Distinguished Engineer
Hometown: Howard
Duane Sander earned his B.S. degree in electrical engineering from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in 1960 and his M.S. and Ph.D. from Iowa State University in 1962 and 1964. He joined the Electrical Engineering Department at South Dakota State University in 1967 as an associate professor. His research and teaching interests were centered on control systems and their application in biomedical applications. Sander’s administrative and leadership duties began in 1984 when he was appointed director of Engineering Extension. He was named department head of General Engineering in 1985. He became acting dean of engineering in 1987 and dean in 1990. He also worked closely with alumni and friends of the University as the director of special projects at the SDSU Foundation. In addition, Sander was co-founder of Daktronics, Inc., of Brookings which designs, manufacturers, markets and services large computer programmable displays, primarily scoreboards and large screen video systems. He was involved in the encouragement of entrepreneurship through the Ron Reed Economic Development Center in Brookings and helped in the establishment of the SDSU Foundation’s Enterprise Institute.