Howell E. Adams, Jr., retired owner and chief executive officer of The Georgia Trane Companies, has been selected to receive the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the Vanderbilt University School of Engineering.

The presentation will be made Friday, Feb. 28, at the School of Engineering’s annual Leadership Dinner at the Vanderbilt Marriott Hotel.

Adams graduated from the School of Engineering in 1953 with a degree in civil engineering. After serving as an officer in the U.S. Navy Seabees Civil Engineer Corps, he worked with Westinghouse until joining the Trane company in 1960. At Trane, a manufacturer of heating and cooling equipment, he served as sales engineer, dealer, sales manager, general manager and finally Georgia franchise owner and CEO. He retired in 2000.

The School of Engineering Distinguished Alumnus Award recognizes distinguished achievement, significant service, excellent character and a reputation that reflects well on the engineering profession and Vanderbilt. The honoree is chosen from nominations submitted by the Engineering Alumni Council and the faculty of the School of Engineering.

“ Howell Adams is one of Vanderbilt School of Engineering’s strongest and most tireless supporters,” says Dean Kenneth F. Galloway. “His generous contributions and unflagging enthusiasm for the school have fueled our progress in numerous ways.”

Adams’ support of the School of Engineering began in 1968, when he joined his brother Thomas E. Adams and sister Dabney Adams Hart in establishing the Crenshaw W. and Howell E. Adams Sr. Memorial Scholarship, in memory of their parents. The scholarship is awarded to selected undergraduates of the School of Engineering on the basis of merit.

An active participant in University activities ranging from chairing Reunion to helping fund a Chancellor’s Chair in the Department of Medicine, Adams and his wife, Madeline, were instrumental in the recent School of Engineering building campaign. The new building’s three-story atrium was named after the Adams family and was dedicated to the memory of Adam Gillespie Adams, Jr. and his seven sons, all of whom attended Vanderbilt. Members of five generations of the Adams family have attended Vanderbilt, with the 75th family member currently attending the School of Engineering.

The son of a Vanderbilt engineer and the father of two Vanderbilt engineers, Howell Adams has served as a member of the Engineering Alumni Council and is a long-term member of the school’s Lewis Society.

He and his wife, a 1956 Vanderbilt graduate, also donated to the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority building fund to memorialize their late daughter, Madeline, whose career in Vanderbilt was cut short by leukemia.

A native of Atlanta, he is widely acknowledged for his civic contributions. He is a director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Columbia Theological Seminary, and the Atlanta Boy Scouts.

Posted 2/27/03 at 10 a.m.