WMU's 45th Annual Engineers Week Dinner
Tuesday, Feb. 20, 2024
Social Hour: 5:30 p.m.
Dinner: 6:30 p.m.
Presentation: 7:30 p.m.
Location: Fetzer Center at Western Michigan University
Speaker: Louise A. Noeth aka "LandSpeed Louise," author and land speed racer
Louise Noeth asks "do fast women really need engineers?" Astronaut John Glenn used Utah’s Bonneville Salt Flats as a landmark from space, but on earth amateur motorsports enthusiasts have used the blistering hot, flat pancake as a speed laboratory for more than a century. With their handcrafted cars, trucks and motorcycles, thousands of men and women have hosted pageants of power each summer since 1949. Every single one came looking for the answer to the same question: "How fast will to go?”
The decades of effort have made them the fastest people on earth reaching speeds more than 500MPH. On the salt, people find the limits of their courage, they learn what daring greatly is all about, and understand why a Bonneville Salt Flats speed record is an internationally respected pedigree. People who race on the salt flats become a family bound together by speed – a powerful force that erases ethnic, economic, political, and religious barriers: They are land speed racers.
The evening presentation shines a spectacular spotlight on how some 350 women (ages 16 to 80) designed, built and/or set more than 1,000 land speed records.
About Louise Noeth
Louise Ann Noeth is a storyteller known for taking complicated subjects and making them entertaining while they educate. You are glad you spent the time reading her words.
She founded LandSpeed Productions in 1984. Noeth’s award-winning writing and photographic works have been published around the world in several languages. From the New York Times to Sports Illustrated to The Late Show with David Letterman and onto the international arena, her client list is diverse, thought-provoking and for the most part—fun.
Dubbed, “LandSpeed Louise” (LSL) by the late Gray Baskerville, HOT ROD Magazine’s irreverently brilliant automotive journalist, Noeth concentrates on land speed racing, mesmerized by amateurs, common folks who do extraordinary feats by designing, building and driving the fastest cars, trucks and motorcycles on earth.
“I want people to be comfortable, become enthused when they venture into my stories and come away with something useful for the time spent,” explains Noeth. Unlike most journalists, writers, photographers, artists, and publicists who focus on only one, or perhaps two disciplines, LandSpeed Louise noticed that she could get editors to give her more assignments if she could provide words and pictures—photographed or drawn.
After several years of touring North America as a professional auto racer campaigning a 250 MPH jet dragster, she became a member of the Fourth Estate when she was hired by Petersen Publishing Company in 1979. As the first female editor-in-chief of any of the firm’s automotive publications, she produced: HOT ROD Industry News, SEMA Show HOT ROD Hotline and was a member of the development team for HOT ROD Nationals and CAR CRAFT Nationals.
Her column, Fuel For Thought, appeared monthly in the GoodGuys Gazette for 12 years providing readers with an insiders view of land speed racing that has captured numerous peer-reviewed accolades through the years.
She wrote the critically acclaimed, award-winning “Bonneville Salt Flats: The Fastest Place On Earth” in print for 11 years and enjoyed seven printings. Currently under contract with the University of Utah Press, she is developing a manuscript with hundreds of accompanying photographs that will cover the first century of speed on the salt, 1914-2014.
It is noteworthy that LSL shares, as a member of TEAMVesco, the current 458MPH World LandSpeed Record for Wheel-Driven cars set in 2001 by the late Don Vesco.
As one of few women auto writers and racers in America, her moniker “Landspeed Louise” is well-deserved and hard-earned. She has served on several auto industry technical committees developing self-regulating guidelines in tires, suspension and emission controls, and contributed to regulatory discussions with the Secretary of Energy in Washington, D.C. that resulted in a shift in national policy. Comfortable and competent behind the wheel of any car, or truck, she is also an accomplished motorcyclist, licensed pilot and blue water sailor.
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Sponsors
The Engineers Week Committee thanks the following sponsors for their support of the 2023 event. If you are interested in sponsoring the 2024 Engineers Week Dinner, please contact Jorge Rodriguez.