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CORVALLIS - A Tektronix executive was named Friday as the new dean of the College of Engineering at Oregon State University.

Ron Adams, vice president of technology and senior Tektronix fellow in the Color Printing and Imaging Division, will begin leadership of the state's largest and most comprehensive engineering program in August, OSU President Paul Risser announced.

"We are delighted to bring an engineering leader with Dr. Adam's credentials to the OSU College of Engineering," Risser said. "He brings to the position a record of enviable leadership accomplishment in one of Oregon's leading companies. And he combines experience in the Portland business community with an understanding of top quality university research and education."

Adams, 50, is an OSU graduate and former faculty member. He earned his B.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Oregon State. He also holds a master's degree in aeronautics and astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he taught for two years at Lincoln Laboratories following completion of his doctoral degree.

From 1972 to 1975, Adams managed an advanced development program for re-entry systems while serving in the U.S. Air Force. Following military service, he joined the OSU faculty as an assistant professor of mechanical engineering, where he was successful in attracting research funding for a variety of projects including theoretical and experimental studies of the fluid dynamics of drop-on-demand ink jets. His work led to a two-year leave to work with Tektronix on a team developing color printing and graphics technologies

Adams became research and development manager for the firm's Color Printing and Imaging Division in 1987. He then became director and senior fellow in the division before being named its vice president in August 1995.

He has served as a review panel member for the National Research Council, National Academy of Science and Engineering and as reviewer for several professional journals. He is listed in five U.S. patents and has written numerous publications in the fields of hypersonic aerodynamics, fluidized bed heat transfer, and the fluid dynamics of drop-on-demand ink jets.

In his new post, Adams will direct the state's most all-inclusive engineering education program. OSU's College of Engineering enrolls about 2,200 undergraduate and 550 graduate students.

Its 125 faculty members are organized into seven departments: chemical; civil, construction, and environmental; electrical and computer; industrial and manufacturing; mechanical; nuclear; and computer science. In addition, the College engages in many interdisciplinary programs and distance education alliances.

Adams becomes only the seventh dean of OSU's College of Engineering. He succeeds John Owen, who died suddenly in February 1997.