Lifting as he soared
As a warrior, educator, and engineer, Leonard Uitenham tended to boost everyone around him. It all began at Case.
By Brian Albrecht
Photo by Roadell Hickman
Teacher, aviator and decorated Marine Leonard Curtis Uitenham recently returned to the scene of a lifechanging time he will always remember. Because that time as an undergraduate on Case Quad (1971-1975) laid the foundation for three degrees from Case Institute of Technology, flight training, two combat deployments, and a career guiding students through the complexities of science, engineering, and aviation.
Uitenham ’75, MS ’81, PhD ’85, an emeritus professor at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in Greensboro, regularly re-visits Case when he returns home to see his relatives. “I usually take a nostalgic drive through the campus,” the 72-year-old said. “I just laugh a lot, remembering when I lived in Staley House.”
Crossing the snowy campus in a confident stride on a January day, packing a no-nonsense handshake, Uitenham marched As a warrior, educator, and engineer, Leonard Uitenham tended to boost everyone around him. It all began at Case. through the bitter cold in the warmth of fond memories.
“I usually have one or two grandkids along. I tell them to bow their heads,” he quipped.
That energy and good cheer is felt hundreds of miles south on the campus of North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, where Uitenham has distinguished himself as a groundbreaking administrator and a popular professor and mentor.
“Our students look up to him because of his experience in the military and as an engineer,” said Stephanie Luster-Teasley Pass, dean of the College of Engineering. “He always has a smile for you, and makes you feel like you’re important.”
The roots of the Uitenham odyssey go back to his family’s immigration to America from the Republic of Suriname in South America in the early 1900s. Uitenham (pronounced “you-10- ham”) is a Dutch name from that region of the world. He grew up in the Cleveland neighborhood of Glenville as the eldest of nine children and the son of a truck driver for the city of Cleveland.
While attending Glenville High School, he developed a reputation as a wryly, self-described “chess hustler,” capable of playing and beating 20 opponents at once. In 1968, Uitenham was connected to a mentor through a program offered by the high school’s Scholars Club and Anshe Chesed Fairmount Temple of Beachwood. The match led to his future career and a lifelong friendship with Dr. Daniel Weidenthal, a prominent Cleveland ophthalmologist and eye surgeon and a graduate of the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.
The pair hit it off immediately, recalls Weidenthal, 92, of suburban Cleveland. “He’d come over to our house for dinner Sunday nights,” he said. “I knew Eric Baer (founder of the Department of Macromolecular Science and Engineering) and asked if he could give him a summer job in his lab. By the end of the summer I said, ‘This kid’s got real potential, I’d like him to go to Case.’”
Baer, 92, of Cleveland Heights, remembered first meeting Uitenham during one of his regular chess-playing sessions with Glenville High students. “He actually beat me,” Baer said with a chuckle. “He was very bright, very motivated and an extraordinarily positive person.”
Baer, who still teaches and conducts research at Case, said he wasn’t surprised by how far Uitenham advanced in his career. “He has a quality of leadership to him . . . one of those people you could have confidence in,” Baer said.
He noted that although Uitenham was one of relatively few minority students at the school at that time, “there was no tokenism in any form. He deserved everything he got. He’s a wonderful guy. We can be very proud he’s our graduate.”
The mentor and his mentee. Leonard Uitenham with Dr. Dan Weidenthal on campus in January 2025.
"Our students look up to him because of his experience in the military and as an engineer. He always has a smile for you, and makes you feel like you’re important."
Captain Uitenham, 1981. Preflight inspection of an OV-10 attack aircraft at New River Marine Corps Air Base, North Caroli
RISING TO THE CHALLENGE
Uitenham’s introduction to Case — suddenly thrust into the ranks of advanced students — was hard, Weidenthal said. “The first year he was going to quit,” he recalled.
Uitenham noted, “I was competing against students from some of the top high schools across the country. They were blowing through this stuff while I was struggling with it,” he remembered. “The first year was a challenge, and I had to learn how to study. I’d have to study all night because the material was hard.
“But I had a lot of people who had faith in me, and I really didn’t want to let any of them down,” he added. “I developed a hard work ethic that was most successful for me there, and I kind of carried that through everything I’ve done since. “
Uitenham was supported by scholarships from the Case Alumni Association and by faculty like Baer, Jerry Lando, Thomas Eck, Thomas Kicher, Bob Edwards, and Joseph Prahl.
“The professors were very nurturing,” he said. “They were always willing to talk to me, just always encouraging.”
While Uitenham was still at Glenville, Weidenthal invited him to observe his eye surgeries, hoping it might inspire the young man to major in medicine. Uitenham instead opted for engineering. “I was real good with math, and real good with my hands, working on engines and making stuff,” he said.
He was a natural hands-on fixer, according to Weidenthal, who recalled the time he sold his Saab to Uitenham, who was looking for a car, even if it needed repairs. “He went to the dealer, talked to mechanics who said ‘You can’t do it.’ They said, ‘That’s a job for a master mechanic.’ But he had a shop manual (for the car) and he borrowed the tools and did the whole thing.
“When things go wrong, he would fix them,” Weidenthal added. “It looks overwhelming, but he figures out how do it.”
After earning a bachelor’s degree in polymer science and engineering (later followed by a master’s and a doctorate) Uitenham, the son of a Korean War veteran, enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps and entered Officer Candidate School.
He had been taught at Case, he said, that “it helps to have some management skills, people skills, and I was researching ways I could do that, and the military was one of those ways,” the Marines in particular. During school, he’d scrimped to pay for flight lessons and earned his pilot’s license. In the Marines, he knew, he could both fly fighter jets and lead infantry.
CIT, freshman year, 1971. From top left, Bruce Twarog, Leonard Uitenham, Ed Borkowski, Robert Quinn, and Steve Mosier (at bottom). Photo by Nelson Gigliotti.
" I had a lot of people who had faith in me, and I really didn’t want to let any of them down."
FLYING FOR THE MARINES
Uitenham learned to catapult from aircraft carriers on deployments to the Mediterranean, piloting A-4 subsonic light attack aircraft on training missions. In 1991, he was sent to Kuwait for Operation Desert Storm. There, he flew OV-10 twin-turboprop light attack and observation aircraft in support of Marine ground forces.
The risks were real but not overwhelming, he said. “It really doesn’t hit you,” he noted. “You train hard, you train well, and now’s the time to execute, working one problem at a time.”
On his next combat deployment in Iraq, for Operation Iraqi Freedom (2004-2005), Uitenham received the Meritorious Service Medal for overseeing use of counter-IED (improvised explosive device) technology.
“You wouldn’t believe the amount of technology they wanted to get into battle,” he recalled. “I also took on all aviation-oriented stuff at a drone level, really cutting-edge kind of stuff.”
He served 31 years (both active duty and Reserves) in the Marine Corps, retiring as a full colonel. After active duty, he returned to Case and continued his studies with financial support from the Marine Reserves. He was awarded his master’s degree in macromolecular science and engineering in 1981 and his doctorate in 1985.
Certified as a flight instructor and a transport pilot, Uitenham considered becoming an airline pilot. Instead, he opted for a position with Cleveland-based Sherwin-Williams, which sent him to run one of its plants in North Carolina.
There, in 2001, he joined the faculty of North Carolina A&T, the nation’s largest historically black university. The College of Engineering quickly felt his can-do spirit. Uitenham led the departments of mechanical and chemical engineering as chair. He also founded the first accredited biomedical engineering program at an historically black university.
That accomplishment led to his election to the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering’s College of Fellows, which represents the top two percent of medical and biological engineers in the nation. In 2011, he was named the university’s Teacher of the Year.
Major Uitenham, 1988. Ready for air-to-air combat training, Yuma, Arizona.
Leonard H. Uitenham, bottom, a Korean War Veteran, had three sons serving in the U.S. Armed Forces in 1999. From left, Colonel Leonard C. Uitenham, USMC, Sergeant First Class Fabias L. Uitenham, USA, and
Chief Petty Officer Yancy M. Uitenham, USN.
A PASSION FOR TEACHING
John Kizito, MS ’91, PhD ’96, a professor and interim chair of mechanical engineering at North Carolina A&T, said Uitenham’s honors are well deserved.
“He’s a man of multiple talents, an interdisciplinary person,” Kizito observed. “He’s a pilot with a passion for teaching.”
Kizito came to North Carolina A&T in 2007, when Uitenham headed mechanical engineering. They soon discovered they both were Case alumni and had shared the same advisor, Professor Joe Prahl.
“Case was a great influence,” Kizito said. “The training, the mentorships, allowed us to be who we are. We can fit in anyplace, and compete with anyone.”
Uitenham agreed. “It was a very nurturing environment,” he noted, “and just the level of education and technical competitiveness you got, the pedigree coming out of that school was top notch.”
North Carolina A&T enjoyed the fruits of Uitenham’s Case education. Kizito describes him as “a leader of others, a leader of programs, and a motivated educator.”
Dean Pass said Uitenham’s “commanding presence” is a unifying force on campus, where many view him as a role mode.
“The students love engaging with him just because of his experiences,” she said. “There’s nothing like someone with world experience to bring to class. It’s one thing to teach a class, and another when he can tell you a story for almost anything he teaches.”
The Uitenham legacy at North Carolina A&T will endure for generations. In 2023, his mentor created the Dr. Leonard C. Uitenham and Dr. Daniel T. Weidenthal Endowed Professorship in Bioengineering. With a $250,000 gift that will be matched by the state, Weidenthal endowed a professorship designed to attract, retain, and reward top faculty.
“It helps recruit people in a strategic area,” Pass said. “It allows us to encourage top-notch faculty, and it’s a great way to honor his (Uitenham’s) legacy.”
Bob Kirsch, chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Case, chats wtih Leonard Uitenham on his January visit to campus.
Professor Uitenham teaching Flight Vehicle Performance in December 2024.
The professorship is also a tribute to the close relationship between Weidenthal and Uitenham and their time together at Case.
Uitenham recalled speaking at Weidenthal’s 90th birthday. “I was trying to describe the relationship Dan and I have, and what it meant to me, and I told the crowd that we all know about King Solomon. He had 700 wives. He had all the money in the world. But he didn’t have what I had, and that was Dan Weidenthal. His encouragement laid the foundation for everything else to come.”
Uitenham said he had never considered himself a role model: “I just did what I enjoyed and thought was important.” But when he was asked to speak for a campus group at Case dedicated to awarding minority scholarships in engineering, he noted, “That did feel good, though it was kind of a shock. I wasn’t expecting that.”
Today, Uitenham continues teaching courses at North Carolina A&T in bioengineering, polymers, aircraft design, and drone technology.
When he recently visited Cleveland, where five of his siblings still live, it was also a homecoming for Alvenia, his high school sweetheart and wife of 52 years. She recalled study dates at Case with her future husband while she was attending Ursuline College. The couple has two children — daughter Tia and son Leonard E., who is also a Marine veteran — as well as eight grandchildren.
“He’s a fun guy,” Alvenia Uitenham said, “but he’s also very serious at times. He’s very goal-oriented, a go-getter, I guess. He likes to get things done.”
That includes giving students a taste of actual flight experience. Uitenham is a FAA Certified Flight Instructor. As part of his course on aircraft performance and design, students actually fly a plane — with Uitenham as co-pilot — and apply engineering principles they learned in class.
“I don’t think he’ll ever just quit, just because he loves what he’s doing,” his wife said. “The university is very gracious in letting him choose what he wants to teach, and when he wants to teach it. So that’s been beneficial to everybody.”
The dean agreed. “We’re hoping we can always use him as a resource, even when he decides to retire for real,” she said.
When asked about future horizons during his recent visit to Case, Uitenham slowly gazed around the Quad that started his long life’s flight, and simply said, “Teaching.” And so, the legacy born here 54 years ago continues.
Brian Albrecht is a former award-winning writer for The Plain Dealer of Cleveland. To comment on this story, email casealum@casealum.org.
"He’s a man of multiple talents, an interdisciplinary person. He’s a pilot with a passion for teaching."
Professor Uitenham, 2010. Flying with a student in his Aircraft Design and Performance class.
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