Kappe Lecture Series

The Kappe Lecture Series was inaugurated by the Academy in 1989 to share the knowledge of today's practitioners with tomorrow's environmental engineers and scientists. It is an annually recurring series of lectures presented on college campuses during the Fall academic term. This focus enables it to complement the lecture series sponsored by the Association of Environmental Engineering & Science Professors, which brings renowned research engineers to universities in the Spring term.

The Academy's Awards Committee chooses lecturers from the practicing engineering community in the year preceding presentation of the lectures. An abstract of the lectures offered and a biographical profile of the lecturer is circulated to universities teaching environmental engineering together with an invitation to host the Kappe Lecturer. From among those universities expressing interest, the Awards Committee typically selects up to ten host universities. Host university responsibilities include payment of a nominal fee and publicizing the lecture to ensure widespread exposure of the lecturer to the academic and surrounding professional community.

This program was inspired by a grant from the estate of Stanley E. Kappe, P.E., DEE, who served as the Academy's Executive Director from 1971 to 1981. This grant funded an endowment, which is used in conjunction with fees from participating universities to reimburse the lecturer's travel costs and pay incidental program expenses.

Click here to view this year's Kappe Lecturer.

Who is Stanley E. Kappe?

Stanley E. Kappe, P.E., DEE, a successful environmental engineer, believed he owed a debt to the profession that rewarded him so well. During his life, he gave of himself to his university and to his profession through countless hours of volunteer activity. And, through this Lecture Series, he continues to share his good fortune with tomorrow's environmental engineers and scientists.

He graduated from Pennsylvania State University in 1930 with a bachelor's degree in sanitary engineering. He served with the Pennsylvania State Health Department and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers before joining the Chicago Pump Company as its Eastern Regional Manager in 1935. In 1945, he founded Kappe Associates, Inc., a water supply and wastewater equipment company headquartered in Rockville, Maryland, and continued as its Chief Executive Officer until his death in 1986.

His peers recognized his contributions to the profession by numerous awards, including the AWWA Fuller Award, the WEF Arthur Sidney Bedell Award, the WPCAP Ted Moses and Ted Haseltine Awards, and the AAEES Gordon Maskew Fair Award. In 1985, Pennsylvania State University named him Outstanding Engineer Alumnus.

Stanley E. Kappe was an activist member and leader in several national and Chesapeake region professional societies. He served as the Executive Director of the American Academy of Environmental Engineers (now the American Academy of Environmental Engineers and Scientists) from 1971 to 1981.