Ohio Northern University’s T.J. Smull College of Engineering is pleased to welcome to campus James F. “Jim” Dicke, III, president of Crown Equipment Corporation, as the featured speaker for the 2025 Spotts Lecture.

The lecture, which is free and open to the public, will be held Monday, February 24, 2025, at 7 p.m. in the Freed Center for the Performing Arts.

Dicke’s lecture is titled, “Every Innovation Matters: How Each Idea, Big or Small, Can Impact Corporate Success.”

Dicke has served as president of Crown since December of 2022. A global manufacturer and distributor of material handling equipment with operations in 19 countries, Crown has 19,600 employees and a sales volume of $5.25 billion.

Joining Crown in 1996 as vice president of human resources, Dicke then became Crown’s executive vice president in 2000. His other work experiences include positions at Frost National Bank, San Antonio, The San Antonio Chamber of Commerce, the Deloitte & Touche Boston office, and The Berry Company in Dayton (now part of AT&T).

Dicke received a Bachelor of Science degree in management and finance from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. He also attended Culver Military Academy in Culver, Ind., and Linsly School, in Wheeling, W.Va.

He is a board trustee and vice chair at Ohio Northern University, a trustee of the New Bremen Foundation, and a trustee emeritus for the Linsly School. He also served as a trustee of the Culver Education Foundation and as a trustee of the JTDM Hospital Foundation Board.

The Spotts Lecture series was established by the T.J. Smull College of Engineering in 1986 to bring distinguished speakers to the ONU campus annually to provide students with greater insight to about engineering and computer science professions.