Frank DeDecker devoted his career to Spalding DeDecker Associates (SDA), the civil and environmental engineering firm of which he was a co-founder. SDA has designed highway bridges; subdivision and condominium projects; and sewer, water main, and paving projects for the State of Michigan, Michigan counties and municipalities, and various land developers. Frank's final project before retiring in 1994 was designing the truck exit ramp for the Ambassador Bridge, with the Detroit International Bridge Company as client. A man who cares about his community, Frank was elected as trustee for the Village of Warren in 1955, and served until the Village was absorbed into the newly created City of Warren in 1957.

When Frank graduated from his Detroit high school in 1944, he enlisted in the Navy. After his discharge in 1946, he enrolled at Michigan State College, where he slept on one of many 3-tiered bunk beds set up in Jenison Gymnasium to accommodate the influx of returning veterans. As a student he worked for Agnes McCann, secretary to the engineering dean. Since MSU established the Agnes McCann Memorial Student Endowment Fund in her honor a few years ago, Frank has supported it annually. At Michigan State, Frank belonged to the Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honor Society and the Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society. He met his future wife, Jean Halmich, in a surveying class; she was a landscape architecture student. They were married in 1949, soon after graduating from MSC. Since then, they have supported MSU with annual contributions, and are now members of the Hannah Society.

Early in Frank's career he worked for an underground construction contractor, Sugden & Sivier, on sewer and water main relocations at the beginning of the John Lodge Freeway's construction in downtown Detroit. He later joined a Detroit firm that was designing sewer and water main relocations for the John Lodge Freeway extension. There, he worked with Vernon Spalding, with whom he founded Spalding, DeDecker & Associates, Inc. in 1954. Today the firm has about 100 employees and is headquartered in Rochester Hills, Michigan.

Frank has been a member of the American Consulting Engineers Council, the American Water Works Association, the American Society of Civil Engineers, and the Michigan Society of Professional Surveyors.

Frank and Jean are life members of the MSU Alumni Association, and they have participated in many MSU-sponsored travel programs, including the Caribbean Islands, the Danube Cruise, the Alaska Cruise, the European Gardens Tour, the Nile River (Egypt) Cruise, the Hawaiian Islands Cruise, the Volga River (Russia) Cruise, and the China Tour. Frank's hobbies include woodworking and trading stocks and options on the Internet. They have nine children. Son Mark has a BS in chemical engineering from MSU. Daughters Mary, Terese, Gretchen, and Suzanne also have degrees from MSU. The DeDeckers have 19 grandchildren.

Recipients of this award, first presented in 2003, must be: graduates of the department; national leaders in their profession; contributors to the department, the college, or the university in some meaningful way; and community leaders whose actions reflect favorably on Michigan State University. Nominations are made by faculty, alumni, and other supporters of the department. The department's professional advisory board selects the winner.