Texas Tech University

Distinguished Engineer Citations

Larry Ludlum
de2018

Distinguished Engineer

2019

Degree

B.S. Electrical Engineering, Texas Tech University - 1981

Citation

At time of Nomination in 2019


Larry Ludlum was born in Santa Fe, New Mexico. When he was four years old,
his father moved their family to Sweetwater, Texas, where he founded Ludlum
Measurements, Inc. (LMI). LMI manufactures, sells, and services nuclear radiation
measuring equipment. LMI is a vertically integrated company, building as much
as possible in house. This includes a complete metal fabrication and finishing
shop, a complete PCB manufacturing line, assembly facilities, and calibration
and service labs. All design work is done in house as well. In addition to the
radiation measuring product line, LMI and its divisions also manufacture injection
molded plastic parts, photomultiplier tubes, organic scintillators, specialty technical
glasses, and airborne pollution monitoring equipment. Currently, LMI employs
approximately 375 people in the US, and 100 people in the UK.

While in high school, Ludlum worked at LMI, doing pretty much anything that
needed to be done, and by the time he graduated from Sweetwater High School
in 1975, was already becoming involved in new product designs.

After graduating high school, he attended Texas Tech, graduating with a Bachelor
of Science in Electrical Engineering in December of 1981. He managed to cram
four years of college into six and a half years with a lot of sweat, some occasional
hard work, and dropping out of college at least once. During this time, he was
greatly influenced by several professors, including Dr. Russell Seacat, Dr. Thomas
Trost, Dr. Darrell Vines, Dr. Don Gustafson, Dr. Kwong-Shu Chao and Dr. John
Craig, to name a few.

While attending TTU, Ludlum worked on weekends and school breaks with his
father in the family business, Ludlum Measurements, Inc. Upon graduation from
TTU, he moved back to Sweetwater and joined LMI full time, where he has
since remained. As LMI grew, Ludlum became more involved with the company
management, becoming Vice President in 1995, and President in 2013. He has
managed to stay involved in equipment design since then, although he has not
been able to spend much time in this area. Currently, he is responsible for all of
LMI and divisions, including ADIT, Eljen Technology, and West Texas Molding,
based in Sweetwater, TX; Protean Instruments located in Knoxville, TN; 2B
Technology, located in Boulder, Colorado; ET Enterprises, located in Uxbridge,
UK; and Plowden & Thompson, located in Stourbridge, UK.
In addition to his duties at LMI, Ludlum is the Vice President of the National
WASP WWII Museum, located at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, where the Women
Airforce Service Pilots trained during WWII, and Treasurer of the Sweetwater
Municipal Auditorium Board.