ºÚÁÏÉçÇø

Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
Powell Industries, Inc.
Huston, Texas

Brett cope has served as the President and Chief Executive Officer of Powell Industries, Inc. since October 1, 2016. Brett was elected as the Chairman of the Board for Powell Industries on October 1, 2019.

Brett has more than 31 years of experience in the electrical, automation and process industries. Prior to his election as Powell's Chief Executive Officer, Brett served as Powell's Chief Operating Officer from December 2015 to September 30, 2016.Brett joined Powell in 2011 to crate a global Sales and Marketing team across Powell as Vice President of Sales and Marketing.

Prior to joining Powell, Brett spent twenty years with ABB in various engineering, project operations and sales management positions. In his last role as the Group Vice President, he was responsible for the strategic development and execution of global business initiatives for ABB's activities with the ExxonMobil Corporations.

Brett is a graduate of ºÚÁÏÉçÇø in Oxford, Ohio, with a Bachelor in Applied Science, and has successfully completed numerous professional certifications. 

Powell Industries designs, manufactures and services custom-engineered equipment and systems for the distribution, control and monitoring of electrical energy. Celebrating its 75th anniversary in 2022, Powell has approximately 2,000 employees.

Powell's markets include large industrial customers including utilities, oil and gas producers, refineries, petrochemical plants, data centers, pulp and paper producers, mining operations, and commuter railways.

C. Michael "Mike" Gooden '72

Co-Founder, CEO (retired), Chairman
Integrated System Analysts (ISA)
Alexandria, Virginia

Mike graduated from Miami in 1972 with a B.S. in Applied Science. As a ºÚÁÏÉçÇø, he was also in the U.S. Navy, participating in the Navy Enlisted Scientific Education Program. Mike earned a M.S. in Engineering from The Moore School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1978. Miami also awarded Mike an honorary Doctor of Science in 1993.

As a Miami alumnus, Mike is currently serving on the College of Engineering and Computing (CEC) Executive Advisory Council and is a member of the Honorary Degree Club. He has also served on the Black Alumni Advisory Committee (BAAC), Business Advisory Council (BAC), CEC External Advisory Council, CEC Dean’s Ambassador, Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) Volunteer, and ºÚÁÏÉçÇø Board of Trustees, and has been a commencement speaker and host of the National Technical Association’s 1992 annual conference, sponsored by CEC.

Mike founded Integrated Systems Analysts, Inc. (ISA) in 1980, a mid-sized high technology company that offered engineering, technical management, and computer life cycle services to the Department of Defense, other federal, state, and local government agencies, and hundreds of commercial businesses, chiefly in the automotive and banking industries.

Prior to co-founding ISA, Mike was an engineering duty officer in the United States Navy. He has 25 years of naval service (17 years active duty, 8 in the Naval Reserve), and retired as a commander in 1988.

Mike served on the Board of Overseers of Penn’s School of Engineering and Applied Science, and on the National Science Foundation’s Business and Operations Committee for Equal Opportunity in Science and Engineering. He also serves on corporate boards, and is a member of the American Society of Naval Engineers.

Mike and his wife, chemist Diane Oksanen-Gooden, have been strong supporters of the Smithsonian Libraries, with Mike serving as a director emeritus and having served as vice-chair of the Libraries Advisory Board. Mike and Diane established an unrestricted endowment in 2002 to provide a stable future for the libraries.

Mike and Diane are also supporters of the Wilmer Eye Institute of John Hopkins. They make their home in Alexandria, Virginia.

Dwight Merriman '90

Co-Founder, Chairman
MongoDB
Miami Beach, Florida

Dwight graduated from Miami in 1990 with a B.S. in Applied Science. He was following in his late father, Ronald’s '70, footsteps, as did his sister Rhonda '93 and brother Jason '96.

As an alumnus Dwight has returned to Miami’s Oxford campus and spoken on internet industry topics and has been a speaker at Disrupt NY. He is currently serving as a member of the College of Engineering and Computing (CEC) Executive Advisory Council.

Dwight began his career as a software engineer at Attachmate. Upon leaving Attachmate in 1995, he co-founded DoubleClick, a company that develops and provides Internet ads. He served as chief technology officer through its sale to Helman & Friedman in 2005. Shortly thereafter, he moved on to co-found Panther Express, a New York-based software services provider. That company sold and merged with CDNetworks in 2009. He then co-founded AlleyCorp, which became the umbrella company for other Internet businesses including ShopWiki, MusicNation, Panther Express, Gilt Groupe, 10gen, Business Insider, and MongoDB. He continues to serve as chairman at AlleyCorp and as co-founder, chairman and contributor (coder) at MongoDB, one of the many companies under the AlleyCorp umbrella.

In 2018 Dwight’s career took a different turn, literally speaking. As he has continued his entrepreneurial interests, business duties and coding for MongoDB, he has also become a racing driver. His first race was driving a Volkswagen Golf for Heinlein Racing Development in the Pirelli World Challenge. Two years later he made his debut in the 24-Hours of Daytona event for Era Motorsport and returned with Era Motorsport at the 24-Hours of Daytona in 2021.

Amy Spiller

President of Utility Operations Duke Energy
Cincinnati, Ohio

Amy Spiller is president of Duke Energy’s utility operations in Ohio and Kentucky, which serves approximately 880,000 electric customers and 550,000 natural gas customers. She is accountable for advancing the company’s rate and regulatory initiatives, and managing the government relations, economic development and community affairs functions throughout the region.

Prior to assuming her current role in June 2018, Amy was vice president of government and community affairs for Duke Energy Ohio. In this role, she was responsible for state government and regulatory policies,

strategies and relationships impacting Duke Energy Ohio's interests and those of its electric and natural gas customers. Amy also led the company's local community relations efforts with key stakeholders in southwest Ohio.

Amy previously spent 10 years as deputy general counsel, where she helped shape and guide Duke Energy's regulatory strategic planning in Ohio and Kentucky. She was also responsible for advancing the company's rate and regulatory initiatives before the Kentucky Public Service Commission and Public Utilities Commission of Ohio. Amy joined Cinergy, a predecessor to Duke Energy, in 2003 as an associate general counsel focused on litigation.

From 1993 to 2003, she rose from associate to partner at an insurance defense law firm in Cincinnati. Amy previously worked for a legal publishing company in northeast Ohio. She is a member of the Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky bar associations. She is a member of the Ohio and Kentucky bar associations and admitted to a variety of federal courts, including the United States Supreme Court.

Amy serves on the boards of directors of the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber, Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, Northern Kentucky Regional Alliance, Port of Greater Cincinnati Development Authority, Mt. Auburn Community Development Corp. and REDI Cincinnati, the region’s economic development initiative. She is also a member of the Ohio Business Roundtable, the Cincinnati Business Committee and the board of managers of the Cincinnati Center City Development Corp. Amy is a past board member of the Cincinnati USA Convention & Visitors Bureau, Cintrifuse, Red Bike, Accountability and Credibility Together and the Cincinnati Youth Collaborative, and was a member of the steering committee for the Greater Cincinnati Minority Counsel Program. She is a graduate of the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber’s WE Lead program and, in 2015, was inducted into the Hall of Fame of Duke Energy’s Business Women’s Network employee resource group in Cincinnati. Amy was one of eight women honored with the YWCA Greater Cincinnati’s 2021 Career Women of Achievement award.

A native of northern Michigan, Amy earned a bachelor’s degree in economics and management from Albion College in Michigan and a law degree from Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C. She and her husband, Keith, have lived in Cincinnati for more than 25 years.

Scott Summerville '79

President and CEO
Mitsubishi Electric Automation Inc.
Chicago, IL

Scott has been the President & CEO of Mitsubishi Electric Automation, Inc. (MEAU) since June of 2019. Mitsubishi Electric manufactures a full line of industrial automation products and solutions including CNCs, robots, PLCs, variable frequency drives, and servo motion.

Prior to joining Mitsubishi Electric, Summerville was the chief executive officer of Microscan Systems since February 2011 and then Omron Microscan since October of 2017, after successfully leading the sale of Microscan Systems, Inc. to Omron Corporation.

Summerville has more than 30 years of experience in the automation industry, having spent most of his professional career at Rockwell Automation where he held positions of increasing responsibility including Managing Director of Greater China from 2001-2003 and President of the Asia Pacific region from 2003-2008, while residing in Beijing and Hong Kong respectively.

Scott is a former chairman of the Integrated Systems & Controls Council within the Material Handling Industry (MHI) and is currently a member of MHI’s executive roundtable. He is also a former member of the board of governors of the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong as well as a contributing author to the book, Leadership Experiences in Asia (2007).

He serves on the boards of ICONICS, a Mitsubishi Electric company, the Mitsubishi Electric Foundation, and the Japan America Society of Chicago and has participated in panels at World Economic Forum events.

Scott has degrees in Environmental Design from ºÚÁÏÉçÇø, Ohio and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, Illinois.

He and his wife enjoy traveling, entertaining, and genealogy and contributing to education and animal welfare causes.

John Paxton

CEO
MHI

John Paxton is the Chief Executive Officer of MHI and has been with MHI for the past 5 years. Prior to his current role, he had more than 30 years of experience in the material handling and logistics industry, including 20 years of executive leadership at Demag Cranes and Components.

Throughout his career, Mr. Paxton also served as a volunteer leader at MHI
including roles as the President of the Crane Manufacturers Association (CMAA), President of the Hoist Manufacturers Institute (HMI), President of the Monorail Manufacturers Association (MMA), and as the Chairman of the Board of MHI. He currently serves as a Board member for the Material Handling Education Foundation (MHEFI).

Mr. Paxton is a graduate of The Ohio State University with a B.S. in Mechanical
Engineering, and of Kent State University with an MBA with a focus on
international business.

Greg Gonzalez

Founder and CEO
InterCerve / SentryOne (retired)
Bluffton, SC

Greg graduated from Miami in 1991 with a B.A. in Business Psychology. At the time, he didn’t envision a career in software and data, but this quickly changed with his first job in purchasing for Baxter Healthcare’s custom surgical kit division, and the experience sparked his passion for building applications to improve business efficiency.

He went on to found InterCerve in 1997 to develop and host Microsoft-centric web applications, including the first systems for booking private jet charter flights, AirCharterOnline.com and Skyjet.com. Both were acquired by Bombardier Aerospace in the early 2000s, which led to the development of other Bombardier properties, Learjet.com and Flexjet.com.

InterCerve also created nTarget, one of the first SaaS email service provider platforms, in response to its clients’ desires to better communicate with customers via this nascent technology, delivering millions of emails daily to fully verified contacts.

As InterCerve grew so did the number of databases under management, with Microsoft SQL Server at the core of every hosted web application. This surfaced the need for better tools to manage database performance and availability at scale and led to the creation of the SQL Sentry business (later rebranded SentryOne). When nTarget and InterCerve hosting were eventually sold, Greg shifted focus to SentryOne, and over 15 years of many industry firsts SentryOne became the premier solution for optimizing performance across the Microsoft Data Platform. SentryOne was acquired in 2020.

Greg has authored multiple patents and has received three MVP awards from Microsoft for his contributions to the data community. While at Miami, Greg was president and instructor of the Tae Kwon Do Club, earning his first black belt as a sophomore and going on to claim multiple titles at the state and national levels.

Greg and his wife, Karen, are excited to support CEC in preparing the next generation of data professionals for the challenges ahead – they have endowed both a professorship with a focus on Data and Analytics, and the Gonzalez CADS Learning Lab inside the new McVey Data Science building.

Greg and Karen recently relocated to Bluffton, SC, after over 30 years in Charlotte, NC. Their son, Cameron, graduated from Miami CEC in 2024 with a B.S. in Computer Science, and daughter, Katlyn, attends medical school at Vanderbilt University.