counsel, his outstanding organizational ability, his extraordinary perspective, the wealth of his experience across many fronts, and his devotion as a husband and father.”

Uhlmann was an MIT professor for more than 20 years before Swalin encouraged him to join the University of Arizona as chairman of the department of materials science and engineering.

“When he stepped down as dean, he took a position as professor in our department,” Uhlmann said. “This was a real loss for the College but a great boon for us. He put together courses on entrepreneurship and technology forecasting that were gems.”

Swalin was a visionary academic leader who looked 50 years into the future and saw clearly the direction the College needed to go. He advocated technology commercialization in critical research areas, and his legacy is easy to see among the College’s many successful research programs and high-tech start-ups.

Memorial donations may be made to the University of Arizona Faculty Women’s Club Helen Swalin Scholarship Fund.

Deans Dick Swalin, left, and Richard Gallagher, whom Swalin succeeded as dean of the UA College of Engineering.