Faculty Profile

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Al Erisman

Professor Emeritus of Business

Email: aerisman@spu.edu


Education: BS, Northern Illinois University, 1962; MS, Iowa State University, 1967; PhD, Iowa State University, 1969. At SPU 2001–2017. Emeritus since 2017.

Albert M. (Al) Erisman is the Executive in Residence and the past Director for the Center for Integrity in Business in the School of Business and Economics at Seattle Pacific University. He teaches business ethics and business and technology both at the undergraduate and the graduate level. He is also executive editor of Ethix magazine, which he co-founded with a colleague in 1998. In this capacity he has interviewed business leaders from around the world on issues of ethics, values, and purpose. 

In April 2001, Dr. Erisman completed a 32 year career at The Boeing Company where, for the last 10 years, he was director of R&D for computing and mathematics. In this capacity, he managed a staff of 250–300 scientists, mathematicians, statisticians, and engineers with the objective of bringing new technology to Boeing’s processes and products. He was selected as one of 11 inaugural Senior Technical Fellows of The Boeing Company in 1990. 

Dr. Erisman has been on numerous boards (Washington Technology Center, Theology of Work, Kiros, and two startup companies) and committees related to science and technology (the National Academy of Sciences, the National Science Foundation, Los Alamos Laboratories, National Institute for Standards and Technology). 

He is a co-author/editor of three books, along with numerous technical and popular papers. He is a Fellow in the Fordham University Consortium on the purpose of business. He has a PhD in applied mathematics from Iowa State University. 


Books

Making IT Better: Expanding Information Technology Research to Meet Society’s Needs

National Academy Press, 2000

Direct Methods for Sparse Matrices, with John Reid and Iain Duff

Oxford University Press, 1986

Electric Power Problems, the Mathematical Challenge, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics

1980

Selected Publications

  • Ethix magazine, a bi-monthly publication since 1998, editor.
  • "Technology and the New Challenges of Management" in Beyond Integrity — third edition by Scott Rae and Kenman Wong (2012).
  • "The Financial Crisis," The Complete Book of Everyday Christianity, Robert Banks & R. Paul Stevens, editors (Singapore: Graceworks Private Limited, 2011).
  • "Ethics, Technology, and the Net Generation: Rethinking Intellectual Property Law," in Dancing With Digital Natives: Staying in Step With the Generation That's Transforming the Way Business Is Done, eds. Michelle Manafy and Heidi Gautschi, Medford, New Jersey: Information Age Books, 2011.
  • "Called to the Marketplace," in Devotional Ventures; Corey Cleek, editor; Regal Books, 2007.

Please view Al Erisman's CV (PDF) for additional publications.

Al Erisman

Why I Teach at SPU

Al Erisman, Executive in Residence, School of Business and Economics

"I teach at SPU because it gives me the opportunity to draw on my experiences in business at The Boeing Company, and to bring them together with my faith in Jesus Christ in a way that would be impossible at most universities in the area. I teach because I love the interaction with students and learn so much from them. I teach because of the opportunity to interact with a great group of colleagues in my department and the rest of the university."