MU ‘prepared me well’ for job
Tipton boy to lead federal nuclear agency.

When Dale Klein told his father about his desire to go to the University of Missouri-Columbia, his dad was unsure.

No one in the family had ever gone to college. Klein’s father wanted his son to help out on the family farm near Tipton. Klein’s father relented, however, provided that Klein would go into engineering, a profession he thought would always provide his son with a job.

The latest job Klein will take with the benefit of three MU engineering degrees is chairman of the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Klein, 58, assumes the role July 1.

"I believe the training I received at MU-Columbia prepared me well for the challenges that have come before me," Klein said. "When I look at public education, getting a college degree was what opened doors that would not have opened otherwise."

Klein got where he is today with a combination of hard work, nurturing professors and blind luck.

"The way I picked mechanical engineering was I simply happened to enter the engineering building and turned right, and that happened to be the mechanical engineering office," Klein said.

Tipton High School had not prepared Klein for engineering. He didn’t have calculus or physics courses.

"I was lost," Klein said. He went to the chairman of the math department, who signed a waiver that put Klein in college algebra and trigonometry courses. The decision helped him catch up.

"One of the strengths of the program was a faculty that really cared," Klein said. "The nurturing environment was one of the strengths that I witnessed several times. I was lucky I sought him out and lucky that he gave me that advice."

Klein got a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and then a master’s. Later, Klein came back to MU to get a doctorate in nuclear engineering.

John Miles, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, was one of two advisers on Klein’s doctoral project.

"He was a very hardworking, diligent student," Miles said. "What impressed me was that he took a summer job with a power company in San Diego and through that identified his own Ph.D. dissertation project and obtained the funding for it, which was really remarkable. I think that was a very good omen of the initiative that he possessed even at that time."

Miles said Klein had "people skills" that helped him get where he is today.

"Engineers have the rap of being the nerds of the crowd, but he’s not that at all," Miles said. "He’s not the life-of-the-party type, but he’s very outgoing."

Klein spent most of his professional life at the University of Texas at Austin. He worked his way up to be vice chancellor for special engineering programs for the UT system while serving as a professor in the mechanical engineering department. He also was the head of the Amarillo National Research Center, where he supervised $45 million worth of plutonium research and the dismantling of nuclear weapons.

Klein is married to Rebecca Klein, the former chairwoman of the Texas Public Utility Commission and an unsuccessful Republican candidate for Congress in 2004. She is now the managing partner of a law firm in Austin.

Before President George W. Bush appointed him NRC chairman, Klein was assistant to the secretary of defense for nuclear and chemical and biological defense programs.

Given the nation’s energy situation, Klein said he expected to be busy at the NRC.

"I believe we will add more nuclear power plants," he said. "Utilities have expressed interest that they expect to have 19 power plants under construction. It will be a dynamic time."

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Reach Terry Ganey at (573) 815-1708 or tganey@tribmail.com.

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