March 17, 2023

Five organizations of engineers in the United States jointly awarded Ratan Naval Tata with the 2022 Hoover Medal.

Tata was selected “for leading the Tata Trusts that have helped millions of under-privileged people directly or indirectly through outstanding improvements in education, medicine, and rural development and for chairing the Tata Group, an innovative company that provides products, business consulting, and services in over 100 countries,” the Board of Hoover Award said in a statement.

Established in 1929, the gold medal “is conferred upon an engineer whose professional achievements and personal endeavors have advanced the well-being of humankind,” the organizations note in a statement.

Tata, Chairman of the Mumbai based Tata Trusts, is the 74th recipient of the medal. Past recipients include U.S. Presidents Herbert Hoover, Dwight Eisenhower and Jimmy Carter, Apple Co-founder Steve Wozniak, Texas Instruments co-founder J. Erik Jonsson, and CEO of General Motors Alfred Sloan.

Tata, 85-year-old, received the medal from Thomas Costabile, executive director of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), at a private ceremony in Mumbai in January. Last week, ASME issued a statement about the award.   

The other organizations, which are part of the Hoover Board, are the American Society of Civil Engineers; the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical and Petroleum Engineers; the American Institute of Chemical Engineers; and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Together they represent millions of engineers in the U.S. Ponisseril Somasundaran is chair of the board.

Earlier from 1991 to 2012, Ratan Tata was the chairman of Tata Sons, the holding company of the Tata Group. Founded by Jamsetji Tata in 1868, the group comprises of 30 companies including Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Motors, Tata Steel and Tata Consumer Products. Together they have a market value of more than $300 billion and employ over 800,000 in 100 countries.

During Ratan Tata’s tenure as chairman, the group’s revenues grew more than twelve-fold, totaling over $100 billion in 2012. 

Two thirds of the equity of Tata Sons is owned by the Tata trusts. The trusts support philanthropic efforts in education, health, livelihood generation and arts and culture, mostly in India.

Ratan Tata spent seven years at Cornell completing courses in engineering and earning a B.S. in architecture in 1962. While at Cornell, he got interested in flying, racing cars and scuba diving, which became his lifelong passions.  

He worked briefly with the architectural firm of Jones and Emmons in Los Angeles before returning to India in 1962. He joined the Tata Group, serving in various companies. He was appointed director-in-charge of The National Radio and Electronics Company in 1971. In 1981 he was named chairman of Tata Industries.

Tata philanthropic entities have donated more than $205 million to Cornell and other educational institutions in the United States. Their overall giving in the U.S. is much higher. They are the second largest Indian philanthric donors in the U.S., after the late Indian American Amar Bose.

N. R. Narayana Murthy, the founder of Infosys, was a previous recipient of the Hoover Medal. He was one of those who supported Ratan Tata’s nomination for the medal, saying in his reference that “Mr. Tata has successfully modernized a philanthropic approach that emphasizes knowledge- and research-based holistic solutions.”

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