James R. Eifert
President/CEO

Dr. James R. Eifert received his BS from the University of Notre Dame and the MS and Ph.D. from The Ohio State University in Metallurgical Engineering. He served with the U.S. Navy Seabees as an officer in the Civil Engineer Corps.

From 1972 until 2005, he was a faculty member at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. For 17 years, he was Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty at Rose-Hulman. In 1997, he accepted a position as Visiting Vice President at Kanazawa Institute of Technology, Japan’s largest private technological university. Upon his return to the U.S. in 1998, Eifert served the F. W. Olin Foundation as their full-time academic consultant as they designed the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering built in Needham, MA.

Eifert returned to Rose-Hulman in 1999 as President of Rose-Hulman Ventures: a practice-based educational, technology development, and economic development component of Rose-Hulman eventually funded by $54.3 million in grants from the Lilly Endowment, Inc.; Eifert was a principal author of the proposal to establish and expand Rose-Hulman Ventures.

In 2005, Eifert resigned from Rose-Hulman to pursue a consulting career in the area of innovation-based economic development with special emphasis on university/community interactions.

Eifert served two years as a Board member for Indiana’s 21 st Century Research and Technology Fund and has been honored as a recipient of the Ralph A. Teetor Award of the Society of Automotive Engineers and a winner of the Cyberstar Award of the Indiana Information Technology Association (now TechPoint). He was also named to the Indiana Business Journal list of 50 Top Technologists in Indiana, as a Sagamore of the Wabash by Governor Kernan of Indiana, and as a Distinguished Alumnus of Chaminade-Julienne High School in Dayton, Ohio.

Eifert’s technical professional practice has been in the analysis of metallurgical failures where he has provided consulting for more than 50 corporations, law firms, insurance companies, etc. As an avocation, Jim has used this professional interest since 1994 as an official for the United States Auto Club and the Indy Racing League where he serves as an official providing component testing, safety monitoring, failure analysis, and accident investigation for the Indy 500 and the other races of the IRL and Infiniti Pro Series.

Since 1967, Jim has been married to the former Judith Rawers of Dayton, Ohio; they have two married children: Rebecca (Mrs. Edvins Joniskan) of Indianapolis and Andrew of Derby, England.