Accolades
Alumni
John E. Duncan (BS ‘98) and Scott J. Mattivi (BS ‘85) will receive their awards in a reception and ceremony open to the public at 3 p.m. on April 14 in the Wilkinson Alumni Center.
Duncan serves as the company’s director of Manufacturing Engineering and Quality Assurance at Greenlight Optics, a world leader in plastic optics based in Ohio.
He is the son of John (BSBA '72) and Rebecca Duncan (BSEd '90 and MS '98) of Pittsburg.
Greenlight offers design and engineering services and the manufacturing of optical systems. It specializes in projection engines, LED and laser illumination, imaging modules, plastic optics, and integration with electrical and mechanical systems.
Duncan is responsible for managing a team that develops the manufacturing processes and for managing the entire quality system for Greenlight.
Earning a degree in plastics engineering at Pittsburg State was the first step toward that achievement. He also earned a master’s degree in Business Administration from Xavier University.
In 1999, he was hired by Corning Precision Lens/ 3M Precision Optics in Cincinnati as a process engineer, advanced to product engineer, then worked as a manufacturing tech development specialist and supervisor — a role in which he helped invent and commercialize the world’s first micro projector small enough to fit inside a cell phone.
In 2008, that invention earned Popular Science Magazine’s “Best Invention of the Year” award.
In 2009, he became senior product integrity engineer for Evenflo in Miamisburg, Ohio, before taking on his current role for Greenlight in 2011.
Duncan and his wife, Valerie, and their four children, Broderic, Zachary, Matthew, and Eli, live in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he is an active volunteer in youth sports.
Mattivi is COO of PathologyWatch with laboratories in Phoenix, Salt Lake City, and Port Charlotte, Florida, where he provides strategic leadership and operational oversight to the five-year-old startup company. He has been with the company since May 2022 and prior to that was president of Eurofins-Viracor BioPharma Services in Lenexa, Kansas.
He is the son of Yvonne Robertson of South Radley, Kansas, and Clifford J. Mattivi, of Pittsburg, and the brother of Brad J. Mattivi of Pittsburg and the late Greg A. Mattivi.
PathologyWatch has developed a completely digitized approach to dermatopathology as well as a best-in-class artificial intelligence result interpretation tool. The company has enjoyed more than 100 percent growth for the past three years and is ahead of that pace again in 2023. All three of the PathologyWatch labs are under construction for expansion projects.
Earning a degree in biology at Pittsburg State put him on the path toward that achievement. He also earned a degree in Medical Technology from the University of Kansas in 1987.
Mattivi began his career as a laboratory supervisor and manager with Quest Diagnostics in Lenexa, then advanced to director of laboratory operations with Viracor Laboratories in Lee’s Summit before being named vice president of operations for Viracor-Eurofins in 2016 and then president of Eurofins-Viracor BioPharma in 2020.
Since 2010, he has served on the board of the University of Kansas School of Health Professions/School of Laboratory Sciences as well as the Board of Advocates for the School of Health Professionals since 2019. He has served on the board of directors and as vice president of the board for the Gift of Life organization that supports organ donation education and post-transplant support to both donor and recipient families also in the Kansas City area.
He started programs with the University of Kansas and Wichita State University clinical lab students to perform molecular science rotations at Viracor, and has spoken for many years at regional educational institutions about the virtues of seeking a career in clinical laboratory sciences.
He and his wife Brenda have two children, Michael Mattivi of Colorado Springs, Colorado, and Gina Bodenhausen of Monument, Colorado.
