Laguna Niguel Resident and Pepperdine Graziadio MBA Hugo Fruehauf Recognized for 2019 Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--On December 3, 2019, His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales presented the 2019 Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering (QEPrize) trophy to Dr. Bradford Parkinson, Hugo Fruehauf, Richard Schwartz, and Anna Marie Spilker, who accepted the award on behalf of her late husband, Professor James Spilker. Hugo Fruehauf lives in Laguna Niguel, California, and earned his Presidential and Key Executive MBA at Pepperdine Graziadio Business School.

The US engineers were awarded the QEPrize during a ceremony at Buckingham Palace for their work creating the first truly global, satellite-based positioning system, GPS. The QEPrize is the world’s most prestigious engineering accolade, a £1 million prize, shared by the four winners, that celebrates the global benefit of engineering innovation to humanity. The chief purpose for the award is to raise the awareness of students to choose a career in engineering so that the evermore technical challenges of the future can be met by qualified individuals.

Fruehauf gained his PKE (Presidential and Key Executive) MBA in global business and management from Pepperdine University - Graziadio School of Business and Management (2005-07). He set up the Hugo Fruehauf Company in 2008 and is currently a consultant. He is also an adjunct professor at the Pepperdine University Graduate School (2008 onwards), teaching International Economics and International Business.

Today, an estimated four billion people around the world use GPS. At just $2 per GPS chip the size of a fingernail imbedded in our cell phones, GPS provides an accessible service and a powerful tool that people can integrate with their applications. Simple smartphone apps can track disease outbreaks, self-driving tractors can optimize crop harvests, and sports teams can improve team performance. New applications for GPS continue to revolutionize entire industries, and its annual economic value has been estimated to be $80 billion for the USA alone.

GPS combines a constellation of at least 24 orbiting satellites with ground stations and receiving devices. Each satellite broadcasts a radio signal containing its location and the time from an extremely accurate onboard atomic clock. GPS receivers need signals from at least four satellites to determine their position; they measure the time delay in each signal to calculate the distance to each satellite, then use that information to pinpoint the receiver’s location on earth.

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