NOAH D. MANRING is James C. Dowell Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department at University of Missouri–Columbia (UMC). Before joining the faculty at UMC, he worked for eight years in the off-highway mobile equipment industry. He holds ten U.S. patents for innovations in the field of fluid power. As a professor, he has received research funding from Caterpillar, Inc., Festo Corp., and the National Fluid Power Association, among others, as well as the U.S. Department of Education, the National Science Foundation, and various private donors. He currently serves as an associate editor of the International Journal of Fluid Power and the Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement, and Control. He has done consulting work for several industrial firms including Moog Inc., FMC Wyoming Corp., Dennison Hydraulics, and Parker Hannifin.