Choosing promise

Al Deibert is a big fan of Montana State University and how it changes lives, from his own to those of soldiers on the field of battle

By MSU Alumni Foundation

August 25^th, 2025

Al Deibert ’88, ’90 M loathes attention. Ask him about his own personal successes — and there are many — and he’s likely to grimace as if he has stepped on a tack. Ask Deibert about MilTech, the research program he leads at Montana State University that contracts with the U.S. Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security, and he is certain to heap praise on his co-workers or, more likely, the soldiers they strive to support.

Take a look at news articles about some of MilTech’s more notable achievements — work on a lightweight vest that doubles as body armor worn by the nation’s military or a high-tech gadget that helps stabilize battlefield wounds, for example — and you’ll note that those articles, strangely enough, seldom mention MilTech.

You’ll also find that in its 21 years of existence, MilTech, now with some 100 employees working in 14 different states, has issued just three press releases, “two more than were really necessary,” as Deibert tells it.

For an organization that this fiscal year will bring into the university somewhere between $50 and $60 million in research funding, among the most at MSU, the lack of recognition may seem like an oversight. Deibert, though, wouldn’t have it any other way.

“It’s dishonorable to toot our own horn when we are working for people deployed and in danger,” the MSU alumnus said. “For us to take credit, that’s just not how we do things.”

Deibert maintains that his humble approach came naturally, mostly because, at least growing up, he didn’t have a lot to brag about. Born in the Boston area to Ivy League-educated parents, Deibert and his family moved to Billings when he was 10. His dad, Deibert said, wanted for his kids an experience different from what the East Coast would offer.

Despite his parents’ educational achievements, Deibert said he wasn’t much of a student. Some of his closest friends were high-achievers, but Deibert said he lacked the necessary direction.

Samples of ultraviolet and infrared optical lenses with unique coatings, produced by Hardin Optical of Bandon, Oregon, with support and assistance from MilTech, acting as a mentor partner. Photo by Tyson Krinke

“I had no idea, no plans, no future,” he said.

His parents and a patient guidance counselor at Billings West High School persuaded him to enroll in the industrial engineering program at MSU, at least in part because, as an in-state student, the university had to accept him. Deibert remembered being told clearly that his chances of attending another, perhaps more high-brow, school were, at best, limited.

Deibert’s academic indifference continued at MSU. He recalled earning a C-minus in a chemistry class that had he failed, he saw himself “going back to swinging a hammer” or any number of manual labor jobs that kept him employed during college. While working toward his undergraduate degree, he washed dishes at a sorority, worked construction, was a welder’s assistant and gutted fish in Alaska. It took him five years to earn his bachelor’s degree.

“I was exceptional at digging ditches,” Deibert said.

Despite those hurdles, Deibert credits MSU with “choosing promise” — in this case, choosing to see his promise — a credo set out in the university’s strategic plan.

“I am a ‘choosing promise’ human,” he said.

After graduating, and with Suzan (Strejc) Deibert ’89, his now-wife of 36 years, still finishing her degree at MSU, Deibert enrolled in the university’s technical assistance program that paid him to earn his master’s degree in engineering while also working for various area businesses. At the time, the Industrial and Management Engineering Department at MSU was led by Dr. William “Bob” Taylor, a man Deibert credits with changing his life.

He paused as he explained the significance of the relationship.

“If he were to walk in right now, I would start crying,” Deibert said of Taylor. “He made a big impact on my life. He made a big impact on a lot of lives. I never thought I would earn an engineering degree, let alone a master’s in engineering.”

Taylor took him under his wing, Deibert said, and played a key role in guiding his transition into a professional career that leveraged his strengths in problem-solving and relationship-building. He recalled learning from Taylor that his value was no longer measured by the length of ditches he dug or the number of welds he ground.

“That’s what Montana State is amazing at,” Deibert said. “They take unique human material, that promise in people, wherever it comes from, and turn out amazing professionals.”

While earning that master’s degree, Deibert worked primarily at two Bozeman companies, the outdoor gear company Dana Designs and Cindy Ownings Designs, which produced high-end wool coats, and, upon graduation, he secured jobs at both.

Deibert holds the RevMedX XSTAT, which controls hemorrhaging in areas where a tourniquet can’t be applied. MilTech was contracted by the Air Force Medical Support Agency to work with RevMedX to help them establish an FDA-compliant manufacturing process.

“Back then, in Montana, if you wanted a job in engineering, it wasn’t easy,” he recalled. “So, I got two part-time jobs instead.”

Deibert stayed at Dana Designs for six years until 1996 when the renowned backpack manufacturer was sold to K2, the international sporting goods company. About that time, MSU was launching the Montana Manufacturing Extension Center (MMEC) to help Montana companies innovate and grow. When it needed its first field engineer, Dr. Taylor hired Deibert.

A few years later, former Montana Sen. Conrad Burns secured the initial federal funding that established MilTech, which looked to build on the work being done at MSU by MMEC in manufacturing and by TechLink that focused on advancing technology companies. Deibert was hired as its first executive director, a position that he has held ever since.

The Morrill Act, also known as the Land-Grant College Act, was enacted in 1862 and provided land to states for the development of colleges and universities, including Montana State. The act, instrumental in development of higher education in the United States, held that those colleges should primarily focus on agricultural and mechanical arts. It also spelled out that those schools should concentrate on “military tactics.”

MilTech’s work with the military and on national security, then, has made perfect sense, Deibert said, and the research center has during its tenure completed more than 600 projects for more than 200 unique military programs through the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security.

“It’s in MSU’s DNA to do work like this,” he said. “The university has been overtly supportive of national security research.”

Deibert, 59, is also the executive director of the recently established Institute for National Security Research and Education (INSRE) at MSU. The program, he said, strives to provide MilTech’s infrastructure to other campus researchers so “they can focus on the relationships and the research, and we will handle the rest.”

From its headquarters on the MSU Innovation Campus west of the main MSU campus, MilTech employs a variety of specialists: engineers, researchers, designers and overall problem-solvers among them. About a quarter of its employees are MSU graduates, and several more are current students. Roughly a third of its workforce are military veterans.

While MilTech certainly provides some engineering for the projects it works on, the organization primarily focuses on the needs of its military clients and facilitates the completion of those projects with the assistance of outside contractors that handle the end-of-the-line production.

“One of our claims is the allegiance to the customer’s solution,” Deibert said. “It’s not economic development for Montana; it’s not promoting MSU. Our clients will tell us, ‘This is what success looks like, this is the job that needs to be done,’ and we just work backwards to meet that definition.”

A large part of meeting those expectations, Deibert said, is collaborating with soldiers to better understand their needs. He said that MilTech has conducted hundreds of “field tests” since its inception.

With student Gabe Ibsen and MilTech staffer Kat McDonough looking on, Deibert demonstrates the features of a body armor vest developed at MilTech and worn by U.S. soldiers in the field.

“We have never, ever succeeded without asking the end-user, ‘What do you want? How do you deploy? Where is this thing stored? Who maintains it?’” Deibert said. “How would you know what a Marine needs unless you asked them?”

Seeing those results is the reward, he added.

“From a person from Montana who is a civilian — the fact that we are supporting the military from the middle of nowhere is crazy in the first place — the best payment is the delight on a Marine or a soldier’s face when they knew that they were being listened to and that the details were brought to bear,” Deibert said.

A prime example is the “plate-carrier” vest that MilTech helped design and develop with the aid of several other “industry partners,” as Deibert described them, at the request of the Department of Defense. The vest’s primary purpose is to protect its wearer, but the military also wanted it to be lightweight, easy to maintain and easy to put on and take off. Deibert estimates that more than a million of the vests have been put into use.

“Every MSU alumni should be proud that their university facilitated the design of the plate-carriers worn by our soldiers and Marines,” said Deibert, who recently served on the committee to select MSU’s next president.

The work being done at MilTech would seem a model for other universities. There are, after all, more than a hundred land-grant universities in the U.S., all with the same mandate to support the military. Deibert, though, said that MSU is unique in both its leadership and culture.

“The support we get at MSU,” he said, “wouldn’t exist at most universities.”

For example, he noted that MilTech this spring got university approval to send an employee to Okinawa, Japan, to oversee repairs to one of its latest projects, a “narco-boat,” an autonomous, drone-like vessel modeled after boats used by traffickers of illegal drugs. The Marines are using the low-profile boat to, among other things, safely and covertly transport supplies and other technology.

The project has received a lot of attention, and military publications have sought to include MilTech’s work, Deibert said. Montana, after all, is not known as a maritime hotspot.

“They say, ‘Don’t you want to be talked about?’ And we say, ‘actually, no,’” Deibert said. “We ask them to keep us out. And they tell us, ‘That’s why we come back to [MSU]. You’re not like any other university.’”