About the Jeff Grady Award
The Jeff Grady Outstanding Service Award honors the long standing and committed service of a San Diego Chapter member. Like the awards namesake, Jeff Grady, the award is only given to those who have demonstrated consistent, long-term excellent service to the Chapter either by serving in numerous Chapter service positions, such as a Board member, or by continually supporting the Chapter through technical presentations, tutorials, and seminars, and by furthering INCOSE goals through system engineering technical activities in our community. This award is given in memory of Jeff Grady, an original founder of INCOSE, a member of the San Diego Chapter for over 20 years, a leader in furthering the discipline of systems engineering, and a frequent teacher and mentor to many in the San Diego Chapter and community. The San Diego Chapter was proud to give this award and honor first to Jeff Grady in 2016.
Jeff Grady’s Biography
2024 Winner – Ms. Evelyn Fan Encarnacion
In 2024, the chapter awarded the Jeff Grady Award to Ms. Evelyn Fan Encarnacion for exceptional long running support with our chapter’s STEM program. With 26 years of systems engineering experience, Evelyn serves as a Principal Senior Systems Engineer at Northrop Grumman, leading system development for industry and government. An INCOSE San Diego member since 2012, Evelyn has held leadership roles on the board, contributing to the chapter’s recognition as a Gold and Platinum Circle member. Since 2017, she has been a key advocate for the STEM program, helping award over $30,000 in grants to San Diego County schools, enabling students to create innovative projects and learn valuable skills, to include robot building, design and construction of guitars and skateboards, the application of systems engineering principles and tools, and developing digital media to educate their peers.
2023 Winner – Mr. Richard Bryson
In 2023, the chapter awarded the Jeff Grady Award for outstanding service to Mr. Richard Bryson, formal INCOSE SD President and longtime board member, in recognition of his faithful and unwavering support for the INCOSE San Diego chapter. Serving as a member since 2013, Richard led the chapter in various capacities, to include President (plus elect & past), Vice President of Technical Development, and Treasurer for five years. During this period, the San Diego chapter was recognized with both the Gold and Platinum awards. He leveraged his industry professional experience to advance systems engineering knowledge, and presented during monthly meetings and mini conferences on “Lessons Learned as a Systems Engineer” and “Interoperability and SoS Engineering in Unmanned Systems.” During his board tenure, he was actively involved with the INCOSE events, encouraging co-workers, families, students, and others to attend and learn about systems engineering.
2022 Winner – Mr. John Quigley
In 2022, John Quigley was recognized as a consistent supporter of the San Diego chapter. John is not only a former chapter President and long time member, but in addition to his previous service he continues to perform a key duty as a non-seated supporter in the compilation, uploading, tracking, and submission of the San Diego’s yearly chapter package for evaluation by INCOSE for annual chapter awards. This has directly resulted in our chapter being awarded the Platinum award from 2018-2021 (again in 2022), plus Chapter of the Year for 2018, in addition to gold and silver awards. John also serves as a volunteer in the grading other chapter award packages.
2021 Winner – Mr. Greg Bulla
Greg was recognized for his multiple contributions to the chapter over a 6+ year period to include Director of Communications, chapter President, and a lead role in outreach and operations at the 2021 Western States Regional Conference (WSRC) in San Diego, California.
2019 Winner – Mr. Ted Mulder
Ted led the INCOSE SD chapter to its first ever Platinum and Outstanding Chapter awards. Note that only one chapter out of 70 received this Platinum and Outstanding Chapter award in 2018
2018 Winner – Mr. Jim Gottfried
In March 2019, INCOSE San Diego awarded board member Jim Gottfried the Jeff Grady award. Jim has been a tired-less champion of INCOSE and the San Diego Chapter. He has served multiple board positions, to include chapter president, and he currently leads the Ambassador program.
His professional credentials include over 30 years of software and systems engineering management, including as a program manager of system development projects during his 20 years for SAIC, 10 years for Lockheed Martin Aerospace, and 11 years for Hughes Aircraft. Jim currently works as a consultant supporting proposal development and review, independent project reviews covering both technical and management concerns, and system engineering process improvement including risk management and CMMI. Jim has been a mentor to other board members, and has been an active supporter of INCOSE activities.
2017 Winner – Mr. Mark Halverson
In Feb 2018, INCOSE San Diego awarded Mark Halverson the Jeff Grady award for his 13 years of dedicated service to the San Diego chapter. All board members are volunteers, and during his tenure, Mark served many roles to include 2015 Chapter President.
Mark retired from the board in Jan 2018 but will remain an active INCOSE and San Diego Chapter member. He has also volunteered to help on special projects outside the scope of current board members’ duties, to include the annual auditing of the chapter.
Please join us in recognizing the contributions of our dedicated chapter members!
Please click here to nominate another active chapter member for this award.