Doug Melton
Dr. Douglas Melton is currently a Program Director for the Kern Family Foundation, located in Southeast Wisconsin. For the past five years, he’s been helping the Foundation build a network of institutions. These institutions of higher education have faculty that recognize the importance of developing a mindset in graduates -- alongside their technical and professional skillset. Today, the growing network includes 29 universities and colleges across the nation. Together, there are approximately 3,000 faculty members who instruct about 40,000 engineering undergraduate students. This network, as a team, is fostering the next generation of engineer; one with an entrepreneurial mindset, prepared to create unexpected, extraordinary value for others.
Prior to joining the national mission at the Kern Family Foundation, Dr. Melton served
as a professor of electrical engineering for 17 years at Kettering University in Flint,
Michigan. It was there, through a visit to the Foundation, that he was introduced
to the concept of developing a student’s mindset to accompany their skillset. Prompted
to help students reach their highest potential, he led the effort at Kettering while
also teaching and conducting research in the area
of wireless communications and digital signal processing.
Dr. Melton developed his expertise in digital signal processing in graduate school, both at Ohio State University and at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The graduate work contributed to the intellectual property of a small spin-off company, Digisonix, which produced active sound and vibration control solutions and relied upon proprietary adaptive signal processing methods. The fledgling company grew to include a number of researchers and product developers. There, he oversaw the research and development of products that would be used for technology transfer for OEM products from companies such as Ford, Chrysler, United Technologies, and Cessna.
Doug grew up in the midwest, with portions of youth spent in Colorado, Oklahoma, and Kansas towns (Hugoton, Augusta, and Wichita). He could often be found in the garage with an electronics kit, a chemistry set, and a lot of other things that might be considered hazardous today. After graduating from Southeast High School in Wichita, he began his career as an undergraduate engineering student at Wichita State University. At the time, he was inspired by musical and electronic products.
Today, Dr. Melton is inspired by anyone who recognizes that they work not just on products, but within an greater ecosystem where value creation is the engine of progress. Notable in this regard are industrialists like Elon Musk, inventors like Stan Ovshinsky, and physicians like Gholam Peyman.