![]() Steve Patterson of Mechanical Engineering was the first interim director of EPIC. The Energy Production and Infrastructure Center was born. In 2008, the North Carolina General Assembly appropriated $76 million for the construction of the EPIC building and $5 million a year in recurring funds to hire 37 new faculty and staff in the area of energy engineering. (For more information on the founding of EPIC see the chapter "Expanding 1998-2015.) The university proposed the program at the state level, and through the persuasion of additional energy professionals and soaring gasoline prices, convinced them that EPIC was needed. With the backing of industry representatives, he convinced UNC Charlotte’s upper administration that an energy engineering program was a good idea. In 2007, Johnson wrote a whitepaper proposing EPIC. Through the urging of local energy and technology leaders such as Dhiaa Jamil of Duke Energy and Mark Boomgarden of Akoustis, Johnson proposed an academic and research program that would respond to the growing workforce demand for energy engineers and the need for alternative and more-efficient energy solutions. Lee College of Engineering Dean Bob Johnson developed the initial concept for EPIC. Collaborative research areas included power distribution and grid management, intelligent management, manufacturing of large power generation equipment, renewable energy, and environmental impacts. EPIC educational programs at the undergraduate and graduate levels emphasized the application of engineering skills on energy challenges. As a collaborative, multidisciplinary endeavor, EPIC brought together the academic and research expertise of the university with the great wealth of energy engineering talent in Charlotte. To meet the workforce and technical research demands of the energy engineering industry in the Charlotte region, the North Carolina General Assembly established the Energy Production and Infrastructure Center (EPIC) at UNC Charlotte in 2008.
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