George Hazelrigg has been a student of engineering design for almost 60 years. He enjoyed designing and building things, from model airplanes and boats to street-legal motor vehicles, when he was young. With a passion for design, the choice to study engineering was obvious. In 1961, George obtained a BS in mechanical engineering from Newark College of Engineering (now New Jersey Institute of Technology) and went to work for Curtiss-Wright designing test equipment for large aircraft engines. There, he found that his deterministic engineering education, with its focus on the physical sciences, did not improve his ability to do engineering design, which is more about decision making. So he felt it necessary to get a master's degree. In 1963, he completed an MS in mechanical engineering, also from NCE, but this didn’t help him to understand the theory of design. While getting his MS, however, he did some teaching and liked it. So he thought that a career as an academician would be good. Five years later, he had obtained MA, MSE, and PhD degrees in aerospace engineering from Princeton University. Now he found the theory of engineering design entirely elusive. For the next 15 years, he worked in industry and academe in an attempt to better understand engineering design, including time spent at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, General Dynamics, Princeton University and a consulting firm of which he was a co-founder. He also spent a year in Korea helping to found the Systems Engineering Department of Ajou University. George joined the National Science Foundation in 1982 and, in 1996, became program director for the NSF Engineering Design program where, for eight years, he provided support to others in the field. In January, 1996, he did a stint as Station Science Leader of the U.S. South Pole station and, since 2004, he has been Program Director for the Manufacturing and Machines and Equipment program. Since the formation of the Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation Division of NSF, he has been Deputy Division Director. For relaxation, he spends his weekends soaring over the Shenandoah Valley, and he is a certified flight instructor in gliders (CFI-G) with about 1,500 total flying hours.