Hira L. Fotedar Ph.D., FASQ

Past-President

Dr. Hira Fotedar is a Past-President of IAKF, and is an active member of both IAKF and KOA, the Kashmiri Overseas Association, the socio-cultural organization promoting Kashmiri Pandit Culture.

In his professional life, Dr. Fotedar is President of Fotedar Associates and former Vice President - Quality and Operational Excellence, Eaton Corporation. He was with Eaton for 28 years assuming progressively senior management and leadership positions in the areas of product engineering and development, manufacturing, quality and operational excellence.

Dr. Fotedar developed and deployed Eaton’s Annual Business Excellence Assessment program to assess the deployment of the Eaton Business System. He has pioneered performance excellence initiatives such as Total Quality Leadership, Six Sigma, PROLaunch for new product development, Eaton Lean System and Best Practices Sharing companywide. These initiatives have contributed to placing Eaton in the top quartile of diversified industrial companies. Dr. Fotedar received Eaton’s Quality Pioneer Award in 1992 and the ECD- Quality Leadership Award in 1993. The American Society for Quality awarded him the Cecil C. Craig Award in 1987 and a Testimonial Award in 2001. Dr. Fotedar also received the 2004 Engineer of the Year Award from ASEI ( American Society of Engineers of Indian Origin).

Prior to joining Eaton, Dr. Fotedar was Associate Professor at the Instituto de Energia Atomica (IPEN) in Sao Paulo, Brazil where he established programs and conducted research in nuclear materials for Brazil’s automotive and nuclear industry.

Dr. Fotedar holds a B.S. in Metallurgical Engineering from Banaras Hindu University India and holds M.S. and PhD degrees in the same field from the University of Washington, Seattle. He is an ASQ Fellow. He is a Founder and past Chairman of the Ohio Award of Excellence. Dr. Fotedar has served as an Examiner and a Senior Examiner for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (1995 - 1998). Dr. Fotedar is Chairman of Work in Northeast Ohio Council (WINOC). He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Michigan Quality Council and of the Board of Trustees of the Ohio Award for Excellence. He is co-chair of the Performance Improvement Council of The Conference Board, and Quality Council member of the Manufacturers Alliance for Productivity and Innovation.