Editing National Engineering Center (section)

===Early Years===

The task of implementing the decree fell into the able hands of Dr. [[Leopoldo V. Abis]], then the COE’s associate dean, who became the Acting Executive Director of NEC in 1978 and its Executive Director from 1979 to 1988. Prof. Fortunato T. de la Peña became his assistant in 1979 until 1988.   They organized the NEC by getting a core group composed of Jackie Castillo, Lando Calso, Nora Cabrera, Alexander Aportadera, Noel Matic, and Nanette Pelaez and Rodrigo Anastacio who came in later. Complementing the staff was an advisory board composed of the Executive Vice President of the UP System as Chairman, Dean of the UP College of Engineering (COE), two members appointed by the UP Board of Regents, President of the UP Alumni Engineers (UPAE), Undersecretaries of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC), and Department of Trade and Industry (DTI). 

Surmounting various challenges, the initial NEC team headed by Dr. Abis achieved the unexpected.  From its modest office at the third floor of the COE building, the NEC grew out to having a separate building of its own in 1981.  The existing specialized centers of the College of Engineering—the Industrial Research Center (IRC), the National Hydraulic Research Center (NHRC), the Training Center for Applied Geodesy and Photogrammetry (TCAGP), the Transport Training Center (TTC), and the Building Research Service (BRS) – were institutionalized under the NEC. 

Continuing education programs were also established.  One of those programs was the Engineering Education Project funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB). The objective was to upgrade the faculty and the facilities of engineering schools throughout the country.  “The components of that program were distributed between the COE and the NEC. The COE took care of running the Master of Education Engineering Program. The NEC, on the other hand, took care of the short-term trainings which were conducted in the ten resource-based schools (considered to be the best in engineering) and twenty participating schools all over the country,” explained Prof. dela Peña.
During its early years, the center already forged closer linkage with industry and government through various consultancy projects and partnerships.  A consultancy unit was formed with faculty members—namely, Prof. Nestor Rañeses, Eugene Gonzales, and Prof. Edgardo Atanacio—as project and development consultants.  They tried to scout projects for NEC.  The Center managed projects on energy, partnering with the Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Power Corporation.  The partnership with DOE involved training people, particularly engineers, on energy saving and utilization and on alternative sources of energy.  It also included designing and doing a feasibility study of putting up a fuels- and appliance-testing laboratory for DOE.  The NPC project led to the discovery of the possible uses of fly ash in construction.  NEC also undertook the “Preventive Maintenance Project” with the support of UNDP and United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO). 
Laboratories, such as the microelectronics laboratory, machine equipment and design fabrication laboratory, and the computer laboratory, were also launched.  Through a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) grant, the Publications and Engineering Information Service (PEIS) was set-up.  The PEIS pioneered in the so called “Selective Dissemination of Information Project” where engineer clients could request certain types of information based on the journals and other materials that NEC was receiving.  The NEC team also started coming out with the Philippine Engineering Journal in 1980.