The Bucknell Engineering Alumni Association was organized in 1955 shortly after Rear Admiral E. M. Eller became the first director of Engineering. Eller invited engineering alumni to a dinner during Homecoming in November 1955 during which the need to organize alumni to gain support from industry for equipment, scholarships, fellowships, grants, and more was discussed. The result was the development of an executive committee of engineering alumni which became the Bucknell Engineering Alumni Association. The objectives of the organization are to act as a medium through which its membership, interested friends, corporations and foundations, Bucknell alumni, Bucknell trustees and faculty, and Bucknell students may support and advance education and research in the engineering school at Bucknell and in other ways, to the interest and welfare of engineering at Bucknell.