Don Warrington

After several moves growing up I ended up in Palm Beach, FL, where I had a direct encounter with God in Jesus Christ at age 10. As a senior in high school I became Roman Catholic. While at Texas A&M University, I was active in the Newman Association and a coffeehouse ministry; both revolutionized my walk with God. I came to Chattanooga fifteen months after graduating to work in my family business. When I married my wife Judy five years later I joined the North Cleveland Church of God, which is big, loud and Pentecostal. I started my MS at UTC, during which time my father and brother died six months apart, and our business left our family before receiving my degree. After that I worked for the Church of God, which is a beautiful, ethnically diverse kaleidoscope of people. I began teaching at UTC in 2001, but not consistently until 2009. The following year my department head asked me to obtain my PhD, which I did in 2016, after five years of difficult work, the passing of my wife's mother, and UTC's legendary fees. In the wake of that, however, I saw two of my Middle Eastern friends receive Christ as their Saviour, which is extraordinary.

My Life

Favorite Quote

Man’s chief aim in life is to be happy. Our Lord Jesus Christ came into this world in order to give us the means for attaining this happiness. To find happiness where it should be found is the source of all good, and the source of all evil is to find it where it should not be found…Let us also see the goal where happiness is found, and the means to attain it. (Bossuet, Meditations on the Gospel)

Friends describe me

Most of them have no idea of what I'm talking about. Which is good.

My hobbies

Restoring old computers using Linux. That's what you see in my office.

Fantasy dinner guests

We eat out.

Best advice I ever received

My first parish priest: Do the really important things before you're 29, you won't have time after that.

My undergrad alma mater

Texas A&M University

My worst subject in school

Computational Design (Optimization)

In college I drove

1972 Toyota Carina (a half step up from a Corolla)

If I weren't a professor, I would

Consult (which I do when I'm not a professor)

Favorite books

The Bible, The Sultans, City of God, Applied Numerical Methods, Divine Comedy, Midnight, Aquinas' Summa, The Power and the Wisdom, The Everlasting Man

Favorite movies

The Sting, Patton, The Secrets of Jonathan Sperry, Chariots of Fire, Star Wars (the original), The Italian Job (the original), The Twelve Chairs

Favorite city

London

Favorite coffee

Sumatra

Nobody knows I

was elected to only one student position as an undergraduate--the Student Engineer's Council. I ran against the "big man on campus" and won only because he didn't show up for the vote.

My latest accomplishment

The PhD. I walked with my large "class" in the first graduate school ceremony in the Roundhouse. Yancy Freeman, now with his PhD and Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, was our commencement speaker and quoted the following: "Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths." (Proverbs 3:5-6 KJV)

Current Research

Continuing my dissertation work on finite element pile dynamics. I also developed an online driven pile analyzer, which my Foundations class uses.