Diverse Paths of Leadership and Innovation: Mitchell D. Erickson '72

Mitchell D. Erickson ’72 will be the featured speaker in the Diverse Paths of Leadership and Innovation speaker series on Friday, April 13. The event, which is free and open to the public, will start at 2 p.m. in Noyce 1023. The Donald and Winifred Wilson Center for Innovation and Leadership is sponsoring the speaker series and associated course.

Erickson facilitates U.S. Department of Homeland Security’ Science & Technology (S&T) activities with other federal, state, tribal, and territorial agencies in the Northeast (New Jersey to Maine) and Caribbean (Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands). He works with appropriate organizations in the Northeast to integrate vertically among the various organizations and horizontally across all threats. Erickson facilitates S&T projects within this region, such as field tests. He provides a conduit to subject matter experts for government homeland security agencies and first responders. He also evaluates current practices that could be improved by application of new technologies, models, systems, or approaches and where S&T can contribute to help close these homeland security gaps. Several colleagues cover other geographic and technical aspects of this interagency coordination function.

Erickson has extensive experience in management of technical organizations. From 1996-2007, he held the position of laboratory director at Environmental Measurements Laboratory (EML), U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The laboratory was in the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) until transferred by Congress when DHS was formed in 2003. Beginning in 2002, he led a complex transfer of EML from DOE to DHS, including both mission and administrative changes. As laboratory director of EML, Erickson was responsible for strategic planning, technical quality, productivity, marketing, program development, human resources, budget, and union relations. He was also responsible for management of external relationships with the nation’s homeland security community and scientific and professional relationships with numerous national and international institutions.

He holds a concurrent position as adjunct professor, Dept. of Environmental and Occupational Health, School of Public Health University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, where he teaches Public Health Preparedness I: Agents of Mass Injury or Destruction.

Erickson has been responsible for management of research programs. As associate director of Argonne National Laboratory’s Applied Research and Development Program Office, he co-directed a team that managed a $40M environmental technology development program. He has also been principal investigator on projects ranging up to several million dollars and dozens of staff.

Erickson’s research in environmental science and analytical chemistry has developed novel technologies, identified sources and fates of pollutants, investigated chemical reaction conditions, and produced analytical methods. His research has historically emphasized multidisciplinary projects and tends toward more applied research. Erickson’s expertise in persistent organic pollutants is sought in a consulting capacity, specifically in the areas of sampling, analysis, presence, partition, and transport in environmental, biological, industrial product, and human matrices. Chemicals of interest include polych-lorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDDs), and polychlorinated dibenzofu-rans (PCDFs). In 1996 Erickson received R&D-100 Award and later a “Top 40” Award for one of the 40 best R&D-100 Awards for the forty years of the awards program and a Federal Laboratory Council Award for Excellence in Technology Transfer.

Erickson received a doctorate in chemistry from the University of Iowa in 1976. He has published two books — Analytical Chemistry of PCBs, (1st and 2nd editions) and Remediation of PCB Spills. Erickson holds one patent. He is the author of over 150 technical publications and has given over 170 technical presentations.