But Michael Kotzalas
knew he was going
to be an engineer.
This dedication culminated
in his being
named Outstanding
Young Engineer in Off-
Highway Industry of
2007 by the Society of
Automobile Engineers
(SAE).
Kotzalas, 34, earned
the award by getting
two U.S. patents
for cylindrical roller
bearing designs. He
also coauthored the
fifth edition of Rolling
Bearing Analysis (CRC
Press, New York, 2006),
an encyclopedic, twotext
engineering reference
widely regarded
as the industry standard.
Kotzalas has also
published nine papers in peer-reviewed
journals and four papers
in conference proceedings.
He has received the American
Society of Mechanical Engineers
(ASME) Tribology Division’s Best
Paper Award and twice won the
Society of Tribologists and Lubrication
Engineers’ (STLE) Hodson
Award.
Currently, Kotzalas is a technical
group leader for The Timken
Co., Canton, Ohio., where he is
responsible for the application
and design engineering of offhighway
and marine power-transmission
for the company’s global
customer base. Prior to working
at Timken, he was a research assistant
at the Applied Research
Laboratory for The Pennsylvania
State University.
Kotzalas credits family, teachers,
and colleagues for his success.
Mike grew up in Pittsburgh,
where he was raised on football
and family traditions. His father
and grandfather, both engineers,
immigrated to the U.S. from
Greece. His father, Nick, worked
on government-classified projects
at the Westinghouse nuclear
lab. And although he couldn’t discuss
his work, he did bring home
trade journals, including Machine
Design, to share with his children.
“I used to read them as a kid,”
says Kotzalas. “It just seemed
natural; I don’t think [becoming
an engineer] was ever a choice I
needed to make.” His sister, Margaret,
became a nuclear engineer
like her father. She works for the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission
in Washington, D.C.
Kotzalas earned his bachelor’s, masters, and doctorate
degrees in mechanical engineering from Penn
State, where he met Ted Harris, a professor specializing
in bearings. Mike had wanted to specialize in
vibration and noise reduction, but bearings was one
of the few research projects with available funding.
So, with encouragement from Harris, Mike got a
Ph.D. in bearing technology.
He joined Timken as a product development engineer
in 1999; but he hadn’t seen the last of his mentor.
Harris, retiring after 30 years in the industry,
asked the young engineer to coauthor Rolling Bearing
Analysis. With Kotzalas on board, what had been
a single text grew to two volumes, Essential Concepts
of Bearing Technology and Advanced Concepts of
Bearing Technology.
Between his children’s T-ball games, Mike delves
into issues such as developing precise models for
bearing wear in wind turbines. His activities let him
keep current and provide insights that help improve
the performance and safe operation of virtually every
kind of moving apparatus.
“If you ask me what I like to do when I’m away
from work, my answer, aside from being with my
family, has to be ‘more work,’” Mike says with a
smile.
Nominations for the award are usually made
by employers or peers. Nominees must be under
37 years old or have worked in the industry less
than 10 years. The winner receives a certificate and
a $500 honorarium.