Glen and Patricia Daigger are making an investment to establish the Dr. Les Grady Distinguished Professorship in Clemson University’s Department of Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences.
The professorship honors C.P. Leslie “Les” Grady Jr., who was Daigger’s Ph.D. advisor at Purdue University. Grady later joined the Clemson faculty and helped raise the department’s profile across the environmental engineering profession.
Grady and his former student became colleagues. It was Grady who played a key role in recruiting Daigger from the private sector to serve as the department’s chair from 1994-96.
Three decades after leaving Clemson, Daigger remains active in the profession and focused on what comes next.
“I’m not done yet,” said Daigger, now a professor of engineering practice at the University of Michigan. “My plan is to live to 100 and to be active, healthy and contributing. That’s what motivates me– to be a person who has made a difference.”
For Daigger, establishing the professorship gives him a way to honor the mentor who made a lasting difference in his own life while helping Clemson recruit a scholar who can do the same for future students.
Daigger said Grady was the right mentor at the right time. Grady helped him strengthen his analytical skills, organize complex ideas and become a clearer writer, abilities that helped prepare him for the next stages of his career.
Daigger remembers turning in typed drafts before personal computers and receiving pages covered in Grady’s red ink. The edits were demanding, he said, but Grady’s investment of time trained him to present information in a logical sequence.
“Les has been a consistent thread through my life and through my career,” Daigger said.
The endowed position, among the most prestigious on Clemson’s faculty, is designed to help Clemson attract and retain a distinguished professor in environmental engineering and Earth sciences. Funding can supplement the recipient’s salary and support research, travel, student assistants and equipment.
Daigger worked 35 years with CH2M HILL, now part of Jacobs, rising to senior vice president and chief technology officer. He has advised major cities around the world, written or co-written more than 200 technical papers and five books, and served as president of the International Water Association.
He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.
While at Clemson, Daigger served as chair of what was then the Department of Environmental Systems Engineering during a critical time. He said he sought to build a culture in which faculty members took greater ownership of the department’s direction.
Among the faculty recruited during Daigger’s chairmanship were Tanju Karanfil, now Clemson’s senior vice president for research, scholarship and creative endeavors, and David Freedman, who went on to serve as department chair from 2014-24, finished out his career as professor and retired this month.
Freedman said Grady’s influence made Clemson’s environmental engineering programs known nationally and internationally, even among professionals who knew little else about the University.
“He is an extraordinary human being,” Freedman said. “He is that rare combination of someone who was at the top of his profession and at the same time was one of the most generous and humble people you will ever meet.”
Grady joined Clemson in 1981 and became internationally known for advancing the use of biological processes to treat municipal and industrial wastewater. He was the lead author of three editions of “Biological Wastewater Treatment,” a seminal textbook used around the world.
The professorship named in his honor comes as the department celebrates its 60th anniversary and is among several causes for celebration.
A separate endowment established with an investment by James and Catherine Cashwell will support an annual award for an environmental engineering and Earth sciences graduate student in Grady’s honor.
Clemson plans to formally announce the professorship at a ceremony in April. The inaugural Grady graduate fellowship will be announced later that day during the department’s annual awards luncheon.
The gifts honor Grady’s legacy while strengthening the department for the future, said Debora F. Rodrigues, chair of the Department of Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences, and Jesus M. de la Garza, director of the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences.
“We are deeply grateful to the Daiggers and the Cashwells for recognizing those who came before us and investing in those who will carry the work forward,” Rodrigues and de la Garza said. “We stand on the shoulders of giants, and this support will help us recruit exceptional faculty, expand our impact and take the program to the next level.”
