Walter Bradley

From my earliest years in school, I loved math and science and found that God had given me with gifts and talents in these areas. In college I received a B.S. in Engineering Science and a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering, both at the University of Texas (Austin), still wondering how God might use my gifts and talents to advance His kingdom. It was during the spring of my last year in graduate school that I began to sense God's call to be a "missionary to the secular university campus" as a college professor. I had 32 wonderful years of ministering with my wife Ann to college students and colleagues at the Colorado School of Mines (8) and at Texas A&M University (24).

When Baylor invited me to come and interview for a position, I had misgivings about the leaving the wonderful place of opportunity to have a Christian influence that God had provided at Texas A&M University. What could I possibly do at Baylor that would be as significant? My wife and I found a clear sense of God's calling when we interviewed at Baylor, but no clear sense of why. It was only after I began teaching at Baylor that God lead me to initiate a program in Engineering and Technology in Service of the Poor, or engineering for the "other" 5 billion people who are very under-served.

The last five years have been the most exciting years professionally of my career. I have moved on from developing synthetic, high-performance, very high priced, polymeric composite materials for the Air Force and NASA to creating inexpensive new material systems from natural materials that can be grown by poor farmers in under-developed parts of the world to create markets for their crops and economic opportunity for them. Working with students at Baylor, we have developed and patented some exciting new composite materials that can be made from coconuts, with properties that are idea for automotive composites and many other applications. Our goal is to create markets for more than 500 million pounds/year of coconut fiber, pith and shell, creating $100 million in economic opportunity for the 10 million coconut farmers and their families who subsist on less than $500/year. We are partnering with Christians in various under-developed countries to make these opportunities available as part of holistic Kingdom building ministries. We also partner with Dr. Steve Bradley and Dr. Mitch Neubert in the Hankamar School of Business and their students who are developing business plans for these ventures.

Ann and I have always children that we supported through World Vision and orphanages that we support in India. But I have been so excited to see that the impact that I can have be using my God given gifts, talents, training and experience in engineering dwarf what I can do by just writing checks, and working directly with the people we are helping has been such a blessing to me.