Ed Grady is a doer! Since his graduation from the SIUE School of Engineering in 1972, he has been on a path of success which has taken him from his first job in East St. Louis, through a growing and diverse career with Monsanto, to becoming what he calls “part of the explosion” in Silicon Valley, where his expertise led companies like Hoya Micro Mask, WIG and KLA-Tenor to corporate growth measured in billions of dollars. He has been a key player in product development and corporate turnaround across the globe as President and CEO of Brooks Automation. Now retired, he serves on the Board of Directors of several public and private firms. The native of Alton, Ill., got his start on the campus of our, then young, alma mater.
eConnection: What brought you to SIUE?
Ed: The short story is I was drafted. I was attending Bradley University in automotive engineering and switched to mechanical engineering my freshman year. At that time, if you were behind in any credits you were reclassified One-A. I lived in Alton. So I moved back home while I waited for my induction. I went to my induction physical but didn’t pass. So I ended up coming back and finishing up at SIUE. I think at that time I was struggling with the question, what do I want to do when I grow up? I liked mechanical things. I worked on cars as a kid. I made furniture. I liked to build things, get things done. So engineering seemed like a natural. But mechanical didn’t do it for me, so when I came to SIUE, I actually found myself looking at a lot of opportunities. I started in engineering. I moved to the business school. I moved onto psychology, and then back to business and ended up in the civil engineering group.
eConnection: How did SIUE strike you when you started attending classes in 1969?
Ed: Everything was new, new, new! One of things I found interesting was they put in the buildings, but waited until they saw where the students walked to reach each building before they put in the sidewalks. I thought that was kind of cool. It was exciting. Because it was new, the instructors had been recently recruited. I found it an environment where I could do the things I wanted to do. I needed to work so I could go to school, and it was surprisingly inexpensive to attend SIUE. I found it flexible and easy to work with, and the instructors were very willing to work with you. One of the things that struck me as I moved on with my education was there were a lot of practitioners in the curriculum.
eConnection: Who stood out to you as special instructors or mentors?
Ed: A couple of folks. Alfred Korn kind of took me under his wing, and I would say, forced me to grow up a little bit and get serious about school. Professor Julius Brown was not so much a mentor, but the “super-scientist guy.” I took thermo-dynamics from him and he was selected to work on the Apollo program, and he actually taught the class from NASA headquarters in Houston. The kinds of people who had practical experience and could bring it to the classroom I found extremely interesting and useful. It was a real marriage of academic environment with more of a practical environment. Dr. Harry Duffey was probably the closest thing to being a mentor. He pushed the students to make sure they were learning what they needed to learn. He was personally good for me. He could communicate easily and he was open.
eConnection: What happened after graduation from SIUE?
Ed: I had absolutely no plan in mind and had applied for a number of positions around the world. At the time the market was pretty tough. The instructor who taught surveying hooked me up with a job in East St. Louis. So when I finished school, I went to work in East St. Louis as the Assistant City Engineer. I showed up for work the first day and the City Engineer had quit the day before, so as the Assistant City Engineer, fresh out of school, I became the Acting City Engineer. It was an absolutely wonderful experience; one that I don’t know that you could ever get or replace. I set out to try to help the city, and I learned two things: First you can make a difference, and second; I learned not to be judgmental of other people. I later took my exam to get my state license so I could become the City Engineer, and I was also named the Director of Public Works. So I was the City Engineer and Director of Public Works within a year of graduating from SIUE. I also wrote and received $50 million in federal grants for public works projects in the City. It was one of those experiences where you learn the job and you learn politics, and it was a real insight for me. One of my major projects was to fix the city sewage treatment plant. I was able to fix that and in the process met some folks from Monsanto who were struggling with what to do with the effluent from their plant in Sauget. I ended up selling them our sewage which they mixed with their effluent so they could then treat it biologically instead of chemically, which was much more cost effective. That led to recruitment from Monsanto and a position in their construction group working for the project engineer. I learned a lot about scheduling, cost, site approval, construction and plant operations. I built great relationships with Monsanto and as directors moved, I went with their teams.
eConnection: Ed, you say your experience with electronic engineering at SIUE was a key factor in your success in Silicon Valley, and business relationships and an MBA from The University of Houston generated success in the sales end of corporate development. How much of your phenomenal success would you attribute to timing, to the connections you made, or to your own ability to adapt to circumstances presented to you?
Ed: I think there is a portion of luck and timing that fit into any situation where there’s a change. However, some of these things you make happen yourself. The early parts of the career were things you learn at school, the academic stuff. It was being in the right place at the right time. Clearly being referred to the job in East St. Louis by my instructor at SIUE was a huge move, because that opened other doors to Monsanto which provided me the opportunity to meet people who have impacted my career who are still friends today. But even if you know somebody, and even if the timing is right, you still have to perform. At the end of the day, it comes down to what you, as an individual, are willing to put into the job, and getting results. My career is marked more by career successes. It’s about getting results. Each one of those successes builds for the next one.
eConnection: In this incredible career, of what are you most proud?
Ed: Part of what makes me tick is I’m always looking for new things to learn, looking for problems to solve, and that’s classic engineering, as engineering is about solving problems. I think what I most proud of is no matter where I was, when I left, nothing fell apart. The company moved forward and became successful. The legacy of product and people success, so the mentoring that I’ve been able to do, is probably what makes me feel best about the whole career.
eConnection: What drives you to stay so active?
Ed: I can’t remember a time since I went to East St. Louis and was responsible for public works, that I wasn’t making sure that the job gets done. I don’t know that I’d know how to. In fact, my wife says I’ve flunked retirement twice now. There’s just something about getting things done, having successes, and helping other people be successful.
eConnection: What would you offer to readers of this profile as words of wisdom.
Ed: You know, if there’s anything I could tell students and people in general, it’s “Don’t ever quit learning.” If you quit learning, you’re done. It’s the learning environment at work. It’s the challenges at work. Learn from your mistakes. Learn from what you do well. Learn academically. It’s a much higher rate of learning than you can get with the “school of hard knocks.” I would also stress your career is about the people. Respect for people in whatever they do is the key to being a success. Finally, at the end of the day, there’s one thing you can control. That’s your personal integrity. Maintain it! It follows you everywhere.
Interview appeared in the Winter 2010 eConnection
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