BS Electrical Engineering ’71
BS Mathematics ’71
Retired, Senior Vice President Customer Service, Transmission & Distribution Portland General Electric | Portland, Ore. Steve Hawke enjoys interacting and serving people. Whether he is working with customers in the field, mentoring youth in athletics, or helping people in need in the community, his technical education and strong involvement in student affairs at Oregon State have served him well.Although he was born in Walla Walla, Wash., Hawke moved frequently throughout the West as his father was transferred from job to job. When he was a sophomore in high school, Hawke’s father called a family meeting to announce that he was starting his own business. He said that he could run it from anywhere in the United States and the family got to choose where they wanted to settle.“Portland won hands down — it was the most favorite place we had lived,” says Hawke. After high school, Hawke attended Oregon State University, where he obtained rigorous technical training in math and engineering. “I finished high school (in Portland) with strong interests in math and science, so it was natural to stick with an in-state engineering program.”Extra-curricular activities at the university, he says, “probably taught me as much about dealing in the world as anything else. Campus involvement, combined with the technical training I received, was absolutely the best that could happen to me.”After graduating, Hawke established a 38-year distinguished career with Portland General Electric Co., the metropolitan area’s primary utility, from which he retired as senior vice president. In that position, he oversaw distribution, system planning and engineering, transmission services, customer service, customers and economic development, and a variety of utility services and energy sustainability groups.Hawke brought the customer’s point of view into the utility. “Ask the customer what they want and provide it,” he says. “It was successful — we demonstrated the ability to bring the customer’s view to bear with PGE, a feat that traditionally hadn’t happened in the past.”While putting people first in his professional life, Hawke has also been deeply passionate about serving people in his community. He has held numerous leadership and volunteer positions in many metropolitan and regional civic groups. He served as president of the Professional Engineers of Oregon, which named him the Oregon Young Engineer of the Year in 1984 and Oregon Engineer of the Year in 2000.None of that compares to Hawke’s passionate involvement with his three children and other young athletes on the “field of battle” (as he puts it) as a coach and mentor. “Working with kids and trying to make a difference in a lot of lives was my main goal,” Hawke says.