Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine Vol. 87, No. 03 2011

Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine • January/February 2011

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Features

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40 Bottom of the Class

44 The Future of Media

52 Just Causes

Tom Roberts was an unlikely Tech student. He graduated high school ranked 194th — out of 194 students.

Thanks in part to a questioning registrar, pictured above, he is a Tech grad.

Social creatures, like the ones depicted in the cover illustration by J Chris Campbell, are atwitter over must-have communication tools, including tabletop computer screens, above.

Archie Ervin has a lot of work to do.

The first vice president for Institute Diversity hits the ground running Jan. 3 to try to reach the goal of making his job unnecessary.

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Departments

10 Letters 15 Alumni House 18 Life Jackets 24 Jackets Required

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26 Tech Topics 29 Tech Notes 32 Office Space 35 What’s in a Name?

36 Ten Questions 38 Student Life

61 Burdell & Friends 63 Ramblin’ Roll 66 In Memoriam 76 Yellow Jackets 80 Sports Briefs

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86 In Retrospect 88 Calendar

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Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine Volume 87, Number 3 Publisher: Joseph P. Irwin, IM 80 Editor: Kimberly Link-Wills Assistant Editor: Van Jensen Assistant Editor: Leslie Overman Design: Ryan Giusti Student Editorial Assistant: Torian Parker Student Photographers: James K. Holder II, Eric Mansfield Executive Committee Alfredo Trujillo, AE 81, Chair Joseph W. Evans, IM 71, Past Chair C. Dean Alford, EE 76, Chair-elect/Finance Walt Ehmer, IE 89, Vice Chair/Roll Call Laurie Bagley, IM 84, Member At Large Benton J. Mathis Jr., IM 81, Member At Large James E. Trimble Jr., Mgt 91, Member At Large Joseph P. Irwin, IM 80, President Board of Trustees Thomas G. Arlotto, ME 82 Jennifer M. Ball, Arch 94, M CP 01 Coe A. Bloomberg, ME 66 Marc A. Corsini, IM 80 Tracey M. Countryman, IM 98 Steven R. Cover, Arch 78, M Arch 81, M CP 81 C. Richard Crutchfield, IM 69 Marian H. Epps, IM 83 J. Gregory Foster, ME 95 Angela D. Fox, EE 91 Paul S. Goggin, Phys 91 Richard A. Guthman Jr., IE 56 S. Wesley Haun, Mgt 72 Jeffrey S. Hurley, MS Chem 90, PhD Chem 92 Joseph C. Irastorza, EE 60, MS EE 68, PhD ISyE 73 Troy N. Ivey, CmpE 90 Cayman James, CE 99, MS EnvE 01

Ashley Gigandet Joseph, IntA 94 Kelli H. Keb, IM 78 Jesus Leon, Cls 74 John A. Lewis Jr., IM 79 Robert A. Madayag III, ChE 02 Errika Mallett, ISyE 96

Thanks to Alumni and Friends Two small words. Thank you.

Sometimes the term seems a bit paltry to express such a powerful and deep appreciation for what you as alumni and friends of Georgia Tech do for the institution. But as Shakespeare said, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” So we say thank you.

Thank you for advocating on behalf of Georgia Tech with the people you know, the organizations in which you are involved, the companies that you do business with and our state and national government officials.

Thank you for hiring our fellow Georgia Tech alumni and our students or helping connect them to new professional and personal opportunities.

Thank you for helping find and recruit the best and brightest students to come to Georgia Tech.

Thank you for your amazing generosity to the various initiatives and opportunities that truly distinguish our alma mater in the landscape of American higher education.

Thank you for devoting your time and energy to volunteering and leading in all sorts of activities, efforts, committees and boards to help Tech become an even better place.

Georgia Tech is blessed and honored by the thousands of alumni and friends who help us in a million different ways each and every year. The Alumni Association appreciates you and what you do to make Georgia Tech not only a great place to be from, but a great place to be today.

Our best wishes to you and your families for a happy new year.

John McKenney, IE 90 Wanda B. Murray, HS 82 Eric L. Pinckney Sr., ME 86, M CP 93 Troy W. Rice, IE 01 Heather S. Rocker, ISyE 98

Joseph P. Irwin, President Georgia Tech Alumni Association

Victoria L. Selfridge, IE 96 Rush S. Smith Jr., Phys 72 Robert N. Stargel Jr., EE 83 Jeb M. Stewart, Cls 91 Karen C. Thurman, IM 82 Philip L. Williams, Text 70 Janet C. Wilson, ICS 81 Ronald L. Yancey, EE 65

Advertising Holly Green (404) 894-0765; holly.green@alumni.gatech.edu Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine (ISSN: 1061-9747) is published bimonthly by the Georgia Tech Alumni Association, 190 North Ave. N.W., Atlanta, GA 30313. Periodical postage paid in Atlanta and additional mailing offices. © 2011 Georgia Tech Alumni Association Postmaster: Send address changes to Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine, 190 North Ave. N.W., Atlanta, GA 30313.

Telephone: Georgia Tech Alumni Association (404) 894-2391 Change address or unsubscribe at bioupdate@alumni.gatech.edu

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Letters Curry Commands Respect

As a retired engineer who follows the global warming debate, I read with interest the well-written article about Judith Curry in the November/December Alumni Magazine . I have been following her participation in the public discussion and since “Climategate” find it refreshingly objective. Through her academic stature, her scientific papers and the positions she takes in the blogosphere, she commands attention, respect and, unfortunately, some vilification.

Although time will judge her scientific work, my observation is that she is trying to restore science to the objective position it must reclaim if it is to be relied upon to lead us into the future. Until “science” is restored as an objective arbiter of how we view the world around us, we cannot expect to solve, much less understand, these kinds of issues. Kudos to Judith Curry.

Philip Holberton, EE 66 Pawleys Island, S.C.

Questions for Climate Scientist

I was disappointed in the article about Judith Curry [November/December]. Although she is billed as a climate scientist, the article was long on philosophy and short on science. There are several fundamental scientific questions, none of which were addressed. Is the climate warming?

Is human release of CO2 a major driver?

What is the temperature impact of a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere?

The closest she comes to answering any question is in the last few sentences: “Carbon dioxide, all other things being equal, will contribute to a warmer planet.”

However, she qualifies that statement by saying “whether in the coming century greenhouse gas will dominate the natural variability remains to be seen.” These are vague comments, particularly coming from a scientist. The physics of greenhouse gases is very well understood. Without greenhouse gases, the Earth would be a very cold, uninhabited place.

As for the fact that the 2000s was the hottest decade, she says, “An individual

Melissa Bugg

November/December issue readers called Judith Curry’s comments both “refreshingly objective” and “misleading.”

record doesn’t say anything about climate change.” That is a very misleading comment and seems to be typical of her lack of scientific precision and accuracy. The ’80s were the hottest on record followed by the ’90s, followed by the 2000s. This is 30 years, not one record. In addition, the 2000s saw the lowest solar minimum in many centuries, which should have made it cooler.

If she doesn’t want to discuss the science, what about the physical evidence?

She has done work in the Arctic, where the ice is disappearing. We may soon see the opening of the elusive Northwest passage that has been a quest for at least 400 years.

The Arctic permafrost in Alaska, Canada and Siberia is turning to slush. The glaciers in Glacier Bay have retreated many miles since first seen 250 years ago and photographed over 100 years ago. Glaciers are just about gone in Glacier National Park, where they have been for the last 12,000 years. While these are more symbolic, they are also melting on Greenland, the Himalayas and the Antarctic and have the ability to raise sea level dramatically. Pine bark beetles are killing trees much farther north.

A significant amount of the CO2 released into the atmosphere is absorbed by the oceans, which are becoming more acidic to the detriment of sea life. A recent

report stated that phytoplankton levels are down 40 percent since 1950. This decline is potentially catastrophic since they are the foundation of the bountiful marine food web and produce half of the world’s oxygen. A total of 70 percent of the world’s oxygen comes from the ocean. I don’t know why the plankton decline doesn’t cause a mild panic.

She says, “In Atlanta, for example, global warming is less of a concern than water. Droughts and floods create significant problems …” So droughts and floods in Atlanta are not part of global climate, and Atlanta doesn’t need to be concerned about droughts in other parts of the world that may cause food shortages or a rising sea level that would inundate coastal cities?

At the least, Atlanta taxes would increase to pay for defending coastal cities.

As a final comment, I repeat her quote, “Whether in the coming century greenhouse gas will dominate the natural variability remains to be seen.” Is she saying, “Let’s just wait to see”? I guess she will either say, “I told you so,” or “Oh my, how did this happen?” What is her “natural variability”? What was its impact on the warming in the last century?

Jon Parker, ME 60 Houston

Send letters to: Editor, Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine, 190 North Ave. N.W., Atlanta, GA 30313, or editor@alumni.gatech.edu. Comment at gtalumnimag.com.

Send address changes to: Biographical Records, Alumni Association, 190 North Ave. N.W., Atlanta, GA 30313, or e-mail bioupdate@alumni.gatech.edu.

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Phenomena Unpredictable

As a Georgia Tech graduate and meteorologist, I enjoyed the article Handling the Heat on Judith Curry in the November/ December Alumni Magazine . I especially appreciated her concluding statements regarding the future uncertainty.

As a weather forecaster in the Air Force for five years, I appreciate the complexity and unpredictability of weather phenomena and maintain a healthy skepticism regarding climatologists’ forecasts of the distant future using models. As Edward Lorenz showed us with his contribution to Chaos theory, little changes in complex weather variables cause major changes in the forecast outcome.

In my career, I developed models from time to time, mostly financial, and found that with tinkering and some logical gymnastics I could fit complex historical data fairly well. However, predicting the future with these models didn’t turn out all that well in my case. So I am skeptical of climate models predicting 100 years or so into the future and am concerned with the impact of relying on these models to drastically alter our economy.

My thanks go to Judith Curry for treating this world-changing subject like a scientist.

Philip W. Matos, ChE 58 Phoenix

The Smaxton Capers

A number of readers correctly pointed out in the November/December issue of the Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine that Henry Claxton was a co-conspirator in the installation of the Mickey Mouse clock on the Skiles Classroom Building in late 1978.

Henry was in fact the “axton” in Smaxton, our small organization dedicated to creating general mischief on and around the Tech campus.

Our initial hope was that the clock would remain up for a day or two so that we could take some photographs. To see our efforts eventually recognized with the No. 57 spot on the list of Tech pieces of history [September/October] is humbling at the least.

Although the clock caper turned out to be our best-known project, it was by no

Lindsey Smith and Henry Claxton’s entry, Tyrannosaurus Reck, won a second-place prize in the 1978 Wreck Parade.

The duo were responsible for a number of campus capers including the installation of the Mickey Mouse clock. means our only effort. A few weeks earlier, Smaxton was awarded second place in the fixed body category in the ’78 Wreck Parade. We had wanted a car with a convertible top, so we rolled back the roof of our Tyrannosaurus Reck like a sardine can!

Most of our other endeavors at Tech were clearly in the mischief category and usually involved heat, pressure, noise, flight, etc. — oftentimes all at once. The fact that we were never caught and/or arrested for some of our antics amazes me to this day. I have to constantly remain on guard when relating some of Smaxton’s stories as my son is currently a senior in engineering at Tech and needs no encouragement in nonacademic areas.

Sadly, Henry was lost in a civilian air crash in 1983. I know that he would have had proud and fond memories of our many adventures at Tech.

Lindsey Smith, CerE 77, MS CerE 78 Orchard Park, N.Y.

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Are Recruits Qualified?

I’ve read several articles in the Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine referencing Tech’s efforts to increase campus diversity. If this means recruiting the most highly qualified people from wherever in the world they happen to be, I’m all for it. However, I infer from the context of the articles that it means recruiting people of possibly inferior qualification simply because they look or act differently from the campus majority.

If this is indeed what it means, I am firmly opposed.

David Brock, ME 85 Evans, Ga.

History Notes

Thanks for showing a great collection of Tech historical items in the September/ October 2010 issue of the Alumni Magazine .

Here are some comments on these and on a few Tech items I have accumulated over the years:

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No. 6, 27, 40, 113 — I’m glad to have briefly crossed paths with Dean Griffin, Coach Dodd and Coach Alexander and to have autographed books by Griffin and Dodd.

No. 13 — If the Marathon Stone depicted replaced the original stone brought to the campus in 1928 by President Brittain, where is the original stone now located?

No. 16 — Freddy Lanoue’s drownproofing program probably saved some lives in World War II. As I recall, we freshmen participated in his PT swim classes buck naked in the late ’40s. Lanoue and Tech gym coach Lyle Welser were good friends, both having attended Springfield College in Massachusetts, where physical training was stressed.

My copies of Lanoue’s drownproofing book and Welser’s physical training syllabus show just what was expected of the Tech student in these PT courses in the 1940s.

No. 18 — Steve Bowes, ME 52, a teammate on Coach Welser’s varsity gym teams, was outstanding, especially in the 20-foot rope climb, an event he often won in less than five seconds from a sitting position in meets with other Southeast colleges.

No. 25 — It seems unusual that no trophy is available from the 1917 national football championship.

No. 42 — I’m proud to have recently found in my family genealogy research that I’m distantly related by marriage to Medal of Honor recipient and Navy ace-of-aces Capt. David McCampbell, honored on a plaque outside the Wardlaw Center along with three other Tech heroes.

No. 61 — This 1929 Rose Bowl ticket reminds me of one I have saved along with many from other exciting Tech sports victories — the thrilling 7-to-6 football victory over Alabama, the national champion, on Nov. 17, 1962, probably one of the most exciting 7-to-6 football games ever played.

No. 79 — This old gun reminds me of a photo I have of this freshman hanging from the end of the elevated barrel. My Tech roommate cranked the barrel up high with me hanging on it, then refused to lower me back down.

One other item I have is Vol. II, No. I of the Tech Annual Announcement of 1903-04 depicting courses, faculty, students, cam12

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pus photos and much more. [See In Retrospect, page 86.] A list of warnings included that “students found with playing cards in their possession would be suspended from the school.”

Thanks again for the fine Alumni Magazine we enjoy so much!

John C. Cerny, ME 51, MS IM 56 Atlanta

Robert Not Treasury Secretary

In item 12 in your article 125 Pieces of Tech History [September/October], you noted that L.W. “Chip” Robert, a 1908 graduate “served as secretary of the Treasury under President Franklin D. Roosevelt.” To my knowledge, FDR’s only Treasury secretaries were William Woodin and Henry Morgenthau.

J.W. Stewart, Phys 61 Alexandria, Va. Editor’s note: Mr. Stewart is correct. Robert served as the assistant secretary of the Treasury under FDR. We regret the error.

Bud’s Wiser

I believe I know [the origin of the Budweiser song]. One year, perhaps 1970, while Bud Carson was our football coach, the Kappa Alpha fraternity had a Homecoming display in front of its house that was

simply a papier-mache representation of a Budweiser beer can with the slogan “Tech will win because Bud’s wiser.” That year at Homecoming, I believe, the band started playing the Budweiser song. Maybe someone else knows if there were KAs in the band or if they just liked the pun. That’s my take on it.

W. Paul Fryer, BMgt 72 Bainbridge, Ga.

Yes, It Was Maxie’s Hat

I was a football manager for the first four years, the last two as head manager, that Bud Carson was coach. I never once saw him wear an engineer’s hat. I agree that it was probably Maxie Baughan.

Reid Simmons, IM 70 Panama City Beach, Fla.

Marathon Conversation

I had to share this story as an example of Georgia Tech’s positive influence in unexpected places. While I live and breathe Georgia Tech almost every day in Atlanta, I never really expected to “talk Tech” while on my trip to New York City for the marathon.

While many people struggle near the end of a marathon, I find the initial part to be the most challenging. At the start of the

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race, when I looked out from the Verrazano-Narrows bridge and saw Manhattan so far away, it was overwhelming for me to think how many miles were between me and the finish line in west Central Park.

I broke the race into segments — mile 2, 5K, then mile 4 — but it wasn’t helping.

Then I heard someone yell, “Go, Yellow Jacket!” This was followed by, “All right, Georgia Tech!” I smiled and to my right was a guy wearing a Georgia Tech shirt.

We started a conversation. I learned he first started running with the Pi Mile, and it has had a major impact on his life. He graduated from Tech in 2004 with a computer science degree and now lives in New York City. He hasn’t made it to Atlanta in a few years but has heard that the campus has really changed.

We ran those first few miles together until I was to meet my husband [Samuel

Fowler, NRE 05] at mile 9, where he was equipped with the essentials — Tylenol, Fig Newtons, Body Glide, etc. I wished the alum well on his first marathon, and we parted ways.

What that Tech grad didn’t know was that our mutual love of Georgia Tech helped push me through my most challenging part of the race — and also the fear and mental challenge of what laid before me.

I don’t know how the race went for that alum, but I’m certain that he crossed the finish line.

Suzanne Fowler, Mgt 03 Alpharetta, Ga.

In the Beginning

It was exciting to hear that Georgia Tech is leading the effort of a team of institutions in an origins of life study. That is an area of scientific study that must be explored, but

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I believe that they will come to the conclusion that the evolution paradigm of natural selection, which can only adequately explain the variation within species, is insufficient to be extended to be the cause for the development of life from prebiotic substances.

The only scientific evidence that we can observe today is that life can only come from life, not inorganic proteins, no matter how complex they are. To evolve from proteins to more complex forms of life requires information as well as intelligence, not only natural processes.

I think that scientists will one day eventually come to the conclusion that life started as it was simply stated more than 2,000 years ago, “In the beginning, God created …”

John Adams, Arch 76 Lawrenceville, Ga.

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Honoring Trailblazers Matriculation anniversary includes $2.011 million scholarship campaign

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he Georgia Tech Black Alumni Organization has set a goal of raising $2,011,000 for its scholarship endowment in observance of the 50th anniversary of the enrollment of three African-American men at the Institute in September 1961.

The Alumni Association affinity group hopes the endowment will better position Tech to compete with other universities in recruiting stellar students; help the Institute maintain its status as a top producer of African-American engineers by providing scholarships to current students; and give alumni and supporters an opportunity to give back to Tech to maintain a legacy of academic success.

“GTBAO, friends and supporters are making a difference today through this endowment initiative so they can make an impact on the future leaders of tomorrow,” said Errika Mallett, ISyE 96, president of the Black Alumni Organization and an Alumni Association trustee.

The scholarship campaign is just one facet of the celebration surrounding the 50th anniversary of the matriculation of black students.

Gary May, EE 85, chair of the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, is leading the steering committee for the 50th anniversary.

“Ralph Long, Ford Greene and Lawrence Williams arrived at Georgia Tech as freshmen nearly 50 years ago in the fall of 1961. These three young men were the first African-American students to matriculate at Georgia Tech and now, thanks to their perseverance and sacrifice, Georgia Tech is the national leader in the production of African-American engineers,” May said at the Women’s Leadership Conference on campus in late October.

Brooke Novak

Honored at a football game were Ronald Yancey, left to right, the first African-American to graduate from Tech, and the first three to matriculate, Ralph Long Jr., Ford Greene, with wife Frankie Hall-Greene, and Lawrence Williams.

The yearlong celebration, which will include exhibits, a symposium to coincide with Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a theatrical production and a number of panel discussions, will culminate with a Legends Ball in November at the Ferst Center for the Arts sponsored by the African American Student Union and GTBAO. A schedule of anniversary activities is available at diversity.gatech. edu/50thAnniversary/events-and-programs.

GTBAO will be celebrating the anniversary in part with the unveiling of an exhibit, “By Faith,” which features a timeline of major strides made by trailblazing black students, professors, staff and alumni at Tech. It will be unveiled Feb. 28 in the mezzanine of the Alumni House, where the piece will remain on permanent display.

Mallett called 2011 “a time of acknowledgment and a time to continue making a

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difference,” and said the anniversary will give GTBAO the perfect opportunity “to establish a continuum that will ensure that the country’s best and brightest students are attracted to and can afford to attend Georgia Tech.”

In 2008, the affinity group established the scholarship endowment initiative to ensure financial resources are available to future black students. The members’ fundraising efforts over the past couple of years made it possible for GTBAO to award scholarships to 20 students in 2010, compared to three in 2008. Current and past GTBAO scholars include a Rhodes Scholar finalist, Greek organization leaders, a Student Government Association president and Ms. Georgia Tech, Makeda Cyrus.

More information on GTBAO and its scholarship endowment may be found at gtblackalumni.org.

— Leslie Overman

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Gold & White Honors Recipients Named The Gold & White Honors, the most prestigious awards given by the Alumni Association, are awarded in recognition of outstanding contributions on campus, in communities and in the world at large.

The 2011 winners are leaders and innovators, but more importantly they are hardworking volunteers and philanthropists. The award recipients will be recognized for their accomplishments and generosity during a Feb. 17 dinner and awards ceremony.

The Joseph Mayo Pettit Alumni Distinguished Service Award is the highest honor bestowed by the Alumni Association in recognition of exceptional and outstanding support of the Institute and a lifetime of professional and philanthropic leadership. The 2011 recipients are: Joel Cowan, IM 58, of Peachtree City, Ga., chairman and president of Habersham & Cowan Inc. and an adjunct professor in the Georgia Tech College of Management. He is a trustee emeritus of the Georgia Tech Foundation board. He formerly was a member of the University System of Georgia Board of Regents, the Ivan Allen College advisory board, the College of Management Center for Ethics advisory board, the Ivan Allen College development council and the Georgia Tech Research Institute external advisory board.

Cowan was inducted into the College of Management’s Hall of Fame in 2006, and in 2003 he received the Alumni Association’s Dean Griffin Community Service Award.

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Bill Goodhew, IM 61, of Atlanta, vice president of Intelligent Systems Corp. He is a past chair of the Alumni Association board of trustees and the Roll Call Leadership Circle gift club. He has served on the Georgia Tech Foundation board of trustees, the Georgia Tech Research Corp. advisory board, the Alexander-Tharpe Fund board and the Georgia Tech campaign steering committee.

In 1995 Goodhew was inducted into the Georgia Technology Hall of Fame. The Southeastern Software Association has named him Entrepreneur of the Year and Software Executive of the Decade. He also served in the Marine Corps.

Hubert “Herky” Harris, IM 65, of Atlanta, retired CEO of INVESCO, North America. He is a past president of the Alumni Association board of trustees and past chair of the Georgia Tech Foundation board of trustees. He is a member of the Alexander-Tharpe Fund board and a College of Management distinguished alumnus.

Harris is a trustee of SEI Mutual Funds, the director of St. Joseph’s Translational Research Institute and a member of the Carter Center Board of Councilors.

Recipients of the Dean Griffin Community Service Award, presented for positively impacting the quality of life of others while serving as a role model in the process, are: Robert Shelley Blount, Text 66, of Moore, S.C., vice president of Jocassee Designs. He was the 1999 Ramblin’ Wreck Volunteer of the Year for his contributions to the Greenville-

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Spartanburg, S.C., Georgia Tech Club, for which he formerly served as president. He is a past member of the Alumni Association board of trustees and was named a distinguished alumnus by the College of Engineering in 2001. Blount was named the 2008 Small Business Person of the Year by the Spartanburg Area Chamber of Commerce.

Goodman “G.B.” Espy, ME 57, of Atlanta, an obstetrician/ gynecologist. He delivered about 500 babies in one year while an Army doctor at Fort McPherson, Ga., and has gone on to deliver 12,000 in his career. He traveled to Kosovo in 1998 to deliver babies and perform surgeries on refugees. In recent years, he paid for a 7-year-old Iraqi boy to come to Atlanta for a bone-lengthening operation, which enabled the child to walk. He has started a mammography clinic in Iraq and travels to the country to train physicians. In 2004, the Medical Association of Georgia presented him the Jack A. Raines Humanitarian of the Year Award. He also is a distinguished alumnus of the College of Engineering and the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering.

The Outstanding Young Alumnus/Alumna Award goes to a high achiever under age 40 who has contributed to Georgia Tech, the community and the business world. The recipients are: Errika Mallett, ISyE 96, of Stone Mountain, Ga., human resources manager and consultant for Southwire. She is president of the Georgia Tech Black Alumni Organization and has participated in Mentor Jackets and Pi Mile. She is a member of the Alumni Association board of trustees and vice chair of the steering committee for the 50th anniversary of the matriculation of black students.

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Fred Carlson, CE 01, MBA 04, of Tampa, Fla., founder and chief operating officer of Ice House USA Inc. He is vice president of the Suncoast Georgia Tech Club and a member of the Co-op Affinity Group. As a student, he was active in the Student Foundation, Wreck to Riches, the Student Alumni Association and Omicron Delta Epsilon. He won the 2003 outstanding first-year MBA student award and the 2004 MBA student of the year award.

Honorary Alumni status is presented to someone who did not attend the Institute but has provided outstanding service to Georgia Tech. The recipients are: Kathy Betty, of Atlanta, owner of the Atlanta Dream and widow of Garry Betty, ChE 79, who died in 2007. She serves on the Alexander-Tharpe Fund board and the Campaign Georgia Tech steering committee. She is CEO of the Garry Betty Foundation, which pledged $750,000 to co-fund the Garry Betty and V Foundation Chair in Cancer Nanotechnology at Georgia Tech. The Bettys established three trusts, two to fund scholarships at Tech and another for a chair in chemical engineering.

Dorothy Cowser Yancy, of Atlanta, Georgia Tech faculty member from 1972 to 1994. A history professor, she was the first African-American tenured faculty member and eventually served as associate director of the School of Social Sciences. The Student Government Association named her the outstanding teacher of the year and undergraduate faculty member of the year during her career. She also was named an honorary member of ANAK. Yancy currently serves as the honorary chair of the Georgia Tech Black Alumni Organization’s scholarship endowment initiative.

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Life Jackets: Advice to Keep Your Career Afloat

Follow Your Heart

Women’s Leadership Conference speakers say passion for profession critical

By Kimberly Link-Wills

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he student-organized Women’s Leadership Conference on campus in late October was packed with two days of advice on how to rise above the ordinary, the theme for the 14th annual event.

First admitted to Georgia Tech in 1952, females now comprise 37 percent of the freshman class.

“We have had a steady flow of high-achieving women with fortitude and resolve who have shown us that women have the capacity to keep moving forward,” said Ivan Allen College Dean Jacqueline Jones Royster during introductory remarks at an evening awards banquet at the Georgia Tech Hotel. “Still we must rise above the ordinary as we all participate individually and collectively in what remains a significantly male environment and be the phenomenal women that those who have gone before us believed that we would be and those behind us still need us to be.”

Keynote speaker Betty Tong, ME 93, MS ME 95, said her path took a number of turns before she discovered her passion for thoracic surgery. “No pun intended, it was really what was in my heart.”

President of Omicron Delta Kappa and the Ramblin’ Reck Club while at Tech and the daughter of professor emeritus Yung Tong, she now is a professor at Duke University and a surgeon in a specialty field in which only about 7 percent of the physicians are women.

“I work in a very male-dominated field as many of you do and will. … I was never asked to go play golf on Saturday morning with the department chair. I don’t fly-fish, but I still did OK,” she said.

Tong has achieved success by following her passion, she said.

“You can’t help what you fall in love with. Follow your heart.”

Martha Forlines, president of consulting, coaching, training and speaker services provider Belief Systems Institute, agreed with Tong.

“Think about what really makes your heart sing. What is something that truly, truly you feel emotional about? Hook your aspirations to those things,” said Forlines, co-author of Inspiring Women: Becoming Courageous, Wise Leaders, during a Saturday morning breakfast at the Student Center.

“Be clear about who you are. Be self-defined, not defined by others,” Forlines said. “While this sounds so simple on the surface, to really understand your strengths and maximize those and minimize your weaknesses is a critical, critical thing to focus on.”

Forlines said Lois Frankel’s Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office “identifies 101 unconscious things that women do to sabotage themselves at work. She writes that women play it way too safe

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in their work lives. If you look at work as being a playing field, women like to stay in the middle, and the reality is the game gets won on the edges and in the end zone.”

Trish Downing never played it safe. A competitive cyclist, Downing was on a bike ride with a friend in 2000 when her path was forever changed, she told her audience during the keynote lunch address.

“I’m thinking about all my dreams and my goals and my plans — all these things that I want to do — and all of a sudden I look up, and I see in front of me that there is a car … turning onto the side street that we were then crossing,” Downing said. “I went for my brakes, but I couldn’t get to them quickly enough. And the front wheel of my bike hit the front bumper of that car. I was launched, turning in the air, landing on my back on the windshield and falling to the ground. And right there, at the corner of 32nd and Crab Apple, I hit a crossroads and everything changed.”

Before the day ended, Downing was told she had suffered a chest-level spinal cord injury and would never walk again.

“Never. Have you ever thought about the word never? Imagine if you spent four years working so hard at Georgia Tech and never graduated? Or think about the person you love more than anyone in the world and then imagine never seeing that person again,” Downing said.

After more than three weeks in intensive care followed by a stint at a rehabilitation facility, Downing moved into a wheelchairaccessible condo.

“There were no doctors, no nurses, no friends visiting, no call buttons. And I was alone with my thoughts,” she said. “Then I started thinking, I’m right back where I was, at 32nd and Crab Apple Street. I’m at a crossroads. And here is where I make a decision. I make a decision to sit around and feel sorry for myself or I make a decision to do what you all are doing today and rise above the ordinary.”

She began training again, this time in a racing chair. “I needed to ride my own race,” Downing said. “My accident had derailed me, but it hadn’t stopped me. It was only up to me whether I was going to get back in the race or not.”

Downing eventually competed in the Ironman world championship triathlon in Hawaii and won the 2009 duathlon world championship.

“I think passion is the most important thing in your life in getting through the things that are difficult and in finding your way, in establishing your journey and finding your path. And if it weren’t for my passion of athletics, my passion to be the best I could possibly be, I wouldn’t have made it to where I am today,” she said.

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Women of Distinction Heralded for Contributions Women of Distinction award winners were announced during the leadership conference. They are: Outstanding undergraduate student Candace Mitchell, a fifth-year computer science major, president of the African American Student Union and the only undergraduate student on the vice president for Institute Diversity search committee.

Graduate student Laura Kitashima, EE 10, a recipient of the Women in Engineering Excellence and Women in Engineering Pay It Forward scholarships and a co-founder of the Student Alumni Association.

Faculty winner Deborah Turner, an associate professor in the College of Management, Honorary Accounting Organization adviser and the two-time recipient of the American Woman’s Society of Certified Public Accountants’ award for outstanding contributions to accounting literature.

Staff winner Rosemary “Rome” Lester, the senior staff counselor at the Georgia Tech Counseling Center, a licensed marriage and family therapist and a charter member of the sexual violence task force at Tech.

Alumna winner Sally Jabaley, CE 74, of Houston, a Shell International E&P project assurance manager, member of the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering advisory board, past president of the Houston Georgia Tech Club, former Alumni Association trustee and recipient of the College of Engineering Distinguished Alumni Award in 2008 and the Gulf Coast North American Region Projects, Facilities and Construction award in 2007.

The first black women who matriculated at Tech also were saluted as part of a yearlong celebration to mark the 50th anniversary of the enrollment of three African-American men.

“They came in 1970 and 1971, almost a decade after the first three black men,” said Stephanie Ray, associate dean of

Student Affairs. “Some were high school seniors taking college courses that would eventually prepare them to go on to Yale, MIT, Mount Holyoke and Stanford,” Ray said. “Others came as educators with the Atlanta Public School System, taking courses through a grant offer through the National Science Foundation so they could acquire new knowledge to develop curricula for computer application and computer science.”

Nine of the first 22 African-American women to enroll at Tech were on hand to be recognized during the conference awards banquet.

“Eight have master’s degrees, and the ninth one skipped the master’s degree and went straight to the juris doctorate,” Ray said.

Called to the stage were: Bonnie Cameron, who took classes at Tech as a high school senior in 1971, earned degrees at Yale and New York University School of Law and became the first female African-American special trial attorney at the IRS. Grace Hammonds, MS AMath 73, one of the first two black women to earn master’s degrees at Georgia Tech, who earned a PhD from Carnegie Mellon, helped develop the Department of Defense’s guidelines for information security and co-founded the information technology firm AGCS Inc.

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Shirley Marshall, who earned degrees from Alabama State College and Georgia State before receiving additional training at Tech through the Southeastern Consortium for Minorities in Engineering and retired in 2005 after 35 years in the Atlanta Public School System.

Tawana Derricotte Miller, IM 76, the first African-American woman to receive a bachelor’s degree from Tech without being a dual-degree student, earned a master’s from Georgia State and a doctorate from Seton Hall and is the director of Title I and school improvement in the Fulton County School System.

Adesola Kujore Nurudeen, ChE 78, MS Met 80, PhD ChE 83, the first black woman to earn a doctorate at Tech, who came to the Institute through the dualdegree program with Spelman and now serves on the mechanical engineering faculty at the University of Houston.

Annie Bryant Smith, an educator who took classes at Georgia Tech and retired after 34 years of elementary school teaching.

Anita Turner, who took math classes at the Institute and retired after 36 years of teaching.

Alyce Martin Ware, a retired Atlanta Public School System educator who took classes at Tech and is the owner of the Atlanta Voice newspaper.

Clemmie Bray Whatley, MS AMath 73, one of the first two black females to receive Tech master’s degrees, who earned an Emory PhD, created a math teaching aid and won the 2009 Women of Distinction alumna award.

Others recognized but not in attendance were Marion Agee, the late Wanda Anderson, Gloria Thomas Battles, Theressa Talps Bingley, Angela Chaney, Charlene Dupree Everette, the late Sandra Burdette Stephens Farley, Marilyn Harris, Dorothea Caster Lee Jackson, Carolyn Davis James, Jennie Chakrabarti Patrick, Donna Smith Palms and Kathy Robie Suh.

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Schmoozing and Shopping for Jobs The nearly 20 workshops offered during the Women’s Leadership Conference focused on a wide range of topics, from accountability to Zumba, goal setting to dream interpretation.

Debra Shigley, an attorney and author of The Go-Getter Girl’s Guide: Get What You Want in Work and Life (and Look Great While You’re at It), led a workshop on playing the schmoozing game.

“Success doesn’t happen by accident,” said Shigley, who presented her top 10 go-getter principles: 1. The work world can be a cold, hard place. You must learn to deal with it. 2. Expand your circle. 3. Maintain a healthy lifestyle.

4. Looks matter at work — period. Dress for the occasion and look fabulous when fabulousness counts. 5. The best education is selfeducation. 6. Learn the art of negotiation. 7. Know when to quit.

8. Cultivate mentors. 9. Find allies and advocates. 10. Embrace all of your attributes.

Shigley said networking “means in the simplest sense of the word getting out there, trying new things and taking little, tiny

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steps outside of your comfort zone. … It’s still a lot easier to ‘friend’ someone on Facebook than walk up to a stranger at a party, but it’s those interactions … that can have much more impact on your career.”

Accepting invitations to social and career-related events is key, Shigley said. “It can’t be overstated the importance of actually showing up.”

Schmooze with a pocketful of “pop culture currency, meaning those things to talk about — movies, restaurants, plays, magazine articles, books you read, TV shows. I can’t tell you how many dinner parties or events I go to where somehow, someway the conversation comes back to some reality television show. You may think it’s a silly thing to keep up on, but that’s what people are talking about.”

Without being pushy, work in “five bullet points, whether it’s where you work, where you went to school, where you’re from, what your career goal is — four or five things that would compose

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your elevator speech — and let them sort of organically drop into the conversation in those first three minutes,” she said.

“Don’t complain. I think this is a big one. Especially when we’re in uncomfortable situations, it’s kind of the easiest, lowest common denominator of what to talk about,” Shigley said. “You find yourself in a lot of situations where you’re with your colleagues [in which] it’s very easy for the common ground to be for everybody to just sort of kvetch about who they don’t like in the office or what’s going on or what’s not working right as opposed to coming up with a stimulating conversation about a documentary you saw on HBO.” In a workshop on landing a job with grace and brilliance, Lauren McDow, Mgt 03, recommended “informational interviewing.”

“This is not at all a job interview. It’s where you basically are going to ask for someone’s advice. This sounds really simple, but it is so powerful,” said McDow, the professional development program manager in Tech’s College of Management.

“Let’s say you, as a student at Georgia Tech, would really like

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to work in global operations at the Coca-Cola Company, and you find someone on their Web site, the VP of global operations and you send her an e-mail and say, ‘Hi, I’m a Georgia Tech senior. … Do you have any jobs available?’ What will she say? ‘Talk to HR.’ ‘Check the Web site.’ ‘No.’ That’s a very likely answer. It’s kind of a door-closing conversation because she’s really busy, doesn’t know who you are at all and you’re asking for something so huge, like a job,” McDow said.

“Let’s say you send an e-mail to the same person saying, ‘I’m a senior at Georgia Tech. … I’m very interested in global operations at Coca-Cola. I saw your biography on the company Web site. Your career path really fascinates me. Could I buy you a cup of coffee and just get 30 minutes of your advice?’ What’s the response?

‘Absolutely,’” she said.

“There’s not a person who has even half a heart who will say no to a college student asking for advice,” McDow said. “At a bare minimum, you’re going to have coffee with the VP of operations at the Coca-Cola Company and get to hear her story. … But more powerful than that is that you are building an advocate and an ally.”

— Kimberly Link-Wills

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Making the Deal Scoutmob co-founder shares startup advice with MBA Jackets

By Kimberly Link-Wills

M

ichael Tavani, co-founder of the group-buying site Scoutmob, says ideas aren’t worth much.

“Even the best idea in the world is worth about $10 because everybody has a million dollar idea. Trust me, the idea is not the part you really need. You need to execute for the next year after the idea.

That’s the real struggle,” Tavani told the MBA Jackets during the Alumni Association affinity group’s evening program on entrepreneurship in November.

“A lot of people wait for the perfect opportunity, the perfect idea, and they’re not going to jump fully into starting a company until they have that perfect opportunity,” said Tavani, who has a law degree rather than an MBA. “I think ideas are overrated. I think the execution after the initial idea is the real magic.”

The initial idea three years ago was for Tavani and his business partner to launch SkyBlox, an Atlanta Wi-Fi marketing company that began morphing into Scoutmob in the summer of 2009 and offered its first deal in January. Dressed casually in a plaid shirt and jeans among the Jackets, Tavani revealed he wasn’t a fan of business plans either. “This whole group-buying, flashcommerce space that Scoutmob is in wasn’t even in existence three years ago.

“Scoutmob is one of the most unique businesses because it is a 100 percent measurable return on investment, and it actually makes for a pretty easy sale to these local merchants because they know that, first off, they don’t spend anything up front. They know whenever they pay us anything it’s for a customer sitting in a seat, which is kind of the holy grail of local marketing,” Tavani said.

Scoutmob’s 150,000 e-mail subscribers and 77,000 iPhone and Android users in

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metro Atlanta receive daily offers, usually 50 percent off food and drink at a restaurant. It costs nothing to receive the deal.

Scoutmob makes money through a flat fee paid by the business owner when a patron produces the e-mail or text message code.

“There are literally 200 or 300 group-

buying copycats … across the U.S. There will probably be, if I had to go out on a limb, 10 a year from now,” Tavani said.

“Only a few will pull it off.”

He hopes Scoutmob is one of those few.

“This is with literally zero dollars marketing spent. It’s about as viral as a product

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could be,” Tavani said, noting that the business expanded to New York City in July and San Francisco in September and plans to be in every NFL city by the end of 2011.

Scoutmob found an angel investor providing about $200,000 by making it to the finals of a Technology Association of Georgia business launch competition.

“I really think the first six to 12 months you can’t be concerned about finances.

When you’re worried early on about trying to make revenue as a company, it alters your product, it alters your decisions,” Tavani said.

“For the first couple of months of Scoutmob, we had no billing team, we had the ugliest billing system of all time.

We had driven so many customers to local restaurants and businesses, and we hadn’t gotten paid for it. We weren’t that concerned about it. I think some of the

Michael Tavani is the co-founder of Scoutmob, a group-buying site that is expanding across the country. investors were concerned about it, but we weren’t that concerned because we always knew that if we were actually driving local people to businesses, then there was going to be some value at some point down the road,” he said.

Scoutmob initially went after the “intown, tech-savvy, creative types,” Tavani said. “But we get way more e-mails and

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love letters from suburban moms than we do from those types.”

He said the Scoutmob team works hard to “delight customers” with its wit, including the e-mail address for more information: sweatervest@scoutmob.com.

“If you don’t have good content, if you don’t have good deals, if your e-mail doesn’t look great, if your site’s average, if your app’s not fun, then no one’s going to share no matter how many share buttons you have, no matter how many ‘follow us’ buttons you have,” Tavani said.

“Seven out of 10 [startups] are going out of business. Two out of 10 are maybe breaking even. Maybe one is going to hit it,” Tavani said. “But there’s nothing better than being in the game.”

Poised to play, several of the MBA Jackets in attendance took note when Tavani said the e-mail address for job applicants is tubesocks@scoutmob.com.

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Jackets Required: Sightings of Tech Grads and Friends 2. Greece

1. North Georgia

4. Mount Everest

3. Tennessee

5. Hawaii

6. Dobbins Air Force Base

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7. Maine

8. Alexander Memorial Coliseum

9. Baptist Student Union

10. Fifth Street Bridge

1. Georgia Tech Equestrian Alumni affinity group members Megan Heaphy, Biol 07, Kristy Stengard, Mgt 09, and Erika Larson, ME 04, MS BioE 06, all won ribbons in alumni competition at the North Georgia College & State University Fall Gold Rush Classic, Intercollegiate Horse Show Association Western competition. 2. Ben Chilcutt, BC 61, read the Alumni Magazine as he and fellow Georgia Tech Alumni Travel tourists entered the port of Santorini, Greece. 3. Anne, Mgt 99, and Ryan McGraw, Mgt 98, deck out daughters Greta and Cora in Yellow Jackets gear. 4. Annie Anton, ICS 90, MS ICS 92, PhD CS 97, showed her Tech pride at the Mount Everest base camp in Nepal.

She climbed to the summit of Kala Patthar with a Trekking for Kids expedition, which raised more than $55,000 for the Orphan Children Rescue Center in Nepal. 5. Linda Hayes, EE 82, crossed the finish line at the Ironman world championship in the Georgia Tech triathlon suit acquired with the help of Jane Stoner, the Alumni Association’s senior manager of Georgia Tech Clubs. 6. Scott Blackstock, ChE 79, was selected for a 45-minute flight with the Blue Angels through the Navy’s Key Influencers program. 7. Nathan Dockery, CE 02, sported a Georgia Tech cap on top of Cadillac Mountain in Maine’s Acadia National Forest. 8. Ray Zequeira, center, CE 67, of San Juan, Puerto Rico, visits with Harry Tomas, IE 67, MS IM 73, MS IE 78, while at Alexander Memorial Coliseum with grandson and prospective Tech student Jorge L. Juncos Zequeira. 9. Warren, ME 47, and Sue Woolf were recognized with an endowed scholarship honoring the 16 years at Tech he served as the Baptist Student Union minister, from 1950 to 1966. With them at a celebratory luncheon were, left to right, sons Bill, IM 70, and David, Cls 72, and daughter-in-law Mim. 10. Presiding over the second annual cornhole tournament on the Fifth Street bridge in Atlanta were Moshe Gordon, ChE 01, president of the Young Alumni Council, and Suzanne Fowler, Mgt 03, president of the Intown Georgia Tech Club. 11. Col. Lenny Richoux, AE 89, recently named commander of MacDill Air Force Base, was welcomed to Tampa by the Suncoast Georgia Tech Club’s Ashley Miller, EE 83; Chip Hayward, Arch 79, M Arch 81; and Irv Lee, IE 81, MS IE 85. 12. Sixth-graders at Palomino Intermediate School in Scottsdale, Ariz., model T-shirts the Alumni Association sent them.

12. Arizona

11. Florida

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Tech Topics

Melissa Bugg

Together at the Alumni House to talk about the professorship they established at Tech to honor their parents are siblings, left to right, Ron Nash, Deborah Nash Harris and Mike Nash.

Lessons Learned Nash children’s philanthropy instilled by their parents

I

n the Nash family, Tech was a key element in two life lessons — the ability of education to change people’s lives and the responsibility to give back through volunteer work and philanthropy.

Because of those lessons, the Institute now has a Harold R. and Mary Anne Nash Professor in Industrial and Systems Engineering. Pinar Keskinocak, co-director of the Center for Health and Humanitarian Logistics, associate director of research in the Health Systems Institute and professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, became the first Nash professor in July.

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The professorship was created and funded in honor of Harold R., EE 52, and Mary Anne Nash by the three of their four children who are graduates of Tech: Ron Nash, IE 70, of Dallas, a partner in InterWest Partners; Mike Nash, IE 74, of Concord, N.C., president of Akabis; and Deborah Nash Harris, IE 78, retired senior vice president of Microsoft Corp.

Keskinocak’s research focuses on supply chain management, with an emphasis on resource allocation, and she is actively engaged in research and applications in health care and humanitarian logistics. The Nash family said Keskinocak’s groundbreaking

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work in humanitarian logistics will benefit from these funds, and the victims of natural disasters will benefit as supplies and critical equipment are delivered quickly into disaster areas.

“I’m excited about the work Pinar is doing. We got a lot of leverage from this donation because she’s working with a number of charitable organizations, particularly in humanitarian logistics. Her work is very valuable,” Deborah Nash Harris said.

Harold Nash was a lifetime contributor to Roll Call, the Alumni Association’s annual fund, and a volunteer leader in a number of educational, civic and religious organizations. All three children have followed this model by consistently giving to Roll Call and to other Georgia Tech needs and requests, as well as by providing volunteer leadership to various organizations at the Institute.

Ron Nash said he, his brother and his sister value the pride for Georgia Tech instilled in them by their parents. “But we also valued what Georgia Tech gave to them. Their story is not unique but still pretty incredible, and an important part was played by a Georgia Tech legend.”

Harold Nash enrolled at Tech after World War II using the GI Bill to finance his education. He and Mary Anne married shortly before he began classes.

“They had little money and could get no financial help from my grandparents.

Mother was working during the day, and they had paper routes in the early morning and evening to generate additional money.

They even qualified to live in subsidized government housing,” Ron said.

“I was born the spring of my dad’s freshman year, and Dad switched to night classes so he could also work during the day,” he continued. “My grandparents pitched in by keeping me as my parents worked. By the time Dad got to be a junior, he had to attend his EE classes during the day with Mother continuing to work.”

Mike was born during the spring of their father’s senior year. With two little ones, their mother was going to have to give up her job to care for them. Without his wife’s full-time income, Harold was going to have to drop out — with one quarter left to earn his degree. Harold went to the Dean of Students Office to withdraw from

Anonymous $5 million Commitment Helps Campaign Gain Momentum

By Leslie Overman The Student Center ballroom was awash in white and gold for the campus launch of the public phase of Campaign Georgia Tech on Nov. 12. Hundreds of students, faculty and staff nibbled on popcorn and yellow-and-white M&Ms after filing into the room to hear about the Institute’s progress in reaching its goal of $1.5 billion

by December 2015. It is the most ambitious campaign in Tech’s history.

The audience burst into applause following an announcement by Anderson D. Smith, senior vice provost for Academic Affairs, that a current faculty member had made a commitment of $5 million.

“This person has requested anonymity so I can’t reveal his or her name, but I will say there is no doubt that this one gift will transform and provide critical support for one of our academic programs,” Smith said.

Nearly 1,000 faculty and staff members already had contributed to the campaign.

Coca-Cola Enterprises chairman and CEO John As of Oct. 31, faculty and staff commitBrock serves as chair of Campaign Georgia Tech. ments totaled $3.8 million. The Institute has set a faculty/staff goal of $15 million.

In addition to helping the Institute realize the goals outlined in its 25-year strategic plan, the campaign also will help Tech “achieve a level of excellence that would not otherwise be possible,” said President G. P. “Bud” Peterson. “It will allow us to add endowed chairs and professorships, to help us continue to attract the very best faculty in the country. It will allow us to provide scholarships for undergraduate students and fellowships for graduate students so that we can continue to attract the very best students from across the country and, in fact, around the world.”

It also will make possible the construction of new facilities, Peterson said, noting that 71 percent of the funding for capital construction projects completed on campus in the past decade came from private philanthropic gifts.

Peterson said $925 million was raised during the campaign’s quiet phase. Tech will be hosting a series of 40 campaign launch events across the country and internationally over the next two years.

Upon taking the stage, campaign chair John Brock, ChE 70, MS ChE 71, noted that without private philanthropy the Tech campus would not be what it is today, mentioning some of the campus structures named for generous benefactors, including the Carnegie and Smithgall buildings and the Stamps Student Center Commons.

Brock and his wife, Mary, have made a commitment to fund half of the total project cost of an 80,000-square-foot indoor practice facility for Tech’s football program.

Construction is scheduled to begin this winter.

“We believe we have a very strong personal obligation to give back to Georgia Tech,” Brock said. “And I hope that each of you will join with us in thinking about just how important it is to do for future generations what others have done for us.”

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ron Nash, IE 70

Deborah Nash Harris, IE 78

Tech. Dean George Griffin refused to sign the withdrawal papers.

“Dean Griffin asked him how much money he needed to finish the quarter and get out,” Ron said. “And Dad told him he needed $1,000. Dean Griffin said, ‘I’m not going to sign this. You can come back tomorrow for me to sign it.’ Dad was upset that he had to come back a second day and did not understand why Dean Griffin would not sign the withdrawal form.

“He came back the next day to get Dean Griffin’s signature. To his complete surprise, Dean Griffin handed him a check for $1,000.

He’d gone to the Atlanta Rotary Club and gotten someone to put up a $1,000 loan for my father so he could finish his education at Georgia Tech,” Ron said. “Dad graduated, paid back the loan and in later years joined the Rotary Club and became president.”

The siblings agreed that Dean Griffin helped change the path for the entire Nash family.

“It took a family that never had a high school graduate up to consistently having college graduates in one generation,” Ron said.

“That’s one of the reasons we wanted to honor our parents. That first Tech degree made a spectacular impact on our family and on multiple generations.”

All three of the siblings have had children of their own graduate from Tech. Deborah’s son, Andrew Willingham, got a master’s in music technology in 2010. Ron’s son, David Nash, received two degrees in 2003, in mechanical engineering and international affairs. Mike is the father of two Tech alums, Jennifer Tench, Arch 02, and Michael Nash Jr., MS OR 05.

The fourth Nash sibling, Mary Alice, continued the family Tech tradition by marrying Arthur Ivey, CE 81, and having a son, Benjamin Ivey, who is a current Tech student majoring in chemical engineering.

Talk of honoring their parents with a professorship began in the late 1990s, in the midst of Tech’s previous capital campaign. As 28

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Mike Nash, IE 74

with the latest campaign, Ron and Deborah served on the steering committee.

“I was trying to figure out what to give,” Ron said. “I thought, ‘Deborah and Mike are also going to be contributing. What if we all got together? We could give something even more important.’”

Mike said their mother, now in her 80s, was “proud and very pleased” when she learned of the professorship and the woman appointed to the post.

Harold Nash died in 1991. “But we know he would have been honored by his children doing this in his name,” Mike said.

Much has changed at Georgia Tech since Harold Nash’s days on campus.

“It has retained elements that are important — very rigorous academics, the need to be tough, to persevere,” Deborah said. “But I think the curriculum now includes more liberal arts content and more focus on communications and teamwork, which are so important to career success.”

Ron said Tech is “still a stamina contest. That’s great for business. But it’s broader now. If you go back to our dad right after World War II, not only was it all male, it was much like a military college. That was the style.”

Mike considered how things have changed since the 1970s. “I began classes with a slide rule. I ended with a $99 Bomar Brain, a four-function calculator,” he said. “The subject matter is not that different, but the way that the educational process takes place now with technology is so different.”

Ron said, in addition to academics, he learned about people and leadership.

“I don’t think I would have gotten as broad of a leadership background at other universities as I got here,” he said. “I think that’s been far more valuable in business. Three more calculus classes would have done nothing for my career.”

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Tech Notes

Nanomedicine Center Nets $16.1 million

The Georgia Tech-led Nanomedicine Center for Nucleoprotein Machines has received an award of $16.1 million for five years as part of its renewal by the National Institutes of Health. The eightinstitution research team will pursue development of a clinically viable gene correction technology for single-gene disorders and demonstrate the technology’s efficacy with sickle cell disease.

In addition to experts in the Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University and the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Tech, researchers from the Medical College of Georgia, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, New York University Medical Center, MIT, Stanford and Harvard are members of the center.

The gene correction approach proposed by the researchers to treat sickle cell disease involves delivering engineered zinc finger nucleases — genetic scissors that cut DNA at a specific site — and DNA correction templates into the nuclei of hematopoietic stem cells isolated from the bone marrow of those with the disease.

Tech Expanding French Campus

Georgia Tech is expanding its campus in the northeast region of France with a new resource center for industry and academic research laboratories.

French authorities will finance about $31 million to create the Lafayette Institute at Georgia Tech Lorraine in Metz. The institute will provide access to state-of-the-art nanofabrication facilities for optoelectronics, technology transfer and commercialization services. It will focus on technologies at the intersection of materials, optics, photonics, electronics and nanotechnology.

“This European innovation hub will strengthen Georgia’s global footprint in technological innovation and serve as a link between research laboratories and industry, where technological solutions and prototypes can be developed rapidly to stimulate economic development,” said Yves Berthelot, president of Georgia Tech Lorraine.

Dean’s Scholarships Kick-started

While Joe Evans, IM 71, was volunteering a few years ago to reach out to top high school seniors who’d narrowly missed out on President’s Scholarships, he had an idea to still draw these students to Tech and, specifically, the College of Management.

Evans, chairman-elect of the college’s advisory board, talked to Dean Steve Salbu about creating an alternative, and the Dean’s Scholarship Program was born in 2009. Initially, the program involved the establishment of 20 term scholarships, each requiring gifts of $30,000. This has enabled the college to award 10 Dean’s Scholarships (averaging $7,500 annually for four years) to entering freshmen in both 2010 and 2011.

Because the funding for these scholarships expires after four years, the college has been working to endow a minimum of 40 permanent scholarships, requiring gifts of $200,000. The matching

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Tech Notes funds provided by the challenge gift have accelerated this initiative. As of October, 15 endowed scholarships had been created.

Evans, past chair of the Alumni Association, and his wife, Raena, again played a leading role in the process, with the endowment of three Raena W. and Joseph W. Evans Dean’s Scholarships (a total of $300,000 in investment). The couple previously had funded the college’s first expendable term scholarship.

Patch Gets $10 million, Five-year Grant

The National Institutes of Health has awarded $10 million to Tech, Emory and PATH, a Seattle-based nonprofit, to advance a technology for the painless, self-administration of a flu vaccine using patches containing tiny microneedles that dissolve into skin.

The five-year grant will be used to address key technical issues and advance the microneedle patch through a clinical trial. The grant also will be used to compare the effectiveness of traditional intramuscular injection of flu vaccine against administration of vaccine into the skin using microneedle patches. In animals, vaccination with dissolving microneedles has been shown to provide immunization better than vaccination with hypodermic needles.

“We believe that this technology will increase the number of people being vaccinated, especially among the most susceptible populations of children and the elderly,” said Mark Prausnitz, a

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professor in the Georgia Tech School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and the project’s principal investigator. “If we can make it easier for people to be vaccinated and improve the effectiveness of the vaccine, we could significantly reduce the number of deaths caused every year by influenza.”

Legislative Priorities Outlined

Georgia Tech has set its priorities for the state Legislature’s 2011 session, which begins in January. The priorities are available online at gov.gatech.edu.

The priorities are to secure $4.2 million in bonds to fund the construction of the eco-commons/storm water relocation project; $177 million in new “formula funds” among all University System of Georgia institutions to adjust for enrollment growth; and $100 million in major repair and rehabilitation funds. Strengthened support for the Georgia Tech Research Institute and Enterprise Innovation Institute also is sought.

Materials Research Medal Presented

The Materials Research Society awarded Tech physics professor Walter A. de Heer the Materials Research Society Medal at its annual meeting in Boston in December. He was cited for his “pioneering contributions to the science and technology of epitaxial graphene.”

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The medal recognizes an exceptional achievement in materials research in the past 10 years and is awarded for a specific outstanding recent discovery or advancement that has a major impact on the progress of a materials-related field.

“I am very pleased and encouraged that our research to develop epi-graphene for electronics is recognized already in this early stage. This will certainly stimulate others to join us in this important endeavor,” de Heer said.

De Heer and his lab at Georgia Tech are known worldwide as the first to conceptualize the use of graphene for electronics in 2001.

Currently de Heer’s lab is working on developing epitaxial graphene as a replacement for silicon in electronics.

Lab Chief Named Woman of the Year

Tech will receive $7.5 million in funding through the federal Race to the Top program to expand science, technology, engineering and math programs through its outreach center, the Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics and Computing.

Georgia Tech’s initiatives will be based on a NASA model provided through the Institute’s Distance Learning and Professional Education unit for teachers pursuing advanced courses. Tech also will continue to expand the Georgia Intern-Fellowships for Teachers program that places high school STEM teachers as partners in summer internships in industry and university research.

Regents’ Actions Affect Institute

The University System Board of Regents voted in November to approve: Proposals from the University of Georgia and Georgia Southern to establish undergraduate degrees in mechanical, civil and electrical engineering by a 9-8 vote.

The tennis center demolition and construction of a facility to be named for Ken Byers and indoor courts for Bill Moore.

Construction of a Ferst Drive transit hub.

Naming of the new indoor football practice facility for Mary and John Brock.

At the 11th annual Women of the Year in Technology Awards, Georgia Tech Research Institute Information and Communications Lab chief scientist Margaret Loper was named the 2010 Woman of the Year in Technology in the medium business category.

Loper created the Georgia Tech Modeling and Simulation Research and Education Center, bringing together academic faculty and GTRI researchers for the advancement of simulation technology. She joined GTRI as a research scientist in 1995 and received her doctorate in computer science at Tech in 2002.

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Tech Gets Support for Race to the Top

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Office Space

Charlie Kemp: Master of Robotics

Story and photos by Van Jensen

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harlie Kemp builds robots. His office and an adjoining lab, on the second floor of a Technology Square building, are filled with functioning robots and the assorted computers and mechanical parts that accompany the task. Kemp, an assistant professor in biomedical engineering at Tech, founded the Healthcare Robotics Lab in 2007. His goal is to design robots that can be used in health care, particularly to help the millions of people with physical impairments who require assistance in their daily lives. Before coming to Tech, Kemp earned three degrees from MIT. While in Boston, he was a member of the electro-pop band Electric Laser People. The

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group is known for its album Straight Talk on Raising Kids, which has been a mainstay on college radio stations.

Robotic inspiration: I got into this because I was interested in artificial intelligence. My adviser at MIT thought robotics was a good way to understand intelligence. If it’s grounded in this body and the world, it can be valuable.

A booming field: Robotics finally has begun to deliver on the grand dreams of science fiction, dreams that pop culture has had for years. Computing power is increasing, and we have better sensors. It’s an excellent time to be in robotics.

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Science fiction: I love sci-fi. For current authors, I like Vernor Vinge. He’s really talented and captures these worlds where everything fits together. For classic authors, I like Asimov. He’s great with robots.

Purpose for robots: Coming to Georgia Tech, I wanted to take seriously the notion that robots are machines that can help us in daily life, particularly in health care. For those who need assistance, robots offer privacy, independence, round-the-clock assistance and consistent performance.

Robots in the home: Robots have been very successful in factories, which are controlled environments, with no people around them. Now they’re entering our home environment, our office space. How are we going to interact with robots? And how are they going to interact with the world? Those are our challenges.

Film robots: There’s a new movie, Moon, I was really impressed with that. It was just this guy with this robot, and it only had a smiley face. But it could communicate so much. And Blade Runner is an obvious one. Are there any robots I haven’t liked?

I’m a sucker for it. If you put a robot in a movie, I’m going to watch it.

Robot arm: It’s simple, and it works. It’s fun to play around and see how much you can do with it. Robot arms are really expensive.

New ones cost about $100,000. So there’s a need for cheap arms.

Robot toy: This one my wife’s parents got me. It just looks cool. I like how it’s made out of random objects, but it all comes together. It’s reminiscent of how we pull parts together to build robots.

Feeding robot: This is a robot we’re really excited about. Its name is Gatsbii. We’re collaborating with Psychology, Computing and the Aware Home, looking at how to use robots to help older adults live at home independently. The maker gave out the robots to 11 teams based on their proposals. The code is open source, which is great. We can all develop something that the future of robotics can be built on.

Robotic firsts: This is something I love to see. [Gatsbii has just successfully scooped and delivered M&Ms.] I come out of my office, and robots are doing something new. This is a time of firsts. Once, I had a robot prepare pancakes. It’s important to develop things to allow robots to do something new.

Using sensors: We added an RFID antenna ourselves. We’re looking at the idea of adding labels to little things around the room.

For a light switch, it would tell the robot that it can turn it on or off.

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Harsh retirement: This is an older robot, EL-E, and it’s kind of going into robot retirement. It’s dangerous being an old robot in a robotics lab. You tend to be cannibalized for parts.

Robot mobility: Cody has two arms and wheels that allow it to go anywhere, which is important. They can move in any direction, just like people can. The arms are flexible, just like our arms.

We’re making this open doors and drawers right now. That’s something people take for granted.

There’s a lot of the world hidden behind doors and drawers.

Adding AI: Another nice thing is the robot doesn’t have to have an exact model of whatever it opens.

We just tell it where the handle is. It doesn’t need to know if it’s a door or a drawer, it just figures it out. Robots, so far, have not had any common sense. Generally, people know how much force it will take to open something.

We’re trying to develop that for robots, which relates to the AI side.

Robot sponge bath: Cody was also cleaning people recently, which got some attention. Hy34

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giene is a big issue, and the sponge bath is our first effort to have robots help with that. The broader notion is that the robot needs to reach out and make contact with people. We’re looking at how they can do that effectively.

Importance of touch: We did a study that showed that leading a robot through an obstacle course by hand is more effective than using a gaming controller. One of the subjects was a gamer, and he said he liked the controller, but he still hit fewer obstacles leading the robot by hand.

Robot retriever: This is Dusty, which can pick up objects. We found that dropped objects are a big issue for people.

This is able to pick them up really easily and consistently.

We did a study, and people had success using it.

They really light up to have that independence.

Future of robotics: Robots need to be designed so they can meet preferences. It’s probably not going to be one robot fits all. Just like with cars, there are so many different types to meet what people want. But we still need the Model T of robots.

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What’s in a Name?

Georgia Tech Archives and Records Management

Fred B. Wenn Student Center W hen the Student Center opened its doors in 1970, it was furnished with “molded plastic lime-green furniture and hot pink butterfly chairs,” according to a history of the building on the Georgia Tech Web site. The center had a cafeteria, craft room, ballroom, chapel and theater. And, in a first for a college campus, the center’s 12-lane bowling alley was equipped with automatic scoring machines.

One day this past October, students stopped by the Tech Rec center to bowl for just 40 cents a game, a special rate in celebration of the Student Center’s 40th birthday.

Although construction on the Student Center took about three years, the process of getting the center funded and approved took nearly three decades. An article in a 1968 issue of the Georgia Tech Alumnus reported that the Student Center was “the subject of more false starts, more frustrations and more dedicated work by more people than any other building in Tech history.”

Six years after it opened, the center was renamed the Fred B. Wenn Student Center in honor of a longtime industrial management professor who spent years overseeing students’ efforts to raise money for the building. A bronze relief of Wenn, who died in 1972, was unveiled at a dedication ceremony May 4, 1976. It now hangs on a wall on the second floor of the center.

Wenn taught at Tech for 35 years and for most of that time served as an adviser to the campus chapter of Omicron Delta Kappa. He was a member of the leadership fraternity himself and served as national vice president.

Born in Erie, Kan., in 1891, Wenn was one of five children. His father died when he was just 7. According to a program from the

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Student Center dedication ceremony, Wenn’s “father came to the U.S. from Edinburgh, Scotland, to be a missionary to Choctaw Indians. The early loss of his father and the plight of his family led to a real sense of responsibility and obligation. He worked his way through college by delivering milk to town customers and eventually was co-owner of a small dairy in Manhattan, Kansas.”

Following service in World War I, Wenn worked for GE in Schenectady, N.Y., while completing his bachelor’s degree at NYU. He later received a master’s degree from Emory. Wenn began teaching finance and investments courses through Tech’s commerce department in 1923.

In 1958, Wenn retired from Tech as professor emeritus and was named an honorary member of the senior class, receiving the dedication of that year’s Blueprint. He was named an honorary alumnus of the Institute by the National Alumni Association board of trustees that same year.

According to a brochure published by the Georgia Tech Thousand Club and filed in the library’s archives, Wenn and ODK members raised more than $250,000 for the Student Center over the years. Under the professor’s guidance, ODK members encouraged students to purchase defense stamps and donate them to the fund during World War II, recruited an acting troupe to campus for a benefit performance of Much Ado About Nothing, held used book sales and charged visitors for campus parking on game days.

Before the Student Center opened, Wenn was presented a Tech whistle in recognition of his work raising money for the building.

— Leslie Overman January/February 2011

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Ten Questions

Scott Sergent: The Cable Guy Story and photo by Leslie Overman

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cott Sergent’s friends think he’s the luckiest guy in the world because he gets to watch TV all day. A shelf across from his desk holds three televisions tuned to channels run by the Georgia Tech Cable Network. As programming manager, Sergent schedules and airs the network’s original shows and documentary programs, some of them Telly Award-winning productions. When he’s not looking at those TV screens checking for problems with audio or graphics, he may be found in the network’s studio working on videos or overseeing the work of students producing shows.

1. How long have you been working at GTCN? Been here 12 years. I’m kind of the gray beard around here.

I love the people I work with and it’s a big-time team atmosphere, but I really enjoy working with the students. I have a couple of [former] students who still write me today, 12 years later, and say, “Hey, let’s get together for lunch.” So it’s nice to know that you’ve kind of made an impact on their lives.

2. How has the network changed during your 12 years on staff?

When I first started, we had VHS tapes. We would take a tape, put it in and program it into a router, and it would go off at the time we wanted it to. We had a clipboard, and we would write in, by pencil or pen, the name of the program and how long it was, and we had to physically calculate the time. Now it’s all by computer.

3. What are some of the original programs GTCN has produced?

We have a program called On the Flats on the football team. Students go to press conferences and interview players. Another one of the programs we’ve done is called Kings of the Court.

It’s kind of a reality show where we follow one of the Housing teams on the basketball court in intramurals.

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er/producer/editor for On the Flats, he’s working with Sony Pictures Imageworks. Becky Bardwell [STC 00], who started out as a student producer, she’s working with Qualcomm on various projects, including FLO TV. Jessica Luza [STC 07] was a fashion host for The Hills on MTV. Tech doesn’t really have broadcasting or communications, so it’s great to see these students go on and, without the formal education, do great work with these major companies.

6. With a lot of television networks putting episodes of their shows online, do you think students are spending less time watching shows on an actual TV set?

We’ve talked to our students, and we get that: “Oh, I watch a lot of video online.” GTCN is making the transition to put more content online.

7. Were you involved in your university’s cable network?

I graduated from East Tennessee State, and we had a communications school, so I was the sports anchor. ... I think it’s a big help in my job because I went through the same things our students are going through right now. And if something doesn’t turn out right or if they have a bad tape or a show goes kaput, I can kind of understand where they’re coming from.

8. Do you feel like watching TV when you get home from work?

It’s funny you ask that because sometimes you watch TV all day. I have three TVs in my office; one is on GTCN 21, the other’s on GTCN 20, and I have one in the middle where I can flip through and check channels in case a channel goes out. So there are times where it’s like I’ve looked at a box all day, I need to do something else. I’ve got two children. We have a 3-year-old and a 1-and-a-half-year-old, so they take up lots of time and lots of energy. It’s a good diversion. And there are some times where I just want to watch TV and not worry about “Is this channel coming through?” or “Do we have a problem on that show?”

4. What roles do students play at the network?

What we do is we train them. And then we turn them loose with the audio equipment, the camera, all of that, and when they come back, they’re responsible for editing, writing the scripts. Basically they’re a jack of all trades: shooter, writer, editor, producer, director. We’re there in the shadows, but they really do all the hard work.

9. What are your favorite shows?

Mad Men. I really like that. I got hooked on it. Pretty much any sports-related program — I’m a big college football fan. I like the oldies too. M*A*S*H* is one of my favorite shows. My wife [Kimberly George Sergent, Mgt 92] hates it, so I have it on the TiVo. Seinfeld, of course. You can’t go wrong with that.

5. Are any GTCN alums working in television or film?

Rhett Finch [IE 04], he was an assistant editor for the Speed Racer movie, The Incredible Hulk and one of the X-Men movies.

He also was a segment producer for Animal Planet. He was an assistant editor on a TV series called Brothers. He was assistant editor on a show called 10 Things I Hate About You. He’s done some stuff for HBO. Sam Rickles [CM 10], who was the shoot-

10. When you’re not watching TV, what do you like to do?

I have a weekly blog on SECsportsfan.com, so I do a lot of sportswriting. I’ve also written a novel. I finished it about eight years ago. It’s about a guy who goes back in time to play baseball with the Brooklyn Dodgers, and he meets a girl and has to decide whether to stay there in the ’50s or come back to present times. It had to have sold at least three or four copies.

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Student Life

Global Focus International perspective is at the heart of the student group AIESEC, which staged an international gala at the Alumni House in November through the work of committee members, left to right, Shiza Pasha, Emnet Almedom, Priya Nakra, Nickolas Gerhardt Seitz, Eliza Seim and Mansi Shah. AIESEC, the world’s largest nonprofit student-run organization, fosters global understanding through student exchange. The 60-yearold organization has about 55,000 members in more than 100 countries.

Tech’s chapter, billed as AIESEC’s highest-performing group in the United States, has 90 active members, with 22 of them currently working abroad.

Students Around the World Linked The creators of OpenStudy want to make the entire world a study group.

Ashwin Ram, an associate professor in Georgia Tech’s College of Computing, teamed up with his wife, Preetha Ram, associate dean for pre-health and science education at Emory University, as well as Chris Sprague, MS CS 04, and entrepreneur Phil Hill in 2007 to create OpenStudy, an online system that links students around the world in real time, so they can get help at any time, day or night.

OpenStudy debuted in August and already has more than 11,000 users from 151 countries, with a particularly large presence in the United States, China, India and Brazil.

Using OpenStudy is free. All a user has to do is sign up and connect with a study group that covers his topics of interest.

“We’ve seen some fantastic examples of students worldwide connecting and helping each other, such as a student from Los Angeles being helped with chemistry by a student from Istanbul, Turkey,” Ashwin Ram explained.

Currently about 90 percent of the questions posed on OpenStudy are answered, and each question asked receives input from an average of 4.5 other students.

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Each user has a profile page that shows how many questions each one has asked and answered as well as how helpful his answers have been. Recently, OpenStudy added a feature that allows the student users to rate the quality of the answers they’ve been given.

OpenStudy has more than 350 study groups that users can join, including AP History, Natural Language@Georgia Tech and Emory Biology. Students may join a course by using the search function to find a topic of interest.

OpenStudy also has teamed with MIT’s OpenCourseWare, the world’s largest provider of free educational classes.

Students using OpenStudy courses can join one of 10 official MIT study groups on its site.

“We will continue to extend the reach of OpenStudy so that study help is within reach of every student in the world regardless of location, social background or the time of day,” Hill said.

OpenStudy is a for-profit spin-off that was started at Georgia Tech’s Advanced Technology Development Center and is funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and the Georgia Research Alliance.

Creativity of Engineering Seniors Displayed at Expo Mechanical engineering, biomedical engineering and industrial design student teams displayed 40 projects at the Capstone Design Expo on campus in December.

The expo is the culmination of engineering seniors’ final undergraduate Capstone course, in which student teams systematically design, build and report solutions to a variety of problems from industrial sponsors or their own imaginations.

The projects included underwater bottom-cleaning equipment for large tanks in the Georgia Aquarium; an autonomous floating blimp for indoor store or mall advertising; and an improved design for rice husk gasification stoves for use in Nicaragua.

Others were a scaled-down process development demonstration for separating paper from plastic for recycling and the Global Soap Project, a design for a volunteer-operated factory to recycle soap from U.S. hotels to distribute to refugees in Africa.

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Marshall Scholar Will Pursue Master’s at Oxford Nick Wellkamp, ISyE 09, has been named a Marshall Scholar and will attend the University of Oxford to pursue a master’s degree in economics. Wellkamp, of Louisville, Ky., plans on pursuing a doctorate as well.

“It’s a tremendous honor and a dream come true,” said Wellkamp. “The chance to study at Oxford will be exciting, challenging and intellectually enriching. I feel incredibly blessed to get an opportunity like this.”

Wellkamp said he is eager to pursue a world-class education in economics and already realizes how the degree can help him with his long-term goals.

“Given the economic challenges our country and our world are facing right now,

and looking forward to our long-term challenges such as energy, climate change and sustainable economic development, I think we need more leaders who are well-versed in economics,” Wellkamp said. “I am also excited to gain a global outlook on the challenges facing humanity through exposure to British, European and other international perspectives.”

Wellkamp, who was awarded the Harry S. Truman Scholarship in 2009, was president of the Undergraduate Student Govern-

ment Association for 2008-09, during which time he led initiatives to promote campus sustainability and reform the Institute’s policies regarding football ticketing, campus e-mails and final exam preparation.

He also served on the Georgia Tech presidential search committee and was a member of the student advisory committee to the Board of Regents.

Wellkamp spent a summer working in the Office of Science and Technology Policy at the White House and another with a political consulting firm in Atlanta.

After being selected as a Marshall finalist, Wellkamp interviewed with a six-member panel in Atlanta, where they asked him questions ranging from subjects in economics to solar panel technologies.

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bottom of the Class

Tech story is one of determination to prove the registrar wrong

“I

By Tom Roberts have always been proud to be a Tech alumnus, and this is especially true when I read the many articles in the Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine about the activities and accomplishments of other Tech students, faculty and alumni,” Tom Roberts, ME 69, wrote. “I’ve often wondered if other readers would be interested in the journey of a fellow alumnus who ‘slipped through the cracks.’ At the request of my children, I have documented this experience and offer you a copy of what I have sent to them.”

During the first several months of our marriage in 1963, my wife, Martha, and my new father-in-law, Claud Jackson “Pop” McNeely, encouraged me to consider pursuing a college education.

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Georgia Tech was directly across I-75/I-85 (two lanes each way at that time) from the Coca-Cola Bottling Co., where I worked. Pop, one of the route supervisors at Coca-Cola, often would drop the hint that I should apply for admission. I was too embarrassed to tell him how poorly I did in high school and that I would be wasting everybody’s time if I applied to any college, let alone one like Georgia Tech.

I finally relented and stopped by the Tech admissions office.

They told me to have a transcript of my high school grades sent to them. I knew I was in trouble and felt deep regret and embarrassment for wasting so much of my youth and the earlier opportunities I had in school.

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I had graduated at the bottom of my class in 1959 — literally 194 out of 194. I had been expelled a couple of times, had never taken the first college prep class, failed biology three times and never took the SAT. I sent for my transcript, and a couple of weeks later the admissions office called to ask me to stop by. They told me what I already knew: I could not be admitted. If I took a series of what were called pre-freshman subjects, offered as refresher courses to potential students, and did well, I could be considered. These classes were only offered at night and were not accredited.

I paid my fees and began classes in the fall quarter of 1963. To me, being allowed to take these refresher classes was a victory of sorts. I was a “Tech student.” It was probably the first time in my life that I actually felt good about what I was trying to do.

I vividly remember the night I started my first class at Tech. I parked in the lower lot outside the Price Gilbert Library. I sat in my car and looked at the stairway leading to the classroom building, and it struck me that they were symbolic of the journey I was about to begin. I had no illusions about being admitted to Tech — or of graduating.

I was determined, however, to give it my best shot until I was kicked out.

During the following five quarters, I continued to work at Coca-Cola and go to night school. I took the recommended courses in English, trigonometry, geometry, physics and chemistry. Actually, I took the pre-freshman chemistry course twice. The first time I took it, I thought I was in over my head and did very poorly on the midterm exam. A friend and I had the same level of understanding of chemistry and did equally poorly on the midterm. I was discouraged and thought I would never “get it,” so I stopped going to class. He, on the other hand, stuck it out, did a lot of cramming before the final and came out with a C. I retook the chemistry course the following quarter and was able to pass it on the second try. I vowed that I would never

Tom Roberts worked at Coca-Cola by day and took pre-freshman classes at Tech at night. When he tried to be admitted at the Institute as a full-fledged student, Roberts had to deal with the formidable registrar, William Carmichael. quit another course because I was doing poorly, and I didn’t.

During my last quarter of the refresher courses, I registered to take the SAT in early December 1964. I had made good grades in all of the classes — except that first chemistry course — and felt confident about taking the SAT, despite my history of not doing well on “big tests.”

In early January 1965, on the final evening before registration ended, I went to the registrar’s office in hopes my SAT results had arrived that day. At that point, the results were at least a week past due. I asked a registrar if he could just go ahead and accept me. I pleaded that I had been told five quarters earlier that if I took all of the refresher courses and did well, I could be favorably considered for admission. It wasn’t my fault the test results had not arrived, I told him.

He looked at me and said, “What

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school do you want?” Since I never really thought I could get into Tech, I hadn’t thought about what school I would apply for if given the chance. The registrar had my folder in his hands. It was stamped with an alphabetical list of the schools, with a check-off box next to each one. I was able to see aeronautical engineering was first on the list. I said, “Aeronautical engineering,” he checked the box and signed an officiallooking form that would change my life.

I began my accredited classes the following evening. About a week later, I received a call from the registrar’s office.

They had received my SAT results, and the head registrar, an elderly gentleman named Mr. Carmichael, wanted to see me at once. I was finishing my shift at Coca-Cola, which meant that both my Coca-Cola uniform and I were pretty raunchy. But I went to Tech as requested.

The first words from Mr. Carmichael

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Mr. Carmichael went on to tell me the chance of me ever making it through Tech was almost nonexistent, that I was wasting the school’s and my own time. when I walked into his huge, paneled and carpeted office were, “Who the hell let you into this school?”

He told me what any aspiring Tech student knew: At Georgia Tech, the minimum SAT score for admittance was 1200, and the minimum acceptable score in math was 700. He informed me that my total score was 833. The math portion was something like 500. I have never been proud to admit these results, and in fact, I don’t believe I have ever told anyone of them until now.

Mr. Carmichael went on to tell me that the chance of me ever making it through Tech was almost nonexistent, that I was wasting the school’s and my own time.

Before I walked into his office, I would have admitted that I never expected to graduate from Tech. To me, being a Tech student, saying that I made it into college was an end in itself. I never thought I could compete with those who had applied themselves in high school.

That was the case until I stood in front of this man who was telling me that I didn’t deserve to be at Georgia Tech.

He said he would not overrule the assistant registrar’s decision to admit me, but he would be watching me carefully. If I didn’t maintain acceptable grades, I would be asked to leave.

I attended night school for the following three quarters, taking two subjects a quarter and scoring B’s and C’s. I also worked a lot of overtime at Coca-Cola so Martha and I could save enough money for me to attend day school for three quarters. At the time, it cost $125 per quarter for tuition and about $40 for books. I resigned from Coca-Cola, and on Sept. 24, 1965, I began day classes.

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was pregnant — with twins.

Luckily for us, the post-Korean War GI Bill took effect July 1, 1966, at the same time we were scheduled to run out of money.

As an Army veteran, I was entitled to $105 per month for Martha and me, our two daughters and our anticipated twins.

During finals week of my freshman year — June 8, 1966, to be exact — I kept Martha up late asking me questions about Lord Jim, the book on which the final exam would be based the following day. Early in the morning of June 9, Martha said it was time to go to the hospital, so off we went. At 8 a.m., Baby A came into the world, and five minutes later Baby B appeared — big twin boys.

My English professor allowed me to take the final a couple of weeks later and gave me a C in the course. (I think she had young children at home.) I enrolled for the summer session and began classes soon after bringing the boys home from the hospital.

I continued with my class work and took odd jobs, including cutting grass and painting.

We spent about $2 to $2.50 per week on gas for our VW Bus and about $25 to $30 per week on groceries for six. My mom, Nana, was working at General Motors Diesel in Detroit, and she sent us $25 every other week or so.

Pop gave us $10 a week toward groceries.

I was on track to complete my coursework in December 1968, and as that time drew near, I began to interview with several companies. It was a good time for engineers, and the recruiters were lined up at the placement office. All an aspiring graduate had to do to arrange an interview was sign the schedule posted by the company. During the early part of the fall quarter, I traveled for interviews in Colorado, Texas, Kansas, Missouri, Michigan, South Carolina and Tennessee.

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Tom and Martha Roberts are surrounded by their family for a Thanksgiving gathering in November. Twin sons John, MS Mgt 99, and Mike are on the left and right, just as they were in the 1969 commencement photo on the opposite page. In addition to the four children and spouses and 15 grandchildren, ages 10 to 24, is Iryna Ivashchuk, far left, MS IntA 05, a Ukraine native who lived with the Robertses for nearly two years while attending North Georgia State College & University in Dahlonega and now is considered a member of the family.

The interviews and travel took a considerable amount of time away from my classroom and study activities, and as a result, by the middle of the term I was failing Engineering Economy, a required class for graduation.

I had accepted a job at Tennessee Eastman Co. in Kingsport and was scheduled to begin work the week after the fall quarter ended in December. It was a time of high anxiety. I remember going to the Decatur and Tech libraries over the four-day Thanksgiving weekend and studying no other subject but Engineering Economy for several hours each day. I all but memorized the entire book, and as it happened, all the final exam questions were taken from the textbook. I got a B in the class.

Our grades were posted Dec. 13, 1968. I had passed all my classes. We moved to Kingsport that weekend, and I began work at Tennessee Eastman the following Thursday.

At the time, Tech had commencement only once per year, so the exercise for those finishing in December was the following June.

In June 1969, Martha, our eldest daughter, Cathy, Nana and Pop were with me at the Fox Theatre to be part of the commencement celebration.

There you have it. I often have wondered what I would want to tell my children and grandchildren about the journey and what lessons they might draw from it. It is not intended to be a “follow

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your-dream” homily. As a youngster, I never thought about what I would do after my school years and did less to prepare for that time. College was for kids who were bright and applied themselves in school. An engineer was the guy who drove the train.

I applied to Georgia Tech primarily because I was tired of making excuses to my father-in-law. I wanted to finally get it behind me and admit to him and to Martha that I just didn’t have what it took to be accepted at a school like Tech.

But being allowed to take those pre-freshman classes and being considered as a “Tech student” triggered something in me. For the first time in my life, I felt the respect of those who meant the most to me.

I am humbled and thankful that I was given this opportunity and that the Lord placed people in my path who encouraged me, believed in me, helped me in so many ways and stood by me during the often difficult and stressful times when I least deserved their understanding, patience or love. This is especially true for my best friend and my mate, Martha.

Tom and Martha relocated to Dahlonega, Ga., in 1986, when he joined a design/build utility contracting firm in Suwanee. Roberts retired as one of the company’s principals in 2004. He has given to Roll Call, the Alumni Association’s annual fund, for 42 consecutive years — every year since he proved Mr. Carmichael wrong and earned his Georgia Tech degree.

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FutureMedia executive director Renu Kulkarni unveiled an outlook that covers the six most critical trends that will shape how media is created, distributed and consumed in the years to come.

Collaboration

Data Tsunami

People across the

New systems will

globe will partner

arise to sort out

in shared virtual

the flood of online

spaces.

information.

Mixed Reality Smart phones will allow consumers to overlay digital data onto their everyday lives.

Content Integrity As more personal data moves online, security threats will increase.

Multimedia Assumed

True Personalization

Consumers will

Content and advertising will be tailored to individuals rather than mass-marketed.

expect content to be interactive and multifaceted.

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Shaping the Future of Media

Story by Van Jensen Illustrations by J Chris Campbell Photos by Meghann Riepenhoff

W

hen Renu Kulkarni agreed to return to her alma mater in mid-2009, she wasn’t sure exactly what she’d signed up for. Her position was vaguely charged with unifying Georgia Tech’s efforts at the intersection of next-generation technology and media. But Kulkarni, MgtSci 85, said she didn’t know Tech had many digital media efforts until she started.

“When I was brought on, we didn’t know what to call this or what to call me,” Kulkarni said.

As ephemeral as her job was, the subject matter presented even more uncertainty. The rapidly changing technological landscape has revolutionized the way people create and consume media.

Consumers increasingly are reading newspapers, magazines and books online, while print publishing has flagged. People use Web sites like Netflix and Hulu or services like TiVo and DVR to watch TV and movies whenever they want and without any commercials.

In one instance of this widespread change, Verizon recently announced it would cease publishing phone books. People are replacing landlines with cell phones, the company explained, and if

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consumers need to find a phone number, they usually look online.

“What I find is this revolution,” Kulkarni said. “There’s chaos, a perfect storm. It’s a terrific opportunity.”

For Kulkarni, jumping into chaos is like a fish diving into water.

She’s spent much of her 24-year career in the high-tech field at the front edge of nascent areas. After graduating, she joined GTE and later Sprint, where she developed a packet data connection service.

One of the businesses she worked with became America Online.

“What we were creating was a cloud,” Kulkarni said. “This was the Internet.”

From there, she joined BellSouth International and dove into the global wireless communications market. It was a new, rapidly growing business, and she described the experience as if she were a kid in a candy store.

As the focus shifted from wireless to mobility, Kulkarni, a selfdescribed geek, transitioned from management consulting to a position with Motorola in Chicago. With mobile devices, social networking, augmented reality and other new technologies changing the media landscape, Kulkarni decided to return to Georgia Tech.

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Renu Kulkarni, executive director of FutureMedia, says her job is to bring experts together and help Georgia Tech garner the reputation it deserves.

As she cast around the Institute, she unearthed more and more efforts relating to media. By her count, Tech has 20 academic units, 37 labs and nearly 500 faculty members working in the area.

“That’s a powerhouse,” Kulkarni said. “My job is to put the experts together and help Tech garner the reputation we deserve.”

This loose amalgamation of media researchers has come to be called FutureMedia, with Kulkarni as its executive director. It has the stated mission of driving research and economic growth for Tech and its partners while exploring and enabling new paradigms for creating, sharing and consuming content.

One of Kulkarni’s first efforts was organizing an event to bring together that community of educators and researchers. Only 89 days into her time at Tech, Kulkarni kicked off the 2009 FutureMedia Fest. It was a successful, though relatively small, event, but it raised awareness within the Institute and with its partners.

This fall, Kulkarni launched the 2010 FutureMedia Fest with quite a bit more fanfare. Turner, Coca-Cola, HP and Cisco were among the sponsors. Nearly 800 attended the weeklong event, 46

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which included talks by leading media members and presentations of the cutting-edge research at Tech. CNN aired 20 segments related to the event, including an interview with Kulkarni. An online replay of the fest was viewed by people in 77 countries.

Tech President G. P. “Bud” Peterson spoke at the fest and made clear how much importance he places on FutureMedia, which fits in with the Institute’s new strategic plan.

“We believe that innovation and creativity are going to be the drivers of the 21st century,” Peterson said. “What things might be beyond the horizon?”

During her introductory remarks at the fest, Kulkarni unveiled the first FutureMedia outlook.

“We put a stake in the ground,” Kulkarni said. “Based on pragmatic research with our partners, we found there are six fundamental trends, and these will only exacerbate over time.”

Instead of specific predictions, the outlook is a map of the six crucial areas — mixed reality, data tsunami, content integrity, true personalization, multimedia assumed and collaboration — in the

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future of media. It offers a glimpse at the potential and pitfalls on the horizon and a course for Georgia Tech to navigate as it seeks to shape that future.

Mixed Reality At the FutureMedia Fest panel discussion on augmented reality, a video clip was shown of an updated version of the classic game Rock ’Em Sock ’Em Robots. In the video, two men sit at a table. One sets down a simple sheet of paper with a few designs on it. When the two men raise their smart phones, two robots appear on the screens, and the men control their punches during a virtual boxing bout.

Whereas augmented reality long has been associated with

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clunky visors wired to large backpacks, the handheld multimedia devices that have proliferated in recent years have brought augmented reality to consumers worldwide.

Mixed reality is a major focus of the GVU, an interdisciplinary center for human-centered computing. GVU director Beth Mynatt, MS ICS 89, PhD CS 95, said that research area has changed dramatically in the past decade.

“Previously, our focus was mostly on workplace technology,” she said. “Augmented reality 10 years ago was primarily about defense and the workplace. Now, [SimCity creator] Will Wright has said mobile AR is the future of gaming.”

Through those and other efforts, the GVU has become a central part of the FutureMedia effort. It has partnerships with Turner, Motorola and Qualcomm, which Mynatt said shows that Tech is at the forefront of the media experience.

The focus on media-related research has grown in the past five years, which coincides with Mynatt’s tenure as director. Rather than take credit, Mynatt attributed it to the nature of media.

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“What you see is media technologies tend to take the most risks,” she said. “They’re early adopters. Those other industries — health care, defense, workplace technology — are more conservative. Focusing on media allowed us to be at the edge of opportunity.”

The other factor that has led to the growth in augmented reality — and the revolution in all forms of media — is the increased use of mobile technology, Mynatt said.

Years ago, technology researchers assumed devices would converge. Instead of having a TV and a computer, people would have one device that combined both, she said.

But people have adopted multiple devices and fit them around their lives.

“Previously, media was thought of as something that happens on the TV,” Mynatt said. “Now, people watch TV on the tube, but they also watch it on their laptop and their handheld device.”

And in the future, augmented reality will play a much larger role in the media people consume. At the FutureMedia Fest, products were displayed that allow people to use a smart phone to view detailed instructions visually overlaid on an engine that needs to be repaired.

PBS Kids has created an online game using only a sheet of paper and a computer with a Webcam that lets children virtually hatch a dinosaur from an egg and interact with it.

Georgia Tech’s efforts in the area include creating a tour of At48

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lanta’s Oakland Cemetery that mixes physical travel with a virtual tour guide. And more developments are on the way.

In June, Georgia Tech and Qualcomm Inc. partnered to create the Qualcomm Augmented Reality Game Studio, a research and design center to pioneer advancements in the area.

As far as these efforts have come, there still are practical concerns to overcome before augmented reality truly proliferates. At the FutureMedia Fest, Qualcomm’s director of business development Jay Wright noted one hurdle.

“It turns out augmented reality is a battery’s worst nightmare,” he said. “It’s like running a 3-D game and playing a movie at the same time. We have a ways to go.”

Data Tsunami As Internet usage has increased, the amount of content generated online has surged as well.

Every month, some 30 billion things are uploaded to Facebook, and that number is only increasing. People watch 2 billion videos per day on YouTube and upload hundreds of thousands of videos.

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About 617 exabytes — an exabyte is 1 quintillion bytes — of content are added online every year, a virtual wave of information threatening to overwhelm Web surfers.

With this trend only increasing, “the winners will be those who help simplify, who help consumers get at what they really need,” Kulkarni said.

One of the central players in the dual efforts of adding and sorting data is Google. Michael Jones, creator of Google Earth and the company’s chief technology advocate, said during an address at the FutureMedia Fest that the world is made up of people who embrace the information age and those who are scared of it.

“The people who are frightened think it’s a fad,” he said.

“They’re going to go back to the horse.”

He predicted a future in which the online world is completely enveloping, an ever-present ether of information. While only 30 percent of the world has Internet access today, he said that would increase to 100 percent within 20 years.

Jones said Google’s efforts will include continually perfecting its search tool and developing a universal translation system.

“To Google, there’s almost a holy nature to sharing information,” he said. “When you give societies information, they’re going to be able to purge themselves of bad things. Humanity has switched on an insatiable appetite for information.”

The Technology Enabled Visual Cognition in Virtual Teams project at the GVU uses visual representation technology to select,

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transform and present large amounts of data in ways that are easier for people to view and understand.

Another GVU effort at data parsing is the Cobot: Health Intelligence project. Researchers have created virtual agents with artificial intelligence to go onto a health Web site and sort through data to offer users the best personalized medical advice.

Mynatt said she hopes such projects will take off and spread outward from media.

“People are being too conservative in health, education and the workplace,” she said. “If you give people the opportunity [to use new technology], they will take it.”

Content Integrity As more people come online — and put more of their lives online — there is an increased risk of hackers and other online criminals illegally accessing and abusing that information.

“There’s more vulnerability with growth, so security becomes more important — and more difficult,” Kulkarni said.

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focus at Tech for years, formalized with the 1998 creation of the Georgia Tech Information Security Center. The GTISC holds an annual security summit and releases a yearly cyber threats forecast.

Despite all of the focus on cyber security, Mynatt cautioned that no silver bullet is on the horizon. For every advance in security that is made, hackers will work until they find a way around it.

“There are interesting challenges. Security, that’s a race that will never end,” she said.

But in that ever-changing environment, Kulkarni sees opportunity.

“There are going to be job titles we don’t even know of,” Kulkarni said. “New industries will be created.”

True Personalization Gone are the days that advertisers could get by with a single, simple ad campaign to run in newspapers and on network TV. Through Google, Facebook and other channels, companies are using online data to learn about consumers and customize advertising to the individual.

Digital personalization doesn’t just belong to advertising. Mobility has led to a rise in geo-tagging programs like Foursquare, 50

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which allows people to digitally check in at different physical locations and build an interactive map of their lives.

Personalization also is spreading to content creation. At a demonstration that coincided with FutureMedia Fest, GVU researchers showed off WorkTop. It’s a multi-touch tabletop that allows users to interact with and create content.

Another project is Urban Remix, which lets users record natural sounds around them and then remix the sounds into customized music.

Mynatt is the leader on the Salud! Health and Wellness project, which allows users to track and analyze their own physiological metrics and see how they change over time in response to different factors.

But the movement to personalize content is not without risks.

If people only get information tailored to their interests, how will they be exposed to new ideas and outside viewpoints?

“It’ll be a balance,” Kulkarni said. “I do worry we’re losing objectivity. We’re beginning to take sides.”

Multimedia Assumed In the future, Kulkarni expects that content will be available not only on whatever device people use, but also that it will be interactive and combine multiple forms of media. Text, video, audio and games will all blend together.

One of the main questions for panelists at the FutureMedia Fest was what this shift means for traditional media companies.

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“We’re at a point that is similar to the invention of the film camera.

There’s a new method of inscription and transmission. For movies, it took a long time to exploit that ability.”

Jim McAffrey, Turner’s executive vice president of operations and strategy, said that while technological changes have been affecting media dating back to Gutenberg’s printing press, “the water’s getting a little frothy these days.”

Turner’s strategy, he said, is to embrace new technologies. Last year, for instance, the company sent a team with experimental cameras and gear to do a test broadcast of a Georgia Tech basketball game.

At the same time, McAffrey said, people will be drawn to quality material.

“At the end of the day, it’s about great content,” he said.

Janet Murray, the dean’s professor in digital media at the Ivan Allen College, said the changing technological landscape allows for more complex storytelling. She discounted the concern that today’s content is too scatterbrained and insubstantial.

“I tend to take the long view,” she said. “You don’t get Harry Potter without Don Quixote. We’re at a point that is similar to the invention of the film camera. There’s a new method of inscription and transmission. For movies, it took a long time to exploit that ability.”

Murray directs the Experimental Television Laboratory, which looks to exploit that technology. One project, the Smart EPG and Story Navigator, uses an iPad as an advanced remote that allows users to scroll through content on the device. It also can be used to custom design content, such as splicing new scenes into programs.

The lab also built an interactive story called Reliving Last Night.

It’s essentially a choose-your-adventure story, but in digital form.

Viewers make choices for the main character on the iPad control, and that impacts the outcome of a short film.

Mynatt said an important part of Georgia Tech’s efforts has been engaging undergraduate students in the research. The GVU and Research Network Operations Center hold an annual innovation competition for students to develop convergence applications.

“We get some of our best ideas from students,” Mynatt said.

“I can’t think of a better way to conduct research in this space.

They’re living this notion of convergence already. Our corporate partners love it.”

Collaboration Kulkarni’s office in the Georgia Tech Research Institute building is hardly decorated beyond her desk and a few chairs. There’s a whiteboard mostly filled with a diagram of the FutureMedia outlook and a smattering of ideas and questions.

If the office looks like she hasn’t yet settled in, that’s because

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she hasn’t. Kulkarni works remotely for the most part from her office in Chicago.

“I credit Georgia Tech for supporting this flexible arrangement,” she said. “It shows it can be done.”

It makes sense that Kulkarni would utilize such an unorthodox working situation, as one of the tenets of the outlook is to encourage new types of collaboration through virtual workspaces.

Simple tools such as e-mail and file-sharing services make this possible, but Tech researchers are building more advanced collaboration systems and finding new uses for them.

One team, led by Michael Best, a joint assistant professor in the College of Computing and the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, is developing an interactive story-sharing system and virtual war memorials to promote post-conflict development with Liberia’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Another of Best’s groups is building a system for people in developing countries to collect and share public information.

The idea of collaboration is central to the FutureMedia mission, both among media researchers on Tech’s campus and with outside partners.

“There are so many different groups at Tech working on the media experience,” Mynatt said. “How do we connect those working on security, user experience and everything in between? The nice thing about the fest is that it’s really pulled people together and connected them to the outside.”

Future of FutureMedia Though Kulkarni is confident in the outlook, she warns that it only pertains to the coming five years. The landscape is far too tumultuous to predict beyond that.

What, then, is the future of FutureMedia?

Kulkarni said the initiative is having “mature” conversations with potential industry partners, and she expects to have something to announce within the next year. She also plans to continue to grow and improve the FutureMedia Fest.

Her goal for FutureMedia is to build Georgia Tech into a recognized center of world-class research in the area and to move research projects into the marketplace.

“It’s really an exciting time to reinvent ourselves,” she said.

For those looking to thrive — or even just to survive — these uncertain times, Mynatt offered some simple advice.

“Reinvent yourself,” she said. “Be ready to cannibalize some of your business. We’re just at the edge. The one thing you can count on is there will be winners and losers.”

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Illustration by Torian Parker, images from Shutterstock

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Just Causes

Diversity directives are driving the Institute toward equity for all

By Kimberly Link-Wills

A

rchie Ervin knows he has a lot of work to do. Intent on hitting the ground running on his first official day at Georgia Tech on Jan. 3, Ervin has been on campus for meetings to bring him up to speed off and on since he was named the inaugural vice president for Institute Diversity in early October.

President G. P. “Bud” Peterson gave an idea of what is expected of Ervin during remarks at a diversity symposium at Tech in September.

“We will recruit, develop and retain and engage a diverse cadre of students, faculty and staff with a wide variety of backgrounds, perspectives, interests and talents, creating a campus community that exemplifies the best in all of us in our intellectual pursuits, our diversity of thought, our personal integrity and our inclusive excellence,” he said.

Peterson listed some strides Tech has made. About one-third of the student population is female, an all-time high. In this year’s freshman class, African-American enrollment is up 53 percent from the previous year. The number of Hispanic freshmen increased by 63 percent.

However, numbers are not as impressive as the percentages.

According to undergraduate enrollment figures in the 2009 fact

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book, of 13,515 students, 8,485 were white, 2,953 were Asian, 873 were black and 734 were Hispanic.

On the faculty front, Peterson said over the last four years the number of African-American faculty has increased 25 percent, and Hispanic faculty is up 58 percent. The 2009 fact book figures show of 930 full-time faculty members, there were only 28 Hispanics and 32 blacks. Asians accounted for 194 faculty members. There were 670 white full-time faculty members — more than double all nonwhite teachers combined.

In welcoming members of the Atlanta Diversity Managers’ Affinity Group to a late October luncheon at the Georgia Tech Hotel, Peterson again stressed that diversity is “very, very important” to the Institute.

“We provide more African-American engineers, more women engineers and the second largest number of Hispanic engineering graduates of any institution in the country. We’re continuing to try and build on that success,” Peterson said.

“I look forward to the time when we do not any longer need a chief diversity officer, where we recognize that diversity is an important part of every person’s job at the Institute,” Peterson told the group.

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‘Uneven Access to Equal Opportunity’

Ervin was at that luncheon. He wasn’t rattled by Peterson’s hope that his job someday would be obsolete.

“We are challenged by overcoming our past. Our past is so long that our best hope is that we can make incremental progress along the way and make things better,” Ervin said during a break between meetings in his new French Building office in midNovember. “I don’t see where everything will be resolved. We’re on this stage for a very short period of time considering the order of things. The reason we talk about diversity period is because we are a society that has had uneven access to equal opportunity in all areas of human endeavor.”

Ervin pointed to Tech’s aspiration to be a leading 21st century technological university, one the world will turn to for answers to its toughest questions. “We’re not going to be that university unless we have the greatest talent of the world here. If we can’t be the best and the brightest irrespective of individual differences, we won’t be that,” he said.

“I’m very aware of the differences in access to opportunities,” Ervin said. “I see higher education first and foremost as the greatest leveler in society, and I see higher education as offering the greatest hope for humankind to be successful, because it is at this level of thinking that we really tackle the great issues of our time.

This is where I want the greatest intellect brought to bear.”

Ervin said he resigned from his post as the associate provost for diversity and multicultural affairs at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill because of the leadership vision at Georgia Tech.

“I saw a leadership vision that dared to be bold, that said it wanted to be among the international leaders in addressing human

needs. Part of that was to be able to capture the talent of the world and bring them to Georgia Tech to be that source of knowledge.

Georgia Tech was committed to this, and I wanted to get in on the ground level. I left a very comfortable situation and, by all estimates outside of mine, a very successful tenure to take this chance to be a part of the new boldness,” he said.

“I believe that equity knows no boundaries. I don’t think it’s a gender-specific thing or race specific. What is right is right,” Ervin said. “You try to give every opportunity for individuals to be successful and to eliminate any artificial barriers to that.”

He said his job at Tech is to create “an overarching responsibility for achieving the objectives of an inclusive and equitable community.” To do that, Ervin is assembling a team that will help him create an Institute-wide report on issues of equity, diversity and inclusion.

“I don’t think you can honestly” study all the issues dispassionately, Ervin said. “I do try very hard — very hard — not to put Archie in charge of values. I keep myself centered by saying, ‘I’m not the person who judges you. I can listen to you.’

“I was raised during a segregated time, effectively, in North Carolina. I went to an all-black school until I was in the seventh grade, then public integration of the schools occurred that next year,” Ervin said. “That shaped me because I perceived there were some things in life that didn’t seem fair to me, and so I began a lifelong quest.”

Making Advances for Men and Women

Mary Frank Fox, the ADVANCE professor in the School of Public Policy within the Ivan Allen College and co-director of the Center for the Study of Women, Science & Technology, has dedicated her research to the work force in science and academia.

“I see higher education first and foremost as the greatest leveler in society, and I see higher education as offering the greatest hope for humankind to be successful, because it is at this level of thinking that we really tackle the great issues of our time. This is where I want the greatest intellect brought to bear.”

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“My aspiration is that Georgia Tech be a leader in the advancement of faculty and that it lead the way in equitable processes for the advancement of faculty and that this be a hallmark of Georgia Tech. We are moving in the right direction. ... I have been working on these issues as a lifelong commitment, and I have seen progress.”

— Mary Frank Fox “I came to Tech [in 1993] because of the opportunities that looked to be available for focusing on issues of scientific personnel in the workplace. It turned out that that has been the case. At Georgia Tech, soon after I got here, I co-founded the nation’s first curricular program in the study of women, science and technology,” Fox said. “I also co-founded the first learning community at Georgia Tech, which was on women, science and technology, and the Center for the Study of Women, Science & Technology. So it was the case that Georgia Tech was open to research on these issues and to policies and practices, based on the research, that would lead to enhanced participation of both men and women.”

The NSF launched the ADVANCE initiative to increase the representation and advancement of women in academic science and engineering.

“The rationale for the program was that individual solutions were not working,” Fox said. “It isn’t really a problem of women falling short in their training, background, capabilities, but it is an issue more primarily of the features and characteristics of the places in which people work. What do you find when you get to the workplace?

“That is what I have been working on my whole life. When ADVANCE came along, it was in line with what I had been doing and the focus of my research program,” said Fox, who has three sociology degrees from the University of Michigan. “I can tell you that as a professor, when I began, women in science and engineering was barely a topic.”

Fox took the lead writing the proposal, and in 2001 Georgia Tech was one of nine institutions to receive an ADVANCE grant.

The Institute’s award was $3.7 million over five years.

The ADVANCE program at Tech helped bring about the de

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Rob Felt

velopment of a modified duty plan that allows faculty and staff to reduce their job responsibilities for family reasons, including the birth or adoption of a child or the care of a parent, Fox said, also crediting the NSF grant with the opening of a day-care center for Tech employees’ children and more than half a dozen lactation centers on campus; enhancing equity in tenure and promotion; and establishing the ADVANCE professors.

Room for Improvement

Although the grant funds are gone, the Institute has continued funding ADVANCE professors in each of Tech’s six colleges.

“Part of the responsibilities of the Advance professor are to build community among the women on the faculty and to support faculty development in the college,” according to Fox, who said the six ADVANCE professors meet monthly to address crosscollege issues.

She believes ADVANCE has helped with the promotion of women into senior ranks at the Institute.

“I am very proud that Georgia Tech is one of the very few institutions with ADVANCE awards that have addressed tenure and promotion. Georgia Tech is one of the few institutions with an NSF Advance award that’s really gone to the heart of the matter,” Fox said.

“That doesn’t mean that Georgia Tech doesn’t have room for improvement — like other universities also have room for improvement,” she said. “My aspiration is that Georgia Tech be a leader in the advancement of faculty and that it lead the way in equitable processes for the advancement of faculty and that this be a hallmark of Georgia Tech.

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mitment. It takes continuing attention. It takes continuing involvement. It takes continuing positive practices,” Fox said. “I have been working on these issues as a lifelong commitment, and I have seen progress. Has progress occurred as quickly as it might? No. But it has occurred, and I am encouraged.”

Shared Concerns

Fox has served on the National Center for Women & Information Technology advisory board since it was initiated in 2004. She attends national meetings annually to address the lack of women in computing.

“Even the physical sciences have shown significant improvement in the participation of women. Physics, which has had an underrepresentation of women, has a positive trend line. But women’s participation in computing has just been sort of flat,” Fox said. “There appear to be issues about people’s perceptions about the field, about the culture of success in computing. People have perceptions that field is asocial and that it doesn’t connect with human dimensions.”

Lucinda Sanders, CEO of NCWIT, was a panelist at the September diversity symposium. She said women’s participation in computing has been declining since the mid-’80s.

“In fact, when you look at the truly innovative roles that we have in areas of computing, women are not faring very well,” she said. “They contribute less than 2 percent of all open-source software. This is shocking to me and should be shocking to you.”

She said women start fewer than 5 percent of all information technology companies and hold fewer than 5 percent of leadership jobs in computing. “Clearly women are not participating in the creation of technology.”

Seventy-nine percent of information technology patents gener-

ated at Tech are from all-male teams; 3 percent from all female; and 18 percent from teams of mixed gender, according to Sanders.

She advised Tech’s administration to make the Institute “the place that is known for women to come for a top-notch education. … I’d like to come back in a few years and see that ranking on your Web site. All the pieces are here.”

Ellen Zegura, chair of Tech’s School of Computer Science, said the Computing faculty roster shows a “pretty impressive number of women, including women in full professor roles. … Our numbers for female students are actually very weak, so in some ways we may have an opposite problem to what Engineering has, where the student body diversity is very strong but perhaps as you move up the ranks of the faculty you start to see more of a problem.”

Family Friendliness

Gender pay equity is a subject of discussion on campus as it is across the nation and across professions, said Pearl Alexander, Tech’s senior director of human resources and diversity management.

“I think we are, from what I can tell across industries, doing about the same. But here’s the deal: Across industries, women are still not paid equitably when it comes to their male counterparts.

It’s one of my soapboxes, actually, because I believe that the reason that is is because we still are using compensation systems that are largely designed by white males,” Alexander said.

Through a partial tuition reimbursement program for employees, Alexander earned bachelor’s and law degrees while working at Georgia Tech, where she has been for more than 20 years.

“I did raise my daughter mostly as a single parent. Shortly after getting here to Georgia Tech, I became divorced and had to make those adjustments — go to school, take care of home, try to

“When you really look at the difference between 2010 and, say, 1710, have we made a difference?

You’re doggone skippy we have. When you look at the difference between 2010 and 1810 or 1910, is there a difference in the quality of life for women in this country and internationally? Yes. Is it consistently available or applied? No.” Rob Felt

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— Jacqueline Jones Royster

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“Georgia Tech is known for this entrepreneurial spirit and culture. I think if we can take that same spirit and culture and just look at how we want to succeed in the diversity arena, we can set a unique and impactful type of environment to be in. But we’ve got to move away from some of these more traditional notions of how we do things.”

— Pearl Alexander keep your career on some kind of an even keel,” she said.

Alexander’s efforts in faculty and staff retention include looking at ways to help Tech employees balance their work and family lives.

“Should we be doing something different for the people who are here at Georgia Tech like having a charter school or a high school?” she asked. “I think if you want to be really competitive that’s a perfect example of how we could attract some of the best women and men — be more family friendly. We may actually move down this path toward a work-live-play community, and I think that would be a huge benefit for us.”

Although her two children now are grown, Ivan Allen College Dean Jacqueline Jones Royster “absolutely” remembers the pangs of maternal guilt she felt as a working mother.

Royster shared some of the thoughts that went through her head. “‘What are they going to think of me?’ ‘I don’t bake cookies.’

‘I can’t take them to the park at 3 o’clock in the afternoon.’ ‘I’m sometimes too busy to have these really sustained conversations.

They can tell I’m not paying attention.’

“I have laughed with my grown kids now on more than one occasion about whether they thought they had a good childhood,” she said. “I didn’t just walk away from those responsibilities. I orchestrated my life and, in many instances, didn’t get a whole lot of sleep because I was trying to keep all those balls in the air at once.”

Royster said she never was passed up for committee appointments or job duties because she was a working mother.

“I have seen that happen to other women, but sometimes it helps to be pushy and a loudmouth,” she said. “I guess because I tried to be fleet of foot in managing work and home, people were not as distracted as they might have been by the fact that I was a working mom.

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Rob Felt

“I certainly felt the power differential between being a woman in the work force and being a man in the work force,” she said, explaining that most women have another full-time job of managing the household when they get home.

“Do we have the commitment to pay attention to the actual lived experiences of women in the work force? Do we have the commitment to respond to those conditions in a systemic and systematic way? That, to me, is a kind of gender diversity. But the same goes for racial diversity or disabilities or for language diversity. Do we have a calendar that recognizes holidays other than Christian holidays?” she asked.

Taking the Long View

The Ivan Allen College dean only since September, Royster said she doesn’t know Tech’s answers to these questions.

“But there are some basic questions that I can always ask. This is a university where engineering, science and technology have dominated for over a hundred years. What does it mean that in 2010 27 percent of the faculty are women? Does that say something about the number of women who are available to be here? Does it say something about trajectories of success and participation in success after they get here?

“The thing to acknowledge about the United States it that substantive social change has been incremental, and in order to gain a true sense of transformation, you really have to have long vision,” Royster said. “We can look at 1960, for example, and 2010 and say, ‘Hmm, we’ve made considerable progress at Georgia Tech in terms of the participation of women in this environment.’ Some of the old photographs tell you that.

“When you flesh all that out, there are things that need to be done — still. There are patterns of disregard that need to be han-

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dled — still. There are patterns of participation and involvement that need to be addressed — still,” she said. “Diversity is a verb and not just a noun.

You have to think about what actions are being systematically applied and sustained in order to build that sense of transformative change.

“I always invite people to take the long view,” Royster continued. “When you really look at the difference between 2010 and, say, 1710, have we made a difference? You’re doggone skippy we have. When you look at the difference between 2010 and 1810 or 1910, is there a difference in the quality of life for women in this country and internationally? Yes. Is it consistently available or applied? No. Is there any sector where we’re done?

No.”

‘A Perfect Storm’

Royster granted that human beings have been “slow learners about how we foment positive change and how we sustain that change. … I always hope that we can find ways to go in overdrive, and I always hope we don’t have to spend time reinventing all the wheels all the time. But there is plenty of evidence to suggest we have had a hard time taking those kinds of lessons in.”

Still, Royster is hopeful change is possible.

“It’s hard to exhibit any kind of difference and not feel the impact and consequences of whatever that difference is — whether you’re a tall person, whether you’re a redhead, whether you’re a woman, whether you’re a black person, whether you are a Muslim. The question is whether noticing will make a difference in our behavior, in our expectations, in our valuing. I remain hopeful in this kind of sci-fi way that one day we will have a society in which our differences won’t matter so much.”

Gordon Moore, Mgt 92, MS Mgt 97, director of the Office of Minority Educational Development at Tech, reported on the campus climate during the diversity symposium.

“I think a perfect storm is happening. The thing about perfect storms is we can all die or we can take advantage of it,” Moore joked. “We have our first Hispanic provost [Rafael Bras]. We have our first black dean [Royster]. We have our first black male SGA president [Corey Boone], who also has a Hispanic executive vice president [Brenda Morales]. There are a lot of wonderful things getting ready to happen.”

A mural on the Wells Fargo Bank building just off campus depicts moments in Tech history, including the matriculation of three African-American students in September 1961.

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Burdell & Friends

Revving Up Electric Volt

Micky Bly helps steer GM to Car of the Year award

By Van Jensen

T

he past year has been a big one for General Motors. The company enjoyed a successful initial public offering after emerging from bankruptcy. And its electric Chevrolet Volt model was named the 2011 Motor Trend Car of the Year.

GM has staked much of its future to the Volt, which was developed in part by Georgia Tech alumnus Micky Bly. Bly, executive director of hybrid, electric and battery engineering, grew up in Augusta, Ga., before enrolling in the Institute. His corporate biography credits a passion for “tearing apart, figuring out and putting back together” for leading him first to Tech and then to the auto industry.

Bly interned at GM four times while studying mechanical engineering. He joined GM at its Detroit headquarters as a powertrain development and validation engineer after graduating in 1990.

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He has worked in various facets across the company — and around the world. He started out as a lead development engineer in redesigning the Corvette’s iconic V8 small block engine. In 1997, he transferred to England to work on the Ecotec L4, GM’s global four-cylinder engine.

In 2006, Bly was back in Michigan and became director of global hybrid integration and controls, managing teams responsible for the design of GM’s hybrid vehicle line. In 2009, he took on a new role and title as executive director of global electrical systems, hybrid and electric vehicles and OnStar engineering.

He now leads about 2,000 engineers around the world who are responsible for all aspects of GM’s electrical systems. The work of Bly and his team was recognized with the 2008 Chevy Tahoe Hybrid being named Green Car Journal’s Green Car of the Year.

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GM dedicated much of its resources to development of the Volt, an electrically powered car designed to drive on its lithium-ion battery pack for 25 to 50 miles. A 1.4-liter gasoline-powered engine can then kick in, giving the car an additional range of 310 miles on a full tank of fuel. The car simply needs to be plugged into a standard outlet to recharge its battery.

The car was seen as a big risk for GM, an expensive venture that required cuttingedge components. Bly and his team of engineers had a four-year window to develop those technologies.

“Our biggest challenges centered around the development of all these new technologies on the production-critical path,” Bly said. “We knew that if our parts failed to deliver, the program would not launch.”

Of those challenges, the biggest was designing the lithium-ion battery.

“We had no idea how to design the battery,” Bly said. “No one in the automotive industry had a blueprint. We were asking a technology used in cell phones to be scaled up to supply enough energy to propel a 3,500-pound vehicle between 25 and 50 miles electrically at speeds up to 100 miles per hour. Not a simple task.”

The battery also would have to last eight years in environments from 30 degrees below zero Celsius up to 50 degrees Celsius. Bly opted to work with LG Chem, a leader in cellular technology, and GM internally designed and developed the battery and its support systems, he said.

“We were able to do this during the worst financial times of the industry, and we delivered,” he said.

Despite the unconventional power system, the Volt has a top speed of 100 mph and accelerates from zero to 60 mph in less than nine seconds.

Motor Trend was effusive with praise in naming the long-in-development Volt its Car of the Year: “In the 61-year history of the Car of the Year award, there have been few contenders as hyped — or as controversial — as the Chevrolet Volt. The Volt started life an Old GM project, then arrived fully formed as a symbol of New GM. … As a result, a lot of the sound and fury that has surrounded 62

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the Volt’s launch has tended to obscure a simple truth: This automobile is a gamechanger.”

“I am so proud of the GM team and what we have delivered,” Bly said. “I can honestly say this is the high point of my 20year career with GM. This car is just amazing, and the top critics agree.”

Bly said that one of the most important aspects of developing the Volt was making sure it offered a pleasant driving experience, not just an eco-friendly engine.

“Driving the Volt is easy to describe,” he said. “Open the door, get in, push the start button and drive. It’s as easy as that.

The real pleasure of the vehicle is the driver experience, from the outside design to the interior technology interactions.”

Motor Trend agreed with that sentiment.

In announcing the Volt as Car of the Year, the magazine enthused, “It is a fully functional, no-compromise compact automobile that offers consumers real benefits in terms of lower running costs.”

Bly said he hopes the Volt can lead to a shift toward more eco-friendly vehicles.

“Our customers are making a commitment to technology that will help reduce our dependence on petroleum,” he said.

“In turn, we commit to deliver the highest standards for value, safety, quality, performance and reliability to our customers.”

The Volt became available for sale in select markets in December, and it will expand gradually. While Bly couldn’t say what project is next on his plate, he said his role will continue to be in developing GM’s electrical systems and pushing more products and technologies similar to the Volt.

A critical part of that will be information, entertainment and human-machine interaction technologies, and Bly said his team is developing things to make GM a leader in the area.

Bly is just one of many Yellow Jackets to make an impact at GM. The company currently employs about 100 alumni at more than 20 locations around the world. Additionally, about 40 current Tech students are serving as interns or co-ops at GM. GM officials said the company has given $1.4 million in education grants, $900,000 in scholarship programs and $700,000 in research grants to Georgia Tech.

Bly reflected on his time at the Institute as the propulsion that pushed him into the automotive industry. And it was the breadth of engineering offered at Tech that allowed him to work in so many areas across GM, he said.

“I believe that my mechanical engineering classes and degree have given me the best possible foundation to take on any challenge that I have encountered while working at GM or on the Volt,” Bly said.

“It is key that Georgia Tech’s academic programs continue to grow and adjust to the cross-engineering needs of complex systems similar to vehicle engineering or the Chevy Volt.

“Engineers of the future must be able to work together to resolve tough technical and societal problems of the future. Georgia Tech can and should continue to lead in this area,” he said Outside of vehicle engineering, Bly listed his interests as watching sci-fi movies and renovating houses.

But the bulk of Bly’s engineering skill continues to be focused squarely on the future of the automotive industry.

“I feel so blessed to have a career I love and family that supports what I do,” he wrote on the GM site. “In fact, I think I may even have two future engineers on my hands. My 8-year-old son Ethan is already a car buff, and he can’t wait to see which new car I’ll bring home. And my 10-yearold daughter Emily is already talking about engineering school. Maybe someday they’ll both be working on a new concept vehicle that could change the industry and make their old man’s work seem obsolete.”

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Ramblin’ Roll 1940s

Richard Collier, AE 48, of Englewood, Fla., won a gold medal in tennis singles in the 85 to 89 age group at the 2010 Huntsman World Senior Games held in October in St. George, Utah. More than 10,000 athletes from 17 countries participated in 27 sports during the twoweek event. In tennis, there were 422 players in the eight age groups, and nearly 700 matches were played in a five-day period before all of the medals were awarded.

1950s

J. Michael Duncan, CE 59, MS CE 62, distinguished professor emeritus of Virginia Tech’s Charles E. Via Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, was the 2010 recipient of the G. Brooks Earnest Award and Lecture from the Cleveland section of the American Society of Civil Engineers. A member of the National Academy of Engineering, Duncan joined Virginia Tech in 1984. His work in geotechnical engineering includes embankment dam engineering, soil shear strength and slope stability, seepage through soils and finite element analysis for soil structures. He has served as a consultant on a number of major geotechnical projects, including the Panama Canal and levee and flood control structures in New Orleans associated with Hurricane Katrina. An honorary member of ASCE, Duncan received its 2009 Outstanding Projects and Leaders Lifetime Achievement Award for Education.

1960s

Steven C. Bassett, ME 65, has been appointed to the Florida Energy & Climate Commission by Gov. Charlie Crist. Bassett is a senior engineer with Eco Advisors LLC in Palm Beach Gardens and serves as a national director of the Florida Engineering Society. The Florida Energy & Climate Commission is in the executive office of the governor and is the primary organization for state energy and climate change programs and policies.

Harold Simmons, IM 65, retired from Georgia Tech on Oct. 29. In his 34 years working for his alma mater, Simmons spent four years with the Registrar, 22 years with the Cooperative Division and the past eight years as director of cooperative education in the Division of Professional Practice.

1970s

Philip M. Breedlove, CE 77, has been confirmed for promotion to four-star general in the Air Force with assignment as vice chief of staff of the Air Force. Lt. Gen. Breedlove is the deputy chief of staff for operations, plans and requirements at the Air Force headquarters in Washington, D.C. Alex Gregory, TE 70, is one of five CEOs featured in a book by Merwyn A. Hayes and Michael D. Comer published in November, Start With Humility: Lessons From America’s Quiet CEOs on How To Build Trust and Inspire Followers. Gregory is president and CEO of YKK Corporation of America, located in Marietta, Ga. Carolyn Meyers, MS ME 79, PhD ChE 84, has been named president of Jackson State University in Jackson, Miss. Meyers, who has more than 30 years of experience in higher education, previously served as president of Norfolk State University in Virginia.

Jeffrey Sheppard, BS 76, M Arch 78, is cofounder and design principal at Roth + Sheppard Architects, which was named 2010 Firm of the Year by the Denver chapter of the American Institute of Architects and AIA-Colorado. The firm, known for its law enforcement, restaurant, retail and entertainment design throughout the West, also was awarded seven of the 21 design awards presented by AIADenver, including the People’s Choice Award, and three AIA-Colorado design awards. The firm has received more than 65 AIA awards for exceptional design work over the last 15 years.

J. Larry Tyler, IM 70, received the American College of Healthcare Executives’ President’s Award in August. It was only the second time the honor has been presented since its inception in 2006. Tyler was chosen for his contributions to ACHE’s career advancement efforts.

He is the chairman and CEO of Tyler & Company, which specializes in health care and life science executive search.

Daniel Webster, EE 71, won a seat in the U.S. Congress for Florida’s 8th Congressional District. Webster was Florida’s House Republican leader in the 1990s and in 1996 became the first GOP Speaker of the House in more than a century. He was elected to the state Senate in 1998 and served his final three years as majority leader.

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1980s Art Graham, ChE 87, was appointed by Florida Gov. Charlie Crist to the state’s Public Service Commission in July. Graham was elected chairman of the commission in October. In that position, he also acts as the chief administrative officer of the PSC. Joseph R. Martin, ME 81, has published a book, No Bag for the Journey, about a solo 2,700mile cross-country bike trip he took as a youth minister “to revitalize his faith.” Martin is the rector of the Church of Our Savior Anglican church in Glenshaw, Pa. He and his wife, Heidi, have two children, Wesley and Madeline.

Chris Shiver, ME 81, after 22 years with the same consulting engineering firm in which he held such positions as principal engineer, has formed his own forensic mechanical/electrical/safety engineering firm, Chris Shiver PE LLC in Roswell, Ga. Shiver and his wife, Julia, recently celebrated 25 years of marriage. The couple have two sons, Ben and Nick, who is a senior physics major at Tech.

Wilbur Strickland, ChE 82, has been named vice president for global chocolate research, development and quality at Kraft Foods with responsibility for core chocolate technology and innovation platform development across various R&D sites around the globe. Strickland and his family live outside of Zurich, Switzerland.

Brian K. Upson, CE 82, of Griffin, Ga., was appointed to the state board of registration for professional engineers and land surveyors by Gov. Sonny Perdue. Upson is the owner and president of Paragon Consulting Group Inc. He is a member of the Griffin Hospital Authority, American Council of Engineering Companies and Rotary Club of Georgia. He serves on the Piedmont region board of the Georgia Banking Co. He and his wife, Tracee, have two children.

Scott Williams, AE 84, is a brigadier general in the Air Force. As an F16 fighter pilot, Williams has flown in more than 100 missions, including Operation Iraqi Freedom. He is the commander of the 169th Fighter Wing of the South Carolina Air National Guard.

1990s

Hamza Benamar, ME 92, MS ME 96, has been promoted to vice president of finance and

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Ramblin’ Roll

segment chief financial officer at SunGard after tours of duty in finance leadership roles in Paris and Hong Kong. Benamar is relocating to Geneva, Switzerland, for a third time.

Jason Brownlie, IE 98, and his wife, Jennifer, announce the birth of a daughter, Alexa Savannah, on Aug. 10. Brownlie is an account manager at Manhattan Associates. The family lives in Smyrna, Ga. Shari Lew Carson, ID 95, and her husband, Ric, announce the birth of a son, Tilden Clint Carson, on Sept. 16. Carson is a designer for GES. The family lives in San Diego.

Luke Davis, CE 97, MS CE 99, and his wife, Kathryn, announce the birth of a son, Nicholas Paul, on Sept. 23. He joins sister Sophia, 3, and brother Joey, 5, at the family’s home in Ellicott City, Md. Davis is an information technology specialist with IBM. Mark Horstemeyer, PhD ME 95, has been named a fellow of ASM International, the materials information society. Horstemeyer is the CAVS chair in computational solid mechanics and a professor of mechanical engineering at Mississippi State University.

Regina Smith Joiner, CS 99, and Shane Joiner, ISyE 97, announce the birth of daughter Caroline Ann on Sept. 1. Caroline joins sister Mallory, 2, and brother Zach, 4, at the family’s home in Jacksonville, Fla. Tami Randolph, MS EE 94, PhD ECE 01, was honored with a special recognition award at the 15th annual Women of Color in Technology STEM conference. A program manager in Northrop Grumman’s information systems sector in Fairfax, Va., Randolph provides leadership to the research, development and integration of signals intelligence systems and leads a large, cross-organization, multidisciplinary team in the pursuit of a large business opportunity.

W. Jud Ready, MSE 94, MS MetE 97, PhD MatSci 00, and Jamie Anderson Ready, CE 99, announce the birth of Robert Mason Ready on Oct. 14. Mason joins sister Vivian and brother Lucas at the family’s home in Atlanta.

Frances Rogers, Econ 93, of Atlanta, has been appointed to the board of directors of the Georgia Lottery Corp. by Gov. Sonny Perdue.

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Rogers is the founder and president of Checks & Balances Inc. and the president of WH Capital LLC. She serves on the Waffle House Inc. stand-by board of directors. She also is a trustee and officer of The Lovett School and a member of the Georgia Tech Foundation board of trustees.

Melinda Messinger Servick, Mgt 96, and her husband, Todd, announce the birth of a son, Brady Todd, on April 12. Servick is the national sales and marketing manager for Artisan Design Group out of San Diego. The family lives in Park City, Utah.

John T. Trainor, EE 98, has been promoted to vice president and chief information officer of Aaron’s Inc. He previously was vice president of information technology for the company’s sales and lease ownership division. Trainor joined Aaron’s in 1999. He lives in Roswell, Ga., with his wife and three sons.

David Weber, ChE 99, and his wife Shanon celebrated the first birthday of son Tyler Michael on Dec. 11. The family lives in Chattanooga, Tenn.

2000s

Ashley Armstrong, Mgt 08, and Nathaniel Adam Almon, ISyE 08, were married in October in Carrollton, Ga. The couple went to school together in Carrollton and began dating their freshman year at Tech. Armstrong, who earned an MBA earlier this year, works in the human resources department at Southwire Company. Almon works in the company’s logistics department.

Lauren Benson Lisowe, Mgt 03, and her husband, Brad, announce the birth of a daughter, Amelia Danielle Lisowe, on Sept. 28. She joins brother Braden at the family’s home in Duluth, Ga. Jenny Wood Clay, ME 03, and her husband, Will, announce the birth of their daughter, Elizabeth McCants, on Oct. 1. Clay works as a merchant at the Atlanta headquarters of The Home Depot.

Wendy Anderson Cocke, ChE 02, and her husband, Andy, announce the birth of a son, Anderson Jackson “A.J.,” on June 21. Cocke works as a product developer for Kimberly-Clark

Healthcare in Roswell, Ga. The family lives in Marietta, Ga. Daniel J. DeCicco, ISyE 01, and his wife, Jessica, announce the birth of daughter Kaylyn Elizabeth. Lt. DeCicco now is deployed aboard the USS Harry S. Truman in the Middle East in support of Operations Enduring Freedom and New Dawn. The family lives in Norfolk, Va. Suzannah Gill, Mgt 05, is the vice president of benefits at The Bottoms Group. Gill previously served as an employee benefits attorney at McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP in Atlanta.

Gill, a President’s Scholar while at Tech, taught English in Shenzhen, China, for a year following graduation and earned a law degree from the University of Georgia. She is a member of the Georgia Bar Association, a registered neutral through the Georgia Office of Dispute Resolution and a committee member for the Georgia Association of Women Lawyers Foundation and HealthMPowers. She lives in Atlanta.

Jamie Hall, ME 08, and Donniece Wright, Arch 10, were married May 11. Hall is a hardware engineer for Hewlett-Packard and coowner of King and Lord Apparel (kingandlord.com), an online specialty clothing market. Wright is a freelance home designer. The couple live in Albany, Ore. Katie Hunley, CE 06, married Kevin Willis, EE 01, on Oct. 2. Hunley is a senior construction engineer for Juneau Construction Co., and Willis is a senior electronics engineer for the Federal Aviation Administration. The couple live in Smyrna, Ga. Rutherford Johnson, APhys 00, MS Econ 03, covered the G20 Summit in Seoul, South Korea, in November for the Anglo-Catholic News Service and Coberly Communications News Service. Johnson is an assistant professor of economics at the SolBridge International School of Business.

Kara Manry, IntA 04, MS IntA 06, has been promoted to producer in the special events unit at CNN in Atlanta. Manry was the overall producer for CNN’s coverage of the 2010 G20 Summit in Toronto. She joined CNN in 2005.

Kenyata Martin, ChE 01, has been appointed brand manager for Old Spice Global Innovation at Procter & Gamble. He will be responsible for the five-year innovation strategy and

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global expansion of this $500 million business.

Martin’s career at Procter & Gamble over the past nine years has included being an inventor on a patent and leading the strategic development of award-winning advertising.

Josh Oakley, Arch 07, is manager of building information modeling for the Beck Group, which served as general contractor for the renovation of Georgia Tech’s Hinman Research Building. In October, Oakley led a discussion titled “BIM to Preserve Value” at the Institute’s Wardlaw Center prior to a tour of the Hinman building, which was under renovation at the time. Hinman will house additional office, research, gallery and studio space for the College of Architecture.

Manas Tungare, MS CS 03, was the first engineer to work on Google Instant during its earliest developmental stage. Tungare worked on the application, which was publicly launched

by Google on Sept. 8, for more than a year developing prototypes and performing experiments to create an interface that would allow users to receive quicker search results. Tungare spent three summers interning at Google while pursuing a doctoral degree in computer science at Virginia Tech. Tungare, who was awarded that degree in 2009, now resides in Mountain View, Calif.

Torion Wright, Mgt 04, has been named assistant vice president of information technology for the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.

Wright oversees PC support, help desk, asset management and change control functions as well as the Federal Reserve System’s national IT training center. Wright also is responsible for network services, telecommunications services, server and storage services and customer relationship management. Wright began her career at the bank as an intern in 1986 and over the past 21 years has held positions of increasing responsibility in corporate IT.

2010s

Donniece Wright, Arch 10, and Jamie Hall, ME 08, were married May 11. Wright is a freelance home designer, and Hall is a hardware engineer for Hewlett-Packard and co-owner of King and Lord Apparel (kingandlord.com), an online specialty clothing market. The couple live in Albany, Ore.

Mary Russell Sanders, EE 92, and her husband, Jeff, announce the birth of a son, Connor Logan, on Aug. 12. Connor joins his sister, Haley, 3, at the family’s home in Huntsville, Ala.

What have you been up to?

To have your news included in the Ramblin’ Roll, send us the details at Ramblin’ Roll, 190 North Ave. N.W., Atlanta, GA 30313, or e-mail us at ramblinroll@gtalumni.org. Photos may be submitted for inclusion in the online Ramblin’ Roll.

Who: ___________________________________________________________ What: __________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ When: ____________________ Occupation: __________________________

Degree: __________________________________ Year: _________________ Phone: _________________ E-mail: _________________________________ Street: __________________________________________________________ City: __________________________________ State: _____ ZIP: __________

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In Memoriam 1930s

John B. Kackley, CE 37, of Jacksonville, Fla., on Nov. 15. He retired from a 30-year Navy career to be the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations’ senior financial officer in Rome. He was a member of Tech’s Engineering Hall of Fame. Survivors include son Charles B. Kackley, ICS 77.

Cloice Everett Temple, EE 36, of Cincinnati, on Sept. 19. Mr. Temple had worked as an engineer with Paramount Kings Island and was the former owner of Temple & Associates. He was a member of the Army ROTC while at Georgia Tech.

B. Pressley Walker III, ME 37, of St. Augustine, Fla., on Nov. 16. He was commissioned as a Navy officer in 1944 and after receiving an honorable discharge in 1946 went into the building supply business. He retired from Deebo Products Inc.

1940s

Clarence Ernest “Ace” Adams, IM 49, of Gainesville, Fla., on Oct. 16. Mr. Adams, a designated chartered property casual underwriter, worked for insurance companies in Atlanta, Philadelphia and Cincinnati before becoming a partner of Lanier Upshaw Insurance Agency in Lakeland, Fla., in 1967.

He retired in 1990. During World War II, he was a B-25 pilot in the Army Air Corps. He served as a member of Sertoma and Kiwanis clubs and the Health Council of West Central Florida and as president of the Polk County Association of Insurance Agents.

William Hugh “Bill” Caffey Jr., IE 49, of Kingsport, Tenn., on Oct. 27. Mr. Caffey retired from Eastman Chemical as a senior electrical engineer. He was a past president of the local chapters of the International Society of Automation and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. A Navy veteran, he was a past president of the Northeast Tennessee Georgia Tech Club as well as the Skycrafters Flying Club, of which he was a founding member. Mr. Caffey built bird boxes for the Bluebird Society and spent 40 years making a one-eighth-scale Southern Railway train on which children could ride through his yard. He was active in Boy Scout 66

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Troop 50 and helped all three of his sons become Eagle Scouts.

Spencer Maddox Cork, EE 44, of Macon, Ga., on Oct. 7. Mr. Cork, who participated in the co-op program at Georgia Tech, was a retired electrical engineer.

Robert Thomas “Tom” Cummings, TE 48, of Vero Beach, Fla., on Oct. 13. During World War II, he served as a captain in the Army Signal Corps in the Philippines, New Guinea and occupied Japan. He was an executive for U.S. Rubber Co. before joining AlliedSignal, from which he retired as president of the fibers division in 1984. Mr. Cummings then spent six months in Indonesia setting up a manufacturing plant as a volunteer for the International Executive Service Corps. Mr. Cummings served as president of the Virginia Manufacturers Association and was a recipient of the Good Scout award of the Greater New York Councils of the Boy Scouts of America.

Warner Settle Currie, Cls 42, of Atlanta, on Sept. 28. Mr. Currie received a law degree from Emory University, and he was a senior partner at Swift, Currie, McGhee and Hiers, practicing general liability and products liability litigation and labor relations law. He was a member of the Atlanta and American Bar associations, State Bar of Georgia, Defense Research Institute and Georgia Trial Lawyers Association. He was a frequent lecturer at tort and labor seminars. After retiring from private practice, Mr. Currie served as an adjunct professor at the Emory University School of Law. He was named the acting director of Emory’s LLM in litigation program in 1991 and was elected Most Outstanding Professor of the Year by the Student Bar Association in 1995. An Army veteran of World War II, he served in the 99th Infantry Division, attaining the rank of major in field artillery and receiving the Bronze Star and four battle stars.

James Rutherford Fair, ChE 42, a resident of Austin, Texas, on Oct. 11. Dr. Fair was the McKetta Centennial Energy chair emeritus in the chemical engineering department at the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Fair joined the university in 1979 and founded its separations research program,

which he headed from 1982 to 1996. He received a master’s degree from the University of Michigan and a doctorate from UT-Austin. His earlier career included work with Shell Development and Monsanto Co. During World War II, he was involved with the government’s high explosives and synthetic rubber programs. Dr. Fair served as affiliate professor of chemical engineering at Washington University in St. Louis from 1964 to 1977. He was a former director of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers; a former president of James R. Fair Inc.; and a former vice president of Fractionation Research Inc. His many honors included numerous awards from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, which elected him a fellow; the Separations Science and Technology Award of the American Chemical Society; election to the National Academy of Engineering; and the Gold Medallion award from the American Society for Engineering Education. A member of Sigma Nu fraternity, he was inducted into the Georgia Tech Engineering Hall of Fame’s inaugural class in 1994. He served on the external advisory board of the Institute’s School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering for several years. Dr. Fair authored or co-authored seven books and more than 200 technical articles and book chapters. Also a researcher of railroad history, he published numerous articles and two full-length books on the subject.

John Lawrence “Pete” Gray, ChE 40, of Atlanta, on Nov. 22. Mr. Gray received a master’s degree in paper technology from the Institute of Paper Chemistry at Lawrence College in Appleton, Wis. After working with BFGoodrich as a process engineer, he began a 56-year career with Chemical Products Corp. and its affiliate company, Dellinger Management Co., both in Cartersville, Ga. Mr. Gray worked in a variety of positions with the company and ultimately became president and associate chairman of the board. He retired in 2003. He had served as chairman of the Georgia Business & Industry Association, a member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, president of the Cartersville Rotary Club and as an elder at his church. Survivors include his daughter Mary Elizabeth Gray Hart, ChE

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78, his son-in-law Frank A. Brown Jr., IE 70, and grandchildren Laurie Catherine Brown Jones, ABiol 95, and Frank Alvin “Chip” Brown III, Mgt 01.

Joseph Brooks Haas, Arch 44, of Jacksonville, Fla., on Nov. 12. A member of Sigma Chi fraternity at Tech, he served in the infantry in World War II as a lieutenant and engaged in combat in the European theater.

He began practicing architecture with Reynolds, Smith and Hills in Jacksonville in 1947 and later developed his own commercial architectural design firm, Haas & Reed Architects. He was a member of the Rotary Club, a world traveler, an avid snow skier, a fencer and a sailor.

James Robert Huff, CE 49, of Centreville, Va., on Nov. 12. Mr. Huff worked for the Virginia Department of Highways and in Missouri before becoming public works director of Saratoga, Calif., in 1959. He was promoted to city manager in 1967. He later served as city or borough manager in Sikeston, Mo., Wilkinsburg, Pa., and Oskaloosa, Iowa, retiring in 1994. Mr. Huff served in the Army in the Philippines and received a master’s degree in public administration from San Jose State University.

Thomas Moore Jones Jr., EE 43, of Matthews, N.C., formerly of Atlanta, on Oct. 16. A co-op student and member of Alpha Tau Omega fraternity and the track team at Georgia Tech, he served as a lieutenant in the Army Signal Corps of Engineers during World War II. After serving as a sales engineer with the John Underwood Co., he started his own business and pursued a career in engineering sales, representing manufacturers of boilers, fans and HVAC equipment.

He retired from the company in 1981 and worked for Borie Davis Inc. until his second retirement at the age of 85. At his church, he served as chair of the board of deacons and was a choir member for more than 40 years.

Survivors include his son, Thomas Methvin Jones Sr., IE 74.

Keith Thomas, IM 49, of Norcross, Ga., on Nov. 10. Mr. Thomas was the owner of POP Enterprises, a commercial printing firm in Chamblee, Ga. He was an Army veteran and a member of the Pinckneyville Bridge Club.

Former Alumni Association President Frank Stovall Dies James Frank Stovall Jr., a member of the College of Engineering Hall of Fame and former president of the Georgia Tech Alumni Association, died Nov. 12 at his home in Atlanta. He was 90.

Mr. Stovall, TE 41, was the retired co-chairman of United Cotton Goods Co., a manufacturer of uniforms and linens. In 1959, he became co-owner of the company, which had plants in Griffin, Ga., and Seguin, Texas.

“We took that little business and grew it every year,” Mr. Stovall recalled in a 2000 Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine article.

The company was sold to a German firm in 1980, but Mr. Stovall and his business partner continued to manage it for five years before retiring.

In an obituary published in the Naples Daily News, Mr. Stovall’s family wrote that outside of family and business “his proudest accomplishment was his long-term relationship with Georgia Tech.” Mr. Stovall served two terms on the Alumni Association board of trustees and was president for 1972-73. He was an emeritus member of the Georgia Tech Foundation board, serving his first term in 1977. He also had served as director and treasurer of the former TechGeorgia Development Fund, co-chair of his class’ 50th reunion committee and a member of the Legislative Network.

Mr. Stovall was inducted into the College of Engineering Hall of Fame in 1998. A year later, he was presented the Joseph Mayo Pettit Alumni Distinguished Service Award, the highest award bestowed by the Georgia Tech Alumni Association.

A Madison, Ga., native, Mr. Stovall was president of Alpha Tau Omega fraternity, vice president of the student

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council, secretary of his senior class and a member of ANAK while a student at Tech. He moved to New York City following graduation and became a textile buyer for U.S. Rubber Co. He served four years in the Army Air Forces in World War II, earning the rank of sergeant. He began his textile sales career at the Atlanta office of Joshua L. Bailey & Co. Mr. Stovall was a former president of the Atlanta Textile Club. A longtime supporter of the Republican Party, he was an alternate delegate at the 1968 national convention and was active in many campaigns over the years.

Mr. Stovall’s survivors include sons James F. Stovall III, Text 70, and John Stovall, Cls 81, and grandson James F. Stovall IV, CS 01, and his wife Chrissy, ChE 01.

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1950s

taught Sunday school classes for 36 years.

Lovic Pierce “Buddy” Baker, Cls 50, of Peachtree City, Ga., on Sept. 26. Mr. Baker joined the Navy at 17 and served five years before attending Georgia Tech. He left Tech at the beginning of his senior year to manage the family insurance business, L.P. Baker Agency, after the death of his father. He managed the agency for 39 years before retiring in 1987. He was active in the Boy Scouts and Habitat for Humanity and was an avid fan of the Atlanta Braves and the Yellow Jackets.

William Eugene “Bill” Ballew, IM 56, of Maryville, Tenn., on Oct. 11. A World War II veteran, Mr. Ballew retired following a 31year career with Alcoa.

Charles Edwin “Ed” Baskin, IM 53, of Marietta, Ga., on July 8. A lifelong resident of Marietta, he was employed at Lockheed from 1955 until 1968 and at IBM from 1968 until 1988. He was a member of Georgia Tech’s varsity football team in 1950. As captain of the track team in 1952, he was SEC champion in the javelin. Survivors include his son, Ted Baskin, CS 96.

Vernon W. Bates, IM 57, of Sarasota, Fla., on Nov. 9. A Korean War veteran, he served with the Navy VP-21 Squadron from 1949 to 1952. He was an air traffic controller in Hampton, Ga. He was an emeritus member of the Grand Lodge of Georgia F&AM. Charles Benson Bottoms Jr., Cls 50, of Atlanta, on Oct. 12. Mr. Bottoms was the national cold drink marketing manager in a 40-year career with Coca-Cola USA. He graduated from Auburn University in 1950 and went to the artillery school at Fort Sill, Okla., as a regular Army officer. In 50 years of involvement with the Boy Scouts, he was named an Eagle Scout, served as a Scoutmaster and received the Silver Beaver Award.

“Smiling” Jack Burgess, ME 55, a resident of Kennesaw, Ga., on Oct. 14, after a four-year battle with Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Mr. Burgess retired from a 50-year career with Goodyear Aerospace Corp. in 2005. Mr. Burgess served in the Army Corps of Engineers and attained the rank of captain. He 68

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McNeill B. “Mack” Carter, Cls 51, a resident of Marble, N.C., on Oct. 31. He joined the Navy after graduating from high school and served in the Seabees during World War II. Mr. Carter retired from the Postal Service.

He was an avid gardener especially fond of daylilies.

William Edward “Bill” Cheeley Sr., IE 52, of Buford, Ga., on Oct. 21. An inventor, Mr. Cheeley was awarded numerous patents while working for Reynolds Metals. A vice president of Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity and president of Scabbard and Blade while at Georgia Tech, Mr. Cheeley served in the Army during World War II and received the Purple Heart.

Larkin Francis Culbreth Jr., EE 51, MS AMath 55, of Fern Park, Fla., on Nov. 15. He retired following a 34-year career with Martin-Marietta.

James E. Curry, ChE 50, MS ChE 51, of Madison, Ala., on Oct. 22. Dr. Curry served in the Army during World War II and later was a federal employee, initially hired by the Army Ballistic Missile Agency in 1957. He worked for NASA for 24 years and earned numerous honors, including the NASA Exceptional Service Medal in 1975. Dr. Curry retired from NASA in 1981 as chief of the organization’s nonmetallic materials branch.

Dr. Curry, who received a PhD in chemical engineering from the University of Alabama in 1972, taught courses in the university’s chemical engineering department, and he later worked for Remtech and Northrop Grumman.

Malcolm Daniel “Dan” Davidson, IM 59, of San Antonio, on Oct. 24. A member of Beta Theta Pi fraternity at Tech, Mr. Davidson served in the Army Reserve and had a career as a sales professional. He was a Sunday school teacher at his church.

Charles H. Drew, Cls 50, a resident of Flowery Branch, Ga., on Oct. 2. He served in the Army Air Forces before he attended Georgia Tech. Mr. Drew retired from Harris-Lanier after 40 years as a divisional vice

president. He was a Sunday school teacher and an ordained deacon and was active in Civitian and Little League Baseball.

Robert Park Ellis, IM 59, of Atlanta, on Nov. 8. Mr. Ellis worked for several real estate companies before opening the Atlanta office of Fletcher Bright Co. He retired after 25 years as president of the Atlanta branch.

A member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity at Tech, he attended the Institute on a naval scholarship. He was commissioned in the Navy and served aboard the USS Hancock aircraft carrier. A long-distance runner, he was a member of the Atlanta Track Club for many years. He also played the ukulele and served as a senior and junior warden and a Sunday school teacher at his church.

Thomas Edison Flanders, EE 52, MS EE 58, on Feb. 28, 2009. An electrical engineer, Mr. Flanders joined the space program with Chrysler Corp. in Huntsville, Ala., in 1961 as chief of three units in the static test firing of Saturn IB and Saturn V rockets. He served as senior design engineer for General Electric from 1969 to 1988 and designed and patented a linear electric motor with Trilogy Co. in 1988. From 1995 to ’98, he was an analog design engineer for Lockheed Martin.

Mr. Flanders was a veteran of World War II and the Korean War. For years he drove a school bus full of children across the country to build and repair churches and houses. He also participated in the United Methodist Action Mission Reach Out for Youth program for 20 years. Survivors include his brother-in-law James Woolley, CE 62, niece Karen Woolley Hursh, AE 86, and nephew J. Byron Flanders, TChem 85.

Edwin H. Folk III, M CP 54, of Philadelphia, on July 3. He was executive director of the Citizens Council on City Planning in Philadelphia from 1962 until it closed in 1971. From 1971 to ’74, Mr. Folk was with the Mental Health Association of Southeastern Pennsylvania, evaluating community mental health and mental retardation programs in the city. He received a bachelor’s degree from Princeton in 1950.

Asa B. Foster Jr., CE 52, of Pinehurst,

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Georgia Tech Sports Hall of Famer Johnny Hunsinger Before finding success in the Atlanta real estate scene, Johnny Hunsinger found it in the classrooms and on the field at Georgia Tech.

Mr. Hunsinger made the dean’s list each year and sported a Yellow Jacket jersey during some of the most glorious years of Tech football. He was a member of Bobby Dodd’s undefeated 1952 championship team as well as the 1953 and 1954 teams that won a Sugar Bowl and Cotton Bowl respectively.

John Stewart “Johnny” Hunsinger, IE 54, MS IE 55, president of John Hunsinger & Company and a member of the Georgia Tech Sports Hall of Fame, died Oct. 24. The lifelong Atlantan was 79.

Mr. Hunsinger began his real estate career as a salesman with Pope and Carter and Company of Atlanta in 1961. In his third year there, he received the Atlanta Board of Realtors Million Dollar Club Award for selling $1 million worth of property in a year. He was named a lifetime member of the club after three consecutive wins.

In 1967, he became vice president of the firm and president of its development, construction, leasing and management of industrial warehouses and office parks in the Southeast. He left two years later to start his own real estate brokerage and development company.

Mr. Hunsinger once told the Alumni Magazine that he applied lessons learned from playing football in overseeing his firm.

“I train my people pretty much the way I was coached,” Mr. Hunsinger said.

“There is nothing that beats hours of preparation, organization and enthusiasm. That’s part of a winning program. In

southwest Atlanta. And playing Georgia Tech football was in his blood.

His father had played football at the Institute as well as his great-uncle, George “Pup” Phillips, who played under coach John Heisman.

During his time at need hi-res Tech, Mr. Hunsinger also was a member of ANAK, the Glee Club, Tau Beta Pi, Phi Kappa Phi, Sigma Alpha Epsilon, the student council and the chapter of the American Institute of Industrial Engineers. He served as president of Omicron Delta Kappa and Alpha Pi Mu. Mr. Hunsinger served two years as an officer in the Army. He was awarded three patents while working as an industrial engineer at Chemstrand in Pensacola, Fla., before leaving the nylon company to enter the real estate Georgia Tech Archives and Records Management business.

Mr. Hunsinger’s sports, you practice your plays, you build numerous civic activities over the years in the mechanism in your body and mind included serving as president and chairto succeed, and when you get in a presman of the Atlanta Union Mission; a surized situation, you do what needs to trustee for Scottish Rite Hospital; and a be done and you hardly think about it.” board member of the Atlanta Symphony In 1980, Mr. Hunsinger was elected Orchestra. He also sang in the symphony. as a charter member of the Atlanta Board He was a longtime member of the Atof Realtors Phoenix Million Dollar Club, lanta Chamber of Commerce, the Martin which recognizes 10 years as a million Luther King Historical District, the Boys dollar producer. He was elected president and Girls Clubs of Metropolitan Atlanta, of the Atlanta Board of Realtors two years the Atlanta Urban League and the Atlanlater. ta Touchdown Club, which named him His beginnings were much humbler. an honorary lifetime member.

Mr. Hunsinger was raised in a oneMr. Hunsinger was an emeritus membedroom house, which he shared with his ber of the advisory board of Tech’s School mother, grandparents and two uncles. of Industrial and Systems Engineering Mr. Hunsinger told the School of and a recipient of the school’s distinIndustrial and Systems Engineering’s guished alumni award.

Engineering Enterprise publication that Memorials in Mr. Hunsinger’s name he could not remember “ever not playmay be made to the Alexander-Tharpe ing” football. As a child, he played the Fund at Georgia Tech. sport at his Howell Park neighborhood in

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N.C., on May 24. After serving in the Korean War as a commissioned second lieutenant in the Army Corps of Engineers, he returned to Atlanta and worked for consulting engineering firms until 1961, when he joined the Public Health Services, precursor to the Environmental Protection Agency. During his career with the EPA, he ran programs in water, air, solid and hazardous waste, pesticides, radiation and noise at the regional division level. He received numerous awards from the agency and the Office of Management of Budget. He retired from the EPA at age 50 and worked for a firm that operated water and wastewater plants for cities under contract. A registered professional engineer in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, South Carolina and North Carolina, Mr. Foster served as president of the Georgia Section of Civil Engineers and was selected as Engineer of the Year by his peers. He was a life member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association, American Society of Civil Engineers and the Georgia Sheriffs’ Association. He also was a member of the American Legion. Survivors include his daughter Jane, Arch 77.

Ernest Greene Graham Jr., Text 51, of Winder, Ga., on Oct. 4. Mr. Graham was the retired owner/operator of Graham Cleaners. A first lieutenant in the Air Force during the Korean War era, he was a former member of the Winder City Board of Education; a charter member of the Winder Noon Lions Club; and a recipient of the 2009 Winder Rotary Club’s Vocational Excellence Award.

He filmed football games for Winder-Barrow High School for 10 years. He had served as a Sunday school teacher, deacon, board chair and an elder at his church.

George “Gantt” Hamner, ME 53, a resident of Palm Bay, Fla., on Nov. 3. He worked for Texas Instruments before joining Radiation Corp., which later became Harris Corp.

He retired from the company following 35 years of service during which he was awarded several patents. Mr. Hamner served in the Marine Corps from 1949 through 1951 at Camp LeJeune, N.C. Mr. Hamner’s hobbies 70

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included cooking, dancing and fly-fishing.

William King Hatcher, BS 52, Arch 56, of Jacksonville, Fla., on Oct. 27. He recently retired from the board of directors at Baptist Medical Center after 39 years of service. He was an active supporter of such organizations as the Baptist Health Foundation, Wolfson Children’s Hospital, Jacksonville Community Foundation, Jacksonville University and Pickett & Hatcher Educational Fund in Columbus, Ga. He served as a commissioned officer in the Navy for 10 years.

Charles W. Jackson, EE 52, of Lenexa, Kan., on Oct. 19. An Army veteran of the Korean War, he worked for AT&T for 30 years, retiring as an assistant vice president, and then spent three years as a consultant for Boeing. Before moving to Lenexa in 2006, he and his wife owned and operated an H&R Block franchise as well as an apple orchard in Kentucky. He was a Kentucky colonel, Boy Scout leader and member of the Elks Club.

William Lee Lassetter, EE 57, of Charlottesville, Va., on Oct. 2. He received a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of Georgia in 1948 and enlisted in the Air Force in 1950, working as an airborne radar systems mechanic while stationed in Manchester, England. He began his career as an electrical engineer with Sperry Marine Systems. He was a supporter of the Charlottesville and University Symphony Orchestra and learned to play the cello.

George Walter Martin Sr., AE 57, MS AE 58, of Kennesaw, Ga., on Oct. 14. An aerospace engineer, Mr. Martin worked for Martin Marietta and Lockheed Georgia on the C5A project and later consulted with Boeing, Pratt & Whitney, Grumman and Gulfstream on design projects for commercial, government and private aircraft. He also designed and built custom homes in Roswell and Smyrna. Mr. Martin served in the Army during the Korean War. He was a member of the Tau Alpha Pi, Phi Kappa Phi and Sigma Gamma Tau honor societies.

Charles “Jack” McDaniel Jr., IM 59, of Columbus, Ga., on Oct. 12. Mr. McDaniel was the owner and operator of McDaniel

and Associates for 40 years and spent the past eight years working for Whatley Oil Co. He was a member of Phi Delta Theta fraternity at Tech and a veteran of the Marines.

Stanley M. Milam, Cls 59, of Springfield, Ga., on Nov. 10. He served as a sergeant in the Army Reserve and retired from IBM after 32 years with the company. He was past commodore of the Hillsboro Inlet Sailing Club and an avid drag racer.

Thurman Turner Morgan, CE 56, a resident of Charleston, S.C., on Nov. 12. He served in the Army and the Reserve, achieving the rank of lieutenant colonel. He was a retired civil engineer with the Army Corps of Engineers.

Preston Earl Newman, EE 50, of Rome, Ga., on Oct. 1. Mr. Newman was the founding partner of Newman Hibble & Associates Consulting Engineers in Atlanta. He served two terms on the Georgia board of professional engineers and land surveyors and was elected to the College of Fellows of the American Consulting Engineers Council. A World War II veteran, Mr. Newman served in the Marine Corps’ 2nd Division in the Pacific from 1941 to ’45, earning the Bronze Star for the Okinawa Gunto campaign.

George Campbell Oetter, Cls 50, of Macon, Ga., on Aug. 22. A member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity while at Tech, he retired from the Air Force.

John Thomas Rich, TE 52, of Clemson, S.C., on Oct. 28. A Navy veteran, Mr. Rich was the site manager of the BASF Clemson plant. He was a member of the Clemson Rotary Club and a past president of the South Carolina Manufacturers Alliance. He was a former Sunday school teacher and deacon at his church.

Philip Goodenow Rust Jr., IE 54, a resident of Thomasville, Ga., on Oct. 25. Mr. Rust worked as an industrial engineer before joining his father in managing the family cattle business at Winnstead Plantation in Thomasville. He continued to manage the plantation until his death. Mr. Rust was involved in a number of organizations in Thomasville,

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Retired Walmart Executive Jack Shewmaker Dies Jack Shewmaker, Cls 58, who retired as vice chairman and chief financial officer of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. in 1988, died Nov. 17 at his home in Bentonville, Ark., from a heart attack. He was 72.

Mr. Shewmaker was hired by Walmart founder Sam Walton as a district manager in 1970 and became president and chief operating officer of the company in 1978. He was promoted to vice chairman and chief financial officer in 1984.

Mr. Shewmaker is credited with helping develop the retail chain’s “Every Day Low Pricing” strategy and advocating its use of technology, an area in which it surpassed many of its competitors. Under Mr. Shewmaker’s leadership, Walmart began using bar codes and launched its first satellite system, which connected stores, distribution centers and the home office.

“I was very fortunate to be in the right place at the right time with WalMart Stores,” Mr. Shewmaker once said in a speech for the College of Management’s IMPACT series. “I would attribute a lot of our success to being in a position where we dealt with very simple explanations, very simple definitions of who we were and what we were and what

including the Thomas County Historical Society. Survivors include his brother Francis Rust, ChE 56.

Henry Lee Spence, AE 59, of Mansfield, Texas, on Oct. 29. Mr. Spence, who earned a master’s degree from Southern Methodist University and completed MIT’s Sloan Program for Senior Executives, began his career at Convair/General Dynamics and in 1962 joined LTV, which later became Vought Aircraft Co. During his career with the company, he was in charge of the design, development

our business was. We combined with that the latest technology in a way that most people can’t imagine. We had computers in our stores probably five years before our major competitors.”

Walmart president and CEO Mike Duke, IE 71, said in a statement on the

and production of the B-2 bomber. He retired in 1994 as vice president and general manager for military programs. Mr. Spence’s lifelong hobby was building and flying free-flight model airplanes. He served three times on U.S. teams that competed in the world championships. In 1969, he placed third at the world championships in Wiener Neustadt, Austria. In September, Mr. Spence was chosen to serve once again on the U.S. team. He would have competed at the world championships in May in Argentina.

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company’s Web site that Mr. Shewmaker “loved this company and gave it his heart as well as his considerable talents. He was a dear personal friend, and, though the company will benefit from his contributions for years to come, it is hard to imagine Walmart without Jack. … Jack was an extraordinarily gifted merchant, and one of my greatest ongoing development opportunities was to walk stores and clubs with Jack — with him striding ahead and me taking notes as quickly as I could.”

Following retirement from the retail chain, Mr. Shewmaker traveled the world working as a consultant and speaking to various organizations. He also served as a member of the Walmart board from 1977 to 2008.

Mr. Shewmaker served on the boards of several organizations, including the Springfield, Mo.-based Students In Free Enterprise Inc., for which he served as chairman for many years, and the Westark Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America. He was awarded the Boy Scouts’ Silver Beaver Award in 2010.

Mr. Shewmaker also bred champion Angus cattle at JAC’s Ranch, which he and his family owned and operated outside Bentonville.

John Hugh Stempel, IE 50, of Longview, Texas, on Nov. 6. He joined the family business, Stempel Manufacturing Co., in 1951 and upon the death of his father in 1968 became president. Mr. Stempel served as chairman of the board until retiring in 1997. He was mayor of Coleman, Texas, from 1975 to 1989. He also had served as president of the city’s Chamber of Commerce and was a member of the Rotary Club and a Paul Harris fellow. Mr. Stempel served in World War II and then in the Navy Reserve, retiring as

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In Memoriam

a lieutenant commander after more than 25 years of service. He was president of Delta Sigma Phi fraternity while at Tech.

John Mitcham Vernon, ME 58, of Durham, N.C., on Oct. 26. Following graduation, he spent two years in New Mexico as an officer and engineer for the Air Force. After earning an MBA from the University of Mississippi and a PhD in economics from MIT, Dr. Vernon joined the faculty at Duke University, where he was an economics professor for 41 years before retiring in 2007. From 1987 to 1989, he served as chair of Duke’s department of economics. He was a research fellow at the Harvard Business School from 1969 to 1970 and at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom from 1974 to 1975.

John Roy Warren, EE 53, of Austell, Ga., on Nov. 17. He enlisted in the Air Force in 1946. He spent his entire career with Southern Bell and BellSouth, retiring as network operations manager in 1991. During his 38 years with the company, Mr. Warren oversaw telephone switching technology changeovers from operator assist to electromechanical, then to electronic and later to early generations of digital switching. Survivors include his son, John Robert Madison Warren, IE 86, MBA 05.

Austin Walker West Jr., ChE 50, a resident of Birmingham, Ala., on Nov. 9. He worked for Monsanto Chemical Co. before joining Reichhold Chemicals Inc. in Tuscaloosa. During World War II, he served in the Army Corps of Engineers on islands in the southwest Pacific. He was a member of Omicron Delta Kappa and Alpha Tau Omega and editor of the Blueprint while at Tech. While living in Tuscaloosa, he was a member of the Black Warrior Council of the Boy Scouts.

1960s

Leroy Samuel “Lee” Ayers, Cls 60, of Roswell, Ga., on Nov. 3. Mr. Ayers received a bachelor of arts degree from Oglethorpe University and worked for many years at Ford Motor Co. as a merchandising manager, receiving numerous awards. He then founded the First Century Financial Corp., 72

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which provided leases to new car dealers.

Mr. Ayers was an avid car collector and enjoyed customizing Harley-Davidson motorcycles.

Claude Singleton Bridges III, ME 65, of Atlanta, on Nov. 17, of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease. After a brief stint with Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati, he returned to Atlanta and joined Malone Construction Co., retiring in 2008 as senior vice president. In his 40-year career with the company, he oversaw the construction of projects throughout the Atlanta area, including construction and renovations at Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, Emory University Hospital and many personal residences. He served on the properties committees of Trinity Presbyterian Church and Cherokee Town and Country Club and in a variety of leadership roles in his 20 years of membership in the Dunwoody Rotary Club, which recently named him an honorary member.

He was a former member of the Georgia Tech Alumni Association board of trustees.

Lloyd Lee Byars, EE 62, MS IM 63, of Atlanta, on Oct. 9, after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease. Dr. Byars, who earned a doctorate in business from Georgia State University, spent the latter part of his career as a tenured professor at Georgia Tech. He served as interim dean of the College of Management in the late 1990s and retired from the college in 2008 as professor emeritus of organizational behavior. He authored several college textbooks and served on the editorial review boards of the Journal of Managerial Issues, Journal of Management Case Studies and Journal of Systems Management. Dr. Byars also was a labor arbitrator for 40 years and was appointed to the board of governors for the National Academy of Arbitrators. He arbitrated cases in Europe, Central America and the Caribbean. Dr. Byars served as chairman of the board of deacons at his church.

Robert Lee Cannon Jr., ME 60, of Alpharetta, Ga., on Oct. 2. His career in mechanical engineering included work for Carrier Atlanta, the General Services Administration, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and

Prevention and Raytheon Services Inc. He served in the Air Force and Air Force Reserve.

David Thomas Daniel, IM 60, of Cocoa, Fla., on Nov. 4. He earned a master’s degree from Florida State University and served as a pilot in the Air Force. He worked for RCA at Patrick Air Force Base and for the Brevard County School Board before joining the staff of Park Avenue Baptist Church in Titusville, Fla., and serving in administrative and ministerial roles.

Allison Maynard “Al” Fleetwood Sr., Cls 60, of Canton, N.C., on Nov. 15, of cancer. He served as an aviator in the Marine Corps and later served many years in the Reserve, attaining the rank of major. In his career as an architect, Mr. Fleetwood was associated with several Atlanta firms, including John Portman and Associates, and traveled extensively to work on projects in the United States, Southeast Asia and the Caribbean.

He held various leadership positions in the American Institute of Architects, loved music and art and was an avid reader.

Randy Jones, EE 69, MS EE 70, PhD EE 85, of Tucker, Ga., on Nov. 4. He was an engineer with the Army Corps of Engineers.

Samuel H. Swint Jr., Text 60, of Southampton, N.Y., on Sept. 13. Mr. Swint had a 34-year career with Graniteville Co., a textile firm that manufactured denim for jeans, retiring as executive vice president. An Army veteran, he served on the boards of Long Island University and the Southampton Hospital Foundation; on the finance committee of East End Hospice; and on the advisory committee of the Rogers Memorial Library.

He also founded the Eastern Long Island Coastal Conservation Alliance. For many years, he served as chairman of the Swint Foundation, a charitable trust founded by his father.

A. Michael Varney, AE 63, MS AE 67, PhD AE 70, of Winter Park, Fla., on Oct. 4, after a four-year struggle with multiple systems atrophy. A member of Delta Tau Delta at Georgia Tech, Dr. Varney was an engineer at Pratt & Whitney Aircraft before returning

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Alumnus, Longtime Professor Marshall Leach Georgia Tech professor William Marshall Leach Jr. died Nov. 20, a day after suffering a heart attack. He was 70.

Dr. Leach joined the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering faculty after receiving his doctorate in electrical engineering from the Institute in 1972. He taught courses in audio engineering, electroacoustics, analog electronics and electromagnetics.

During his 38-year career at Tech, Dr. Leach was chosen by senior ECE students four times to receive the ECE Richard M. Bass/Eta Kappa Nu Outstanding Teacher Award.

One of Dr. Leach’s former students, Allen Robinson, EE 94, PhD ECE 07, told the Technique, “His legacy was left through his classes. … I took everything he ever taught. He had an infinite amount of patience and an absolute willingness to help.”

A memorial service for Dr. Leach was held at the campus’ Marcus Nanotechnology Building in mid-December.

Born and raised in Abbeville, S.C., Dr. Leach received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering from the University of South Carolina. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Air Force upon graduation. Following a sixmonth stint working at NASA’s Langley Research Center, he entered the Air Force, serving three years at McClellan Air Force Base in California as an electronics research and development officer.

In addition to teaching at Tech, Dr. Leach also was a longtime adviser for the student chapter of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, a technical adviser for WREK FM to the Institute to pursue a doctorate. Dr. Varney later served as staff engineer and principal investigator at Martin Marietta, a research member of the aerospace mechanical sciences department at Princeton and a faculty member of the mechanical and aerospace engineering department at the University of Central Florida. In 1970, he founded Applied Combustion Technology Inc., a research and development firm at which Pump Jet technology was developed. He served as president and senior research engineer until his retirement. In the late 1990s, he created Consulting Professional Engineers Inc. to analyze and diagnose combustion-related events for civilian and government legal proceedings. Dr. Varney authored more than

100 technical publications and was a member of Georgia Tech’s Academy of Distinguished Engineering Alumni.

Gary Gordon Watson, AMath 61, MS IE 67, MS ICS 74, of Kennesaw, Ga., formerly of Marietta, on Oct. 30, of cancer. An Air Force veteran, he was stationed at Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls, Texas, from 1961 to 1964. He worked at Georgia Tech for 33 years in information technology, retiring in 1997. Survivors include his son Drew Watson, IE 91, MS Mgt 93, and his wife Leah, Mgt 92.

David Herman Webb Jr., Cls 61, of McDonough, Ga., on Nov. 8. Mr. Webb served in the Air Force during the Korean War and

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and a member of the Institute Radio Communication Board.

In his faculty bio, Dr. Leach listed among his hobbies “unraveling the riddles of loudspeakers and audio amplifiers, writing and growing grass” as a landscaping enthusiast. worked as an aircraft mechanic for Delta Air Lines for 30 years. Mr. Webb also was a retired bailiff for the magistrate court of Morrow, Ga. He was a past president of the South Metro Atlanta Georgia Tech Club.

1970s

Yehuda Menachem Ben-Yaacov, EE 71, MS EE 73, MS NE 76, of Douglasville, Ga., in February 2010.

Robert David Bernstein, CE 76, of Seattle, on Nov. 3, of pancreatic cancer. Mr. Bernstein, who earned a master’s degree in civil engineering from Northwestern University, was a transportation engineer and planner and an avid cyclist. Memorials in his name

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In Memoriam

may be made to Georgia Tech’s School of Civil and Environmental Engineering external advisory board fund.

William Craig “Bill” Dart, GMgt 72, of St. Simons Island, Ga., on Oct. 29. He began a career in the seafood business as a deckhand on a king crab fishing boat. He worked for SeaPak Shrimp Co. and was a partner in Marine Foods before founding Waterway Foods International, a food brokerage business in St. Simons at which he worked until his death. He volunteered as a youth league coach in Glynn County and was active in community alcohol and drug recovery programs. A member of Alpha Tau Omega fraternity while at Tech, Mr. Dart rode around St. Simons Island in a golf cart with a horn that played Ramblin’ Wreck. Mr. Dart’s survivors include his children, Casey Igel, Mgt 98; Jessica Dart, Psy 99; Matt Dart, IE 03; and Beau Dart, Mgt 09, and son-in-law Eric Igel, CE 99.

Charles Rogers “Chuck” Floyd Jr., Econ 78, of Peachtree City, Ga., on Oct. 27.

Mr. Floyd received a law degree from Suffolk University in Boston and was a practicing attorney in metro Atlanta and in Philadelphia. He became chief magistrate judge of Fayette County in 2002. A football player at Tech, he enjoyed tennis and golf and ran his first marathon at the age of 48. He was a member of the Georgia Tech Bar Association.

Darrel E. Knaus, MS ICS 79, of Bedford, Texas, on March 13.

Mark A. Sciora, AE 72, of Old Bridge, N.J., on Oct. 13. He retired after 40 years as an operating and aeronautical engineer. An avid drag racer, he had raced at Raceway Park in Old Bridge.

1980s Mark Thomas Henderson, ICS 89, a resident of Ball Ground, Ga., on Oct. 1. Mr. Henderson, who received an MBA from Georgia State University, was a business analyst and project manager at Abel Solutions in Alpharetta. He was part of Leadership North Fulton 2009-10.

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on Oct. 27. A behavioral psychologist, she served a postdoctoral fellowship at the Scripps Clinic in San Diego and later was awarded a fellowship at Harvard Medical School. She remained in the greater Boston area working with teens and adults, most recently as clinical director with the Justice Resource Institute’s Disability Services in Framingham. She was an avid runner and reader of 18th century English literature.

Survivors include her husband, Rhea T. Eskew Jr., MS Psy 80, PhD Psy 83.

Thomas “Ben” Settle Jr., AE 85, of Arlington, Texas, on Oct. 14. Mr. Settle spent most of his career at Bell Helicopter Textron and most recently worked for Elbit Systems of America as the program manager for unmanned aerial systems. He was a member of the Tau Beta Pi engineering honor society and American Helicopter Society. He published papers on tilt-rotor helicopters and held a related patent.

1990s Charles David Boyer, Phys 94, of Atlanta, on Nov. 22, after being shot in an attempted robbery by a masked gunman in the Virginia-Highland neighborhood of Atlanta. A co-op student while at Georgia Tech, Mr. Boyer worked as a computer engineer in California before returning to Atlanta and running a business selling cell phones. An avid Yellow Jackets fan, he attended a men’s basketball game with his father the week before his death, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

James Edward “Jim” Creech, M Arch 97, of Athens, Ga., on Oct. 17, from complications of adenoid cystic carcinoma. A historical architect, Mr. Creech’s more than 40year career included work with the federal government documenting archeological sites in Alaska and overseeing the restoration of Abraham Lincoln’s birthplace and his childhood home and with the National Park Service revitalizing the Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site in Alabama. He illustrated technical manuals after joining the Air Force in the 1960s. He received a bachelor’s degree from the Atlanta College of Art and a master of fine arts degree from the

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Elizabeth Ann “Beth” Judson, MS CerE 91, PhD MSE 99, of Roswell, Ga., on Oct. 26, after an airplane piloted by her husband crashed in Mississippi. Dr. Judson was a consultant to the University-Industry Demonstration Partnership of the National Academies and had been a general manager of a ceramic armor startup associated with Georgia Tech. She had worked with Alcoa and several small ceramic businesses in the Atlanta area. She served on the board of trustees of Alfred University, from which she received bachelor’s degrees in ceramic science and mathematics. She evaluated engineering departments at universities as a member of the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology. She and her husband helped launch St. Brigid Catholic Church in Johns Creek, Ga., and served on the board at Blessed Trinity Catholic High School in Roswell. Dr. Judson was a founder and trustee of Southern Catholic College in Dawsonville, Ga. A choir member at her church, she had served as executive director of the Georgia Regional Girls Choir.

2000s

Lonnie Harvel, PhD CS 05, a resident of Watkinsville, Ga., on Nov. 4. He was the vice president of educational technology and an associate professor of technology at Georgia Gwinnett College, where he was one of the four charter cabinet members. He had been a senior research scientist in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech, at which he later served as director of the Digital Media Lab, associate director of the Center for Distributed Engineering Education and an affiliate member of the Graphics, Visualization and Usability Center. His research included the development of distributed education architectures and applications, mobile interaction, telepresence, context analysis systems and context-based content filtering. He received a bachelor’s degree in theater and a master’s in computer science from the University of Georgia. A member of the Society for Creative Anachronism, he was referred to as Lord Aoghann Mac Gumrait during re-enactments.

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Yellow Jackets

Rocket Man Sean Bedford’s success on the gridiron and in the classroom makes him a finalist for the Lowe’s Senior CLASS Award

By Van Jensen

F

rom a young age, Sean Bedford had two passions that were as intense as they were seemingly contradictory. Growing up in Gainesville, Fla., Bedford loved the space program. At age 6 he started building model rockets, launching them and watching them disappear into the sky. A couple of years later he made the first of three trips to space camp.

Bedford was just as fervent in his passion for football. Though undersized, he starred at Buchholz High School as a hardworking defensive lineman. His senior season he racked up 79 tackles, eight sacks, five forced fumbles and a blocked kick and was named scholar athlete of the year by the Gainesville Sun. Bedford, also the student body president, finished his high school football career having led the team to two district titles and being named to the all-state team.

But because of his limited size, he received no scholarship offers from Division I teams. Bedford did have an outstanding academic record, though, and his mother convinced him to apply for Georgia Tech’s President’s Scholarship Program.

“When I found out I was a semifinalist, I had an interview with Wade Barnes [ABiol 71],” Bedford said. “He was also a former walk-on, and he asked me if I had any interest [in playing football].

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He put in a call to Buddy Geis, then the wide receivers coach. I came to campus for a visit, and I fell in love.”

While Bedford decided to attend Tech because of its aerospace engineering program, he was happy to have a shot at collegiate football, even if he didn’t have a scholarship.

“Coming out of high school, it never crossed my mind” not to play, Bedford said. “I felt like I had something to prove.”

He joined the team for the 2006 season as a walk-on and redshirted under then-coach Chan Gailey. The next season, Bedford played on the scout team and made it into one game.

Battling through injuries on the field, Bedford was discovering just how tough academics are at the Institute.

“The engineering side is everything it’s promised to be,” he said. “It’s never been easy, but I wouldn’t want it to be. You have to come in with a good work ethic, and you really have to make an effort.”

He said his hardest class was System Dynamics and Controls, which offered challenging concepts and plenty of work.

Bedford’s academic load was all the more taxing because so much of his time was taken up by football.

“The thing about football that people don’t understand is the measurable time that goes into it,” he said. “We have practice then weightlifting then film study. Sometimes you don’t have enough January/February 2011

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time for sleep or homework. And after practicing, a lot of times you aren’t really in the mood for studying.”

Heading into his third season, Bedford was still a defensive lineman buried deep on the bench. He started to consider hanging up his cleats.

“I’d been injured a lot and hadn’t played much,” he said. “At the same time, school was getting really intense.”

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But Tech had fired Gailey and brought in Paul Johnson as head coach, and so Bedford decided to give the new regime a shot.

During August preseason practices, Bedford was playing with the defense scout team when he caught the eye of Johnson and new offensive line coach Mike Sewak.

“He kept his pad level low,” Sewak said. “That makes it easier to knock guys

off the ball. And he works hard in the weight room and moves his feet well.”

After practice, Johnson talked to Bedford and asked him to break down the team’s performance. Bedford obliged, using his academic side to dissect the Yellow Jackets’ strengths and weaknesses.

Before the next practice, Johnson called Bedford over. Bedford didn’t know that Johnson and Sewak were looking for a

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smart, hardworking player to join the offensive line.

“He said, ‘How about you come get some snaps with me?’” Bedford said.

“They gave me a white jersey, and I’ve been offense ever since.”

Bedford was named the team’s backup center. The role is the leader of the offensive line, reading the defense and directing teammates toward blocking assignments.

The analytical role fit Bedford perfectly.

“He came willingly and worked hard at it,” Sewak said. “His tenacity overcame some of his flaws. He’s smart, so he understands schemes, where the linebackers and safeties might attack. He’s a noexcuse-make kind of guy. He tries to work on things when we critique his play. He spends extra time on film work.”

Bedford played in two games in 2008 and continued to master Johnson’s complex triple-option offense. As for quitting the team, the thought never crossed his mind again, he said.

“The transition wasn’t that bad,” Bedford said. “We play very aggressive. The technique and attitude isn’t that different.

But there’s a much larger mental aspect.”

During Tech’s ACC championshipwinning 2009 season, Bedford started in all 14 games and helped the Yellow Jackets lead the ACC in rushing and total offense.

After the season he was named to the allconference team. And before that season, he’d finally earned the football scholarship he’d long sought.

Sewak explained that offensive linemen tend to be more intellectual — if a smidgen unhinged.

“It’s easy to throw and catch a ball,” Sewak said. “No one lines up in the middle of the street and says, ‘Let’s block each other,’ not anybody in their right mind, anyway.”

Bedford stands out among the linemen Sewak has coached in one respect: his vocabulary. Sewak said the team would be deep in a sweltering August practice, everyone exhausted, and Bedford would cut in with a quip full of $10 words.

“He broadened my vocabulary,” Sewak said. “But I make up my words too.”

That’s just one of Bedford’s nerdy habits.

“I’m a vocabulary snob,” he said. “I use a lot of words that people say aren’t really words. But I read the dictionary occasionally as a kid. Other than that, when I walk around campus I usually listen to history podcasts.”

While the Yellow Jackets struggled in Bedford’s final season, he continued to en

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joy success both on and off the field.

His academic work was recognized when he was named a finalist for the Lowe’s Senior CLASS Award, which honors senior athletes with outstanding academic records. The winner will be announced Jan. 10.

The award also recognized Bedford’s community service, which includes serving as a grand marshal at the Georgia Special Olympics opening ceremonies for the past three years and helping with a dance marathon fundraiser for Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.

In mid-December, it was announced that Bedford was the winner of the 2010 Burlsworth Trophy, awarded to the country’s most outstanding football walk-on.

Bedford’s play continues to earn accolades as well. For the second straight season, he was named to the All-ACC first team. Running back Anthony Allen also made the team.

Bedford also gained a little recognition from Brandon Swafford, ID 07, of Mtrain fame. Swafford filmed a short video about Bedford that jokingly exaggerates his obsession with aerospace engineering and features a cameo by his girlfriend. It includes a very off-key Bedford performing John Denver’s Leaving on a Jet Plane.

“I’m not sure if you noticed, but I can’t really play the guitar or sing,” Bedford noted. “Everyone seemed to like it, but my girlfriend was a little embarrassed.”

Having earned his aerospace engineering degree in December, Bedford now is trying to figure out what his future holds.

He’s bulked up to about 280 pounds, but he’s still a few inches too short and 20 or more pounds too light for the NFL. And he’s no longer set on the space industry as his career. Bedford credited his classes at Tech for broadening his horizons, and he’s applying to law schools to study technology and intellectual property law.

After spending so many years focused on his twin passions, is it really possible he’ll soon not be involved with football or space science?

“Those will always be part of my life in some form,” Bedford said.

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Sports Briefs

Georgia Tech Sports Information

Members of the 1990 championship football team were honored during halftime of Tech’s Nov. 13 game against Miami. Former coach Bobby Ross addressed the crowd.

1990 Championship Team Reunites

During halftime of the Nov. 13 football game against Miami, former Georgia Tech coach Bobby Ross led several members of the Yellow Jackets 1990 national championship team onto the field at Bobby Dodd Stadium.

The former players and coaches were reuniting for the 20th anniversary of the school’s last football title.

Tech finished with no losses and one tie in 1990, earning a top finish in the United Press International poll, which was voted on by the nation’s coaches. The Yellow Jackets had started the season unranked but finished with a 40-23 victory over Georgia and a 4521 drubbing of Nebraska in the Florida Citrus Bowl.

According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the final vote tallied by the coaches broke a tie between Georgia Tech and Colorado, which finished first in the Associated Press poll. The Yellow Jackets came out on top, 847 to 846.

Hewitt Works Through Growing Pains

After losing frontcourt stars Derrick Favors and Gani Lawal to the NBA draft, men’s basketball coach Paul Hewitt entered the 2010-11 season with an inexperienced but talented team.

Predictably, the season started out with both ups and downs.

“I didn’t really learn a lot” about the team early in the season, Hewitt said. “I know that we have very good potential ... but our focus sometimes can really betray us.”

Hewitt said that despite those struggles, if the team is able to learn from its mistakes, it could have a successful season.

“We are a team that is good enough to be one of the better 80

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teams in our league,” he said. “We’re a team that’s good enough to make it to the NCAA tournament. ... We just have to stay focused on that, that’s all.”

Lacrosse Enshrines First Hall of Fame Class

During Homecoming weekend in October, the Georgia Tech Lacrosse Club and the lacrosse affinity group celebrated 40 years of lacrosse at the Institute by inducting the first class in the new Georgia Tech Lacrosse Hall of Fame and Crease Club.

Twenty former players and coaches were honored in the ceremony. Fourteen were enshrined in the Hall of Fame, and six former players were inducted into the Crease Club, which honors lifetime achievement in the sport.

The initial class in the Crease Club is David Lapin, IE 83; Steven Laskowski, IE 84; Wade Lnenicka, GMgt 73; Sonny Pieper, Mgt 94; Craig Pritzker, IE 80; and Tristan Zaia, ME 83.

The Hall of Fame will induct a new class every five years.

Jumpers Shine in First Meet of Season

In their first meet of the 2010-11 indoor track and field season, the Georgia Tech men’s and women’s teams excelled at the Orange and Purple Winter Classic at Clemson in early December.

Yellow Jacket jumpers combined for two of Tech’s three firstplace finishes. The other came in the pole vault.

In the high jump, Mykhail Chambers earned a first-place finish.

Omar Morrison took home the title in the long jump. Pole vaulters Joanna Wright and Erica Penk tied at 3.7 meters. Wright took home the victory in a jump-off.

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Montgomery on Naismith Watch List

Georgia Tech senior forward Alex Montgomery was named to the preseason Naismith Trophy watch list.

The Naismith Trophy is the nation’s most prestigious award presented annually to the women’s college basketball player of the year. The recipient will be awarded April 4 at the NCAA Women’s Final Four in Indianapolis.

“I am so excited that Alex Montgomery is finally receiving this type of recognition,” head coach MaChelle Joseph said. “She is very deserving of this honor.”

Montgomery, a Tacoma, Wash., native, is the leading returning scorer for the Yellow Jackets. She finished the 2009-10 season with 11.9 points per game and six rebounds per game.

“I am extremely excited to be included on the Naismith Trophy watch list,” Montgomery said. “There are a lot of great players included. It is an opportunity for me to really show that I am a leader of our team by stepping up the consistency in my game and bringing energy to our team every day.”

The Atlanta Tipoff Club’s Board of Selectors compiled the watch list.

In February, the club will announce its midseason list of the top 30 players, and in March it will narrow the list to four finalists.

Montgomery was named ACC player of the week on Dec. 6 after scoring 20.7 points per game in leading Tech to a 3-0 week.

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Eric Mansfield

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In Retrospect

‘Firearms Should Be Deposited With the Professor in Charge’ Tech students these days don’t know how good they have it.

Sure, parking on campus is scarce, and dining in the food court can get pricey. But at least they can play a game of Texas hold ’em in their dorm rooms without worrying about getting kicked out of school.

A feature on 125 pieces of Tech history published in the September/October issue of the Alumni Magazine prompted John C. Cerny, ME 51, MS IM 56, to share with Alumni Publications some items from the Institute’s past not included in the list, such as a 1903-04 handbook given to students.

4 Each student should have two suits of overalls, costing about $1 each.

4 The rising bell will ring in the hall at 6:15 a.m. daily, except on Sunday.

4 Requests for permission to be off limits must be submitted in writing to the professor in charge before 8 a.m., except on Sundays, then before 9 a.m., who will pass upon them and return through the mail.

4 Rooms must be in order, beds made up, floors swept and students dressed at 6:40 a.m., when the inspection bell rings.

4 Students will state in their request for leave of absence the hours desired for departure and return, and where they wish to go, giving name and street number.

4 Leaving before the hour of departure, or returning after the leave expires, will be punished by confinement, expulsion from the dormitory or dismissal from the school.

4 No leaves will be granted for theaters, or during the week for religious exercises, without written requests from students’ parents.

4 Getting a leave of absence for one place and then going to another will be regarded as a false statement, and is punishable by expulsion from the school.

4 Students will be allowed to exercise on their wheels during the day without permits.

4 The time at the dormitory will be regulated by the shop whistle.

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“A list of warnings included that ‘students found with playing cards in their possession would be suspended from the school,’” Cerny wrote in a letter to the editor, which begins on page 11.

A copy of the Annual Announcement to which Cerny was referring was found on a trip to the library’s archives along with a collection of regulations booklets from later years containing many of the same guidelines.

Here are some rules and regulations from the 1903-04 and 190405 editions that had the Alumni Magazine staff either laughing out loud or scratching their heads.

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4 The bell for breakfast will ring at 6:45 a.m., except on Sunday, when the rising, inspection and breakfast bells will ring one hour later.

4 At 7 p.m. the bell for call to quarters will ring. Then all students must go to their rooms for study.

4 Five minutes after call to quarters there will be an inspection, after which no student will be allowed to visit without special permission from the professor in charge. Visiting will be allowed on Friday and Saturday nights, after the usual inspection.

4 At 10:15 p.m. the bell for retiring will ring, and all lights must be out and students in bed at the second bell, which will ring at 10:30.

4 The general weekly inspection will be held every Saturday at 9 a.m., at which all students not on duty are required to be present.

4 Any student found with intoxicating liquors in his possession will be suspended from the school. In case such liquors

are found in any room in the dormitory, the orderly of the room will be held responsible.

4 Students found with firearms in their possession will be suspended from the school.

4 Firearms should be deposited with the professor in charge.

4 Students will not be allowed to use the bathroom after call to quarters, except on Fridays and Saturdays.

4 No student will be excused from his duties on account of sickness unless his name is reported on the sick list by the division inspector to the professor in charge, who will summon a physician. A fee of $1 is charged for each visit of the physician. In case a student is taken sick during the day, he shall report immediately to the president, or in his absence, to the professor in charge.

4 Students must patronize the laundry.

4 Absences of all students will be mailed to parents weekly.

4 Any student found engaging in any disorder, boisterous conduct, whistling, running through the halls or shops or smoking in any of the buildings, except the dormitories, shall receive such penalties as the faculty may direct.

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4 No ball playing will be allowed on the campus between the following hours: 8 a.m. to noon, and 1 to 4 p.m. Violations of this regulation will be punished as the faculty may direct.

scene language are subject to such punishment as the faculty may direct.

4 All ball playing on the campus must be confined to the space south of the terrace in front of the academic building and east of the terrace in front of the Swann Dormitory.

4 Members of fraternities will be allowed to leave Saturday nights, not later than 12 o’clock, to attend meetings of their fraternities. Each student must report his departure and return to the officer of the day, and must return to the school within a reasonable time after adjournment of the meetings.

4 Students using profane, indecent or ob-

4 Gambling of any description will be pun

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ished by expulsion from the school.

4 Athletic teams shall not be allowed to visit other places except to play games with educational institutions.

4 Steps leading to the bathroom and gymnasium from the first floor shall be off limits except during hours specified.

4 Students are prohibited from the use of tobacco while on duty and from spitting on the walls and floors of the buildings. — Leslie Overman

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Calendar

January

Swan Lake will

be performed by the renowned State Ballet Theatre of Russia at the Ferst Center for the Arts. ferstcenter.gatech.edu

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Night at the Wizards will

allow members of the Washington, D.C. Georgia Tech Club to catch up with former Yellow Jackets Derrick Favors and Anthony Morrow as their New Jersey Nets face the Washington Wizards. gtalumni.org/events

Hinman Research Building grand opening will unveil the

preserved and revitalized 1939 building. coa.gatech.edu

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February Caribbean

pleasures will be on tap during an Alumni Travel cruise to Antigua, the Bahamas and other sunny locales. gtalumni.org/tours

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 Cirque Mechanics

will take the Ferst Center stage as acrobats fly, climb and contort their way through a Wild West mining town. ferstcenter. gatech.edu

Margaret Guthman New Musical Instrument Competition will pit inventors against each other in the quest to design the top new instrument. gtcmt.coa.gatech.edu

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