About CTC, College of Engineering, University of Iowa

Overview

Engineers-in-training must learn to inform and persuade with the same commitment to excellence they devote to the acquisition of technical knowledge. With that need in mind, the University of Iowa’s College of Engineering opened its Center for Technical Communication (CTC) in the fall of 2001. In the fall of 2003, CTC received a major gift from Tom and Nancy Hanson; to honor their generosity and commitment to the College, CTC has been renamed the Hanson Center for Technical Communication (see bio below).

Mission

The mission of CTC is a logical outgrowth of the following statements, which were crafted to help clarify our obligations to the College and its students:

Train undergraduates to express their expertise across a range of goal-oriented communications.
Promote writing as an essential component of an engineering education.
Create a favorable environment for engineering students to hone their writing skills via one-on-one and team tutorial sessions.
Work closely with faculty to deliver sustained communication practice.
Provide guidelines for writing-intensive assignments.
Standardize criteria for evaluating student writing across the engineering curriculum.

About Tom and Nancy Hanson

A gift from Thomas R. Hanson, a 1960 graduate of the University of Iowa College of Engineering, and his spouse, Nancy A. Schneider Hanson, has endowed the Hanson Center for Technical Communication within the college.

A majority of the Hansons' $800,000 gift will be used to support the center, which offers engineering students a comprehensive resource for developing communication skills as part of their engineering education.

"I learned during my career that there is a wide range of ability among engineers to speak and write effectively, and that the engineers with good communication skills stand out among their peers," said Tom Hanson, who lives in Hinsdale, Ill.

Tom Hanson, who grew up in Moline, Ill., graduated from the UI with a degree in mechanical engineering. The university is also where he met Nancy, who was a UI student at the time. Following graduation, Tom first worked with Union Carbide Corporation in Charleston, W. Va. Hanson's career then led him to The Trane Company in LaCrosse, Wis., and next to a struggling mechanical contracting company in Winston-Salem, N.C. Three years later, the Hansons moved to suburban Chicago, where Tom ran the regional sales office of York International.

In 1980, Hanson started his own company, Thermal Air Systems, which became Fleming Hanson Sales following a 1991 merger. The company, from which he sold his interests in 2000 upon retiring, contracts as exclusive sales representatives with various commercial and industrial heating and cooling manufacturers.

Nancy Schneider Hanson began her college studies at The University of Iowa where she met her husband, Tom. In 1961, she earned a bachelor's of arts degree in political science from the University of Charleston, followed by a master's degree in social work in 1979 from the University of Illinois at Chicago.