Alumni News A Family Tradition


Harry Shimp Carries on a Legacy of Engineering— and Attending Carnegie Mellon


MechE alum Harry Shimp (M.E., M.S. 1979) has a family that is known for two traditions. First, it is a family of engineers. Shimp’s father, Harry Sr. or “Pete,” earned an Industrial Engineering degree from Penn State and worked as an engineer for U.S. Steel. From an early age, Shimp was also drawn to engineering—attending science fairs, assembling go-carts, and building rockets and airplanes. Second, Shimp’s family has a legacy of attending Carnegie Mellon University. Shimp’s mother, Margaret Halnan Shimp, and his aunt, Dolores Halnan Wohlfarth, both graduated from


Margaret Morrison, the women’s college, in the 1930s. His uncle, Francis Halnan, also attended the University before leaving in 1942 for the U.S. Army Air Corps, where he became a Lieutenant Colonel.


“My maternal grandparents emigrated to Pittsburgh from Ireland in the 1890s, during the second potato famine,” says Shimp. “As immigrants, they had little choice but to work as laborers. Although my grand- father had been a teacher in Ireland, here he worked in a steel mill. They had six children, and all six went to college—three to Carnegie Mellon. My grand- parents instilled in their children that, with education and hard work, they could achieve the American dream. And they were right.” Shimp’s parents actually met on the Carnegie Mellon campus, when Margaret or “Peggy” was a senior and Pete was doing graduate study in metallurgy while working for U.S. Steel. After graduation, Peggy also went to work for U.S. Steel, where she eventually became an assistant to the company’s Vice President of Engineering.


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CARNEGIE MECH


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