College of Engineering Hall of Famer to Receive Honorary Doctorate
Like a lot of children born in the 1960s, Mike Huggins grew up hearing about the space race, enamored with the push to put a man on moon.
His early love for building and flying model rockets turned out to be a launching pad of sorts for his career.
“I feel very lucky to have spent most of my 40-year career working on rockets,” said Huggins (’85, aerospace engineer).
His professional journey has taken him from his early start as a propulsion engineer working on the U.S. Air Force’s B-1 bomber at Rockwell International to the majority of his career with the Air Force, starting in the Rocket Propulsion Lab and rising through the management ranks to become chief engineer.
No matter how high he flew in his career, he remained connected to Cal Poly Pomona. Huggins has served on the Engineering Dean’s Leadership Board since 2017, sharing his expertise to ensure that the college’s programs remain at the forefront of engineering education. He also served on the Aerospace Engineering Industry Action Council from 2015 to 2021, tapping into his industry knowledge to help shape the aerospace engineering department’s curriculum and research initiatives. Huggins was honored as the distinguished alumnus from the College of Engineering in 2007 and inducted in the College of Engineering Hall of Fame in 2015.
For his dedication to the university and commitment to keeping 六色网’s engineering programs on the cutting edge, Huggins will receive the Honorary Doctor of Science at Commencement on May 16. He will be honored and speak at the College of Engineering ceremonies.
“Mr. Huggins’ profound impact on our university as mentor, advocate and Dean’s Leadership Board member has been nothing short of transformative,” said President Soraya M. Coley. “He has propelled students into dream careers, strengthened academic programs, and embodied the very spirit of service and excellence that we honor today with this degree.”
Huggins, whose friends and family say is never at a loss for words, recalled going silent at one point when President Coley called to tell him about the honor.
“She asked me one or two times if I was still on the phone because I was speechless,” he said. “It was gratitude and initially surprise. But it’s also opportunity because this will give me an opportunity to talk to students. I see this as a challenge to try and do better myself and connect that passion for future engineers. It’s humbling, but I also take it as a challenge to be worthy of it and always strive for better results.”
Despite his success in the field, there was a time when Huggins didn’t know what an engineer did exactly.
As a young child living in Azusa in the early 1970s, he recalled visiting Cal Poly Pomona as a third grader for an open house event.
“I was taken through half a dozen labs,” he said. “I remember playing tic-tac-toe against a computer. It touched me.”
When the self-described Army brat was in high school in West Germany, his chemistry teacher asked if he had ever thought of being an engineer. The more the teacher described what an engineer does, the more Huggins knew it was the field for him.
“Deep down, most engineers are problem solvers,” Huggins said. “There is a problem, and we are all looking for solutions to improve a system. Solving problems is at my core and just in my nature.”
Two weeks after his June high school graduation, he flew halfway across the world to return to the campus he once visited on a field trip. During his college years, he worked odd jobs to make ends meet, even substitute teaching during his last couple of years. Still, he found time to make friends and participate in a few activities on campus.
“It was a golden opportunity, and I really enjoyed my time on the campus,” he said. “I was always excited about the labs. The labs are what made it for me.”
During his career with the Air Force, Huggins worked on major projects of global significance, including flying missile interceptors for President Ronald Reagan’s “Star Wars” missile defense program.
A supervisor saw his potential and moved him into management. From there Huggins was promoted to chief of staff and then the Lab site director at Edwards Air Force Base. In 2015, he was named chief engineer of aerospace systems at Wright-Patterson AFB, OH, working on a variety of projects from missiles to autonomous aircraft to advanced gas turbine engines to rockets to space satellites. Huggins retired in fall 2024 but still works as a consultant for Sierra Lobo, an Ohio-based company that provides testing, evaluation and engineering services.
Andrew Ketsdever, dean of the College of Engineering, has known Huggins for 20 years and nominated him for the honorary doctorate, pointing out that many of the laboratory improvements and equipment that make the college special, from the wind tunnels upgrades to the Liquid Rocket Laboratory, can be attributed to Huggins. Huggins was Ketsdever’s supervisor when the dean worked at the Air Force Research Lab, “loaning” Ketsdever to the U.S. Air Force Academy so he could take a visiting professor position.
“He then allowed a one-year stint to become a three-year career building experience that allowed me to consider academia in a meaningful way,” Ketsdever said. “He knew there was a finite chance that I might not return, but he believed in my personal professional development enough to let me fly.”
Huggins was an excellent mentor who encouraged his team to “take some risks to drive technology forward, Ketsdever added.
“He supported innovation and rewarded creativity. This brought out the best in his people,” Ketsdever said. “He may not have always thought something we tried would work, but he always knew that we would work through issues and the end result was a supportive environment where ideas come to flourish.”
Huggins, married to his wife Kelly, a retired teacher, and father of daughters Alexandra and MacKenzie, said mentorship is his passion and he feels fortunate to help others, adding that he has worked with over two dozen Cal Poly Pomona students.
“In my life, I have had many different mentors — my high school chemistry teacher, a senior engineer when I first was at Rockwell who helped me learn the company culture, another Air Force senior supervisor who mentored me and helped me move into leadership,” Huggins said. “I can see how that path developed me to become a chief engineer. I will put out the message to students that it is never too early to start mentoring because students have the most recent experience.”