Frank graduated with B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in mechanical engineering from the Slovak Technical University (STU) in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia in 1952. He then began an academic career, teaching mechanical engineering at STU, rising to the position of Associate Dean for Education by 1960. He moved to the Technical University of Kosice in 1963 where he became Head of the Applied Mechanics Department. He earned his Ph.D. from STU in 1965 in Applied Mechanics and published three textbooks in this field. Always passionate about everything he did, he was active in the liberation movement and, fearing for his future, he fled Czechoslovakia with his wife Magda and their two young daughters in 1968 following the Russian invasion. They emigrated to the United States in 1969 as political refugees where Frank began his illustrious industrial career with Foster Wheeler Corporation in Clinton, NJ.
Frank's work at Foster Wheeler involved vibration and stress...