Concordia Journal Home > Archives > May 8, 2008 issue >

Tenacious and fit, Hugh McQueen is honoured 

A meeting room on the fourth floor of the EV building has been named in honour of Hugh J. McQueen, Distinguished Pro-fessor Emeritus of Mechanical Engineering.

It’s a grateful acknowledgement of his efforts over 40 years to build his department and the rest of the Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science into the powerhouse it is today, efforts that included the Social Aspects of Engineering program and the teaching of materials engineering to hundreds of students. It’s worth noting that from 1968 to 1983, McQueen taught six full courses a year while maintaining a punishing publishing schedule.

Although he holds firmly to traditional values, including Scottish thrift and equity, McQueen was in some respects ahead of his time. He retired in 1998, but remains active, playing squash, jogging and cross-country skiing. At age 75, he bicycles to the university every day in all weathers — on the same bicycle he has ridden for 52 years. As his daughter, Carol, noted, he tried many years ago to interest the university administration in recycling paper, but he was unsuccessful.
McQueen has written a book on the history of the Mechanical Engineering Department, and gives public lectures on the history of iron bridges in Quebec. In his remarks to an appreciative crowd at a reception on April 28, he paid tribute to his wife, Jo Bremmer, whom he met while doing his doctoral work at Notre Dame University in Indiana. They produced six accomplished offspring, four of whom attended Concordia.

He was introduced by Kathy Assayag, Vice-President of Advancement and Alumni Relations, and by Dean Nabil Esmail, who humorously recalled being beaten repeatedly at squash by the older man. “He kept driving the ball into the corner,” Esmail complained.