Ostap Hawaleshka recognized with appointment to Order of Canada (10/28/01)

Ostap Hawaleshka recognized with appointment to Order of Canada

by Oksana Zakydalsky

TORONTO - Prof. Ostap Hawalesh-ka, professor emeritus of industrial engineering at the University of Manitoba, was recently appointed member of the Order of Canada. The Order of Canada, the country's highest honor for lifetime achievement, recognizes people who have made a difference to Canada.

Appointments are announced by the governor general and are made on the recommendation of an advisory council chaired by the chief justice of Canada. Among the advisory council's nine current members are the clerk of the Privy Council and secretary to the Cabinet; the president of the Royal Society of Canada; and the chair of the Canada Council for the Arts. Since its establishment in 1967, 4,000 persons have been appointed on three levels of membership: member, officer and companion.

The announcement of the appointment of Prof. Hawaleshka mentioned his academic achievements and his work as a dedicated community volunteer, but stressed his scientific, management and business expertise on international projects - particularly his role in the founding of the Science and Technology Center in Ukraine (STCU).

Asked for some biographical information Prof. Hawaleshka focused attention on the fact that it was his work in Ukraine that received the main emphasis in his appointment. "It is very rare that the Order of Canada is given for work not in Canada," he said. He wanted people to understand that Canada recognizes contributions made to the development of Ukraine benefit Canada as well.

Prof. Hawaleshka was the executive director of STCU in its founding years of 1994-1997. Created by Western countries to keep Ukrainian scientists in Ukraine - scientists who were involved in the research and development of weapons of mass destruction - SCTU helped them convert their knowledge to peaceful and economically useful projects, introduced them into the world of scientific collaboration and provided them with opportunities to find marketable uses for their expertise. The ownership of the intellectual property remained with the scientist.

The aim was to give the scientists a reason not to go to countries such as China, Libya, Iran, Iraq or North Korea in order to earn a living and to reduce chances of proliferation of weapons-of-mass-destruction know-how. It was part of the demilitarization process throughout the former Soviet Union. At the SCTU, Prof. Hawaleshka was fully responsible for planning, establishing, staffing, operating and managing the operation whose budget reached $45 million (Canadian) by end of 1997, when he left the center.

"It was a fantastic job for a plastun [member of the Plast Ukrainian Scouting Organization]" he said, "a unique opportunity to do something useful for Ukraine on a high intellectual level." To understand the importance of the STCU, Prof. Hawaleshka explained, "one should know that today the STCU is directly funding over 10,000 leading, formerly top secret, Ukrainian scientists and engineers and is keeping them and their know-how in Ukraine. The budget is now over $80 million (Canadian). The largest funder is the U.S.A., followed by Canada, the European Union, Sweden, Japan and Ukraine. New members include Uzbekistan, Georgia and, probably shortly, Moldova," he added.

During his sojourn in Kyiv, Ukraine honored Prof. Hawaleshka in several ways. He was awarded two medals: the Yanhel Medal, named after the founder of the rocket building concern KB Pivdenne - the top rocket building factory in the former USSR and one of the leading rocket producers in the world (creators of the SS-18 Devil-Satana, greatly feared by the West); and the Kondratiuk Medal, named after the Ukrainian scientist who developed a system of calculating rocket orbits. Today, there is no rocket in the world that does not use Kondratiuk's method of calculation. Prof. Hawaleshka also was inducted as a member into three Ukrainian scholarly academies: sciences, engineering sciences, and technical sciences.

His appointment to the Order of Canada has been the culmination of a remarkable year for Prof. Hawaleshka. In the summer of 2000 he was named professor emeritus of the University of Manitoba and last November he received an honorary doctorate from the world-renowned Institute of Metal Physics at the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences in Kyiv.

A graduate of McGill University in Montreal, with a bachelor of engineering (mechanical) in 1960 and a master of engineering (aerodynamics) in 1965, Prof. Hawaleshka began to acquire worldwide experience soon after graduation. For several years he worked with Schlumberger Ltd. as an oil fields engineer in all the countries of South America.

In 1970 he became professor of industrial engineering at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg and was associated with the university until his retirement in 1997. His academic career in Winnipeg was interspersed with projects and teaching assignments all over the world, including Peru, Colombia, Hong-Kong, the Philippines, Thailand, and China.

According to Dr. D. R. Ruth, dean of the Faculty of Engineering, Prof. Hawaleshka played a pivotal role in setting up the Industrial Engineering Program at the University of Manitoba; he wrote the program and, as associate head, administered it for almost a decade. He has over 100 publications in scientific journals and conference proceedings to his credit, and holds three patents.

He has overseen $1.1 million of research and development contracts, including ones for a weapons simulator-trainer for the Canadian Department of Defense and another for a 3-D measuring and manufacturing system of aids for the physically handicapped for Otto Beck Co. Ltd, a product that is sold worldwide.

His volunteer work is extensive, both in his profession - he is a co-founder of the Manitoba chapter of the Institute of Industrial Engineers - and in the Ukrainian community. He is currently president of the Canada-Ukraine Foundation and serves on the boards of several Ukrainian institutions in Winnipeg, such as Oseredok and the Ukrainian Park. He has been a lifelong member of Plast, where his singing, guitar-playing and songwriting talents are widely appreciated; for several years, he headed Plast's Winnipeg branch.

In the announcement of Prof. Hawaleshka's appointment to the Order of Canada, Dr. Ruth focused on his most significant contribution, which is also the one of which he is most proud:

"But by far the most significant contribution made by Ostap was his work with the Science and Technology Center in Ukraine. Ostap was uniquely qualified for this position. He was trained as an engineer in a 'hard' engineering area (fluid mechanics) but developed a program in a 'softer' engineering area (industrial engineering) that required much more in the way of management and people skills. Of importance is the fact that he is an engineer and could identify directly with his colleagues in Ukraine.

"He is also fluent in Ukrainian, thanks to his origins and the active Ukrainian community in Winnipeg. He is a person who greets a challenge with vigor and resolve. And, having spoken on many occasions with Ostap about his time in Ukraine, he needed every ounce of vigour and resolve. To put his achievement in perspective, when he reached Ukraine he had no staff, no premises, no organization. Yet he succeeded in helping thousands of Ukrainian scientists and engineers to rebuild careers that kept them at home rather than in hostile nations. Ostap's contribution went well beyond diplomacy. It not only helped rebuild lives, it helped to rebuild a nation."

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