Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine, Vol. 95 No. 3, Fall 2019 by Georgia Tech Alumni Association

“I attribute most of my success in business and in life to my studies, and to the discipline I developed at Georgia Tech.” —James W. Wesley Jr., IM 1955, and Rozelle Vanda Wesley Jim Wesley is the rare individual who turned a childhood dream

working in the area of heart research. “I hope research and

into a successful career. “From age 8, I wanted to be a radio

development in artificial heart valves will result from this gift,”

announcer,” he said. “I read books on the subject, visited local

Wesley said.

radio stations, and watched announcers work — this led to a

Jim and Rozelle met later in life, after the deaths of their

weekend announcing job at a small local station at age 17.”

previous spouses. Jim has two sons, four grandsons, and three

Wesley, who earned an industrial management degree from

great-grandchildren from his first marriage to Mary Wesley;

the Institute in 1955, helped pay his way through school as a

Rozelle has a son and daughter and two granddaughters from

radio announcer. After graduation, Wesley continued in radio,

her first marriage. Rozelle is from Cape Town, South Africa,

moving into sales and eventually management positions. He

and has traveled the world, living in several countries including

served as executive vice president of radio for Cox Broadcasting,

Namibia, Angola, and Germany. She spent 25 years organizing

president and CEO of DKM Broadcasting, and was co-founder

and leading African safaris. Rozelle and Jim now live in Atlanta

and CEO of Patterson Broadcasting, a conglomerate of radio and

but share a love of travel and “have seized every opportunity to

cable television stations. Wesley retired from Patterson in 1998.

further [our] dreams together,” Rozelle said.

Wesley and his wife, Rozelle, have remembered Georgia

One of those dreams is wrapped up in the gift to Georgia

Tech through a generous estate commitment within the Coulter

Tech. “I am reminded 100,000 times a day, with every heartbeat,

Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME). The Rozelle

of the importance of heart research as a result of my own

Vanda Wesley Endowment Fund will support a professor

experience with an aortic valve replacement,” Wesley said.

Founders’ Council is the honorary society recognizing donors who have made estate or life-income gifts of $25,000 or more for the support of Georgia Tech. For more information, please contact: 404.894.4678 • giftplanning@dev.gatech.edu • plannedgiving.gatech.edu

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MEETINGS. CONFERENCES. TRAINING.

PUBLISHER’S LETTER

A NEW ACADEMIC YEAR, A NEW START

A N OT H E R A C A D E M I C Y E A R is well underway at Georgia Tech, and once again we’ve welcomed an impressive incoming class of first-year students. These 3,105 enrolled scholars—43 percent of them female—truly push the boundaries of academic achievement, averaging 1400–1530 on the SAT and 31–34 on the ACT. In addition, we have also welcomed hundreds of new students who may not step foot on Tech’s campus until they graduate—members of the latest cohorts for our online master’s programs in computer science, analytics and cybersecurity. Your Alumni Association is already making connections with these students (we like to think of them as future alumni) through outreach programs like the Student Alumni Association (SAA), which is the largest student organization at Tech. SAA is geared to connect them with alumni and prepare them for a lifelong relationship with the Institute. We look forward to the day they graduate and become part of our rapidly growing network of Ramblin’ Wrecks around the world. Though Tech is rooted in traditions that have stood for decades—the Wreck, the Whistle, George P. Burdell and so many more—the Institute always welcomes new faces and change. After all, Yellow Jackets are trained to adapt, innovate and embrace opportunities to make the world a better place. It’s what we do; it’s how we’re wired. Speaking of new faces, all of our students, faculty and staff welcomed a new

leader to campus, too. Georgia Tech’s 12th President, Ángel Cabrera, MS Psy 93, PhD Psy 95, hit the ground running at the beginning of September, his first week packed with important tasks. They ranged from presiding over the dedication of new statues honoring four of Tech’s African-American trailblazers (page 21), to enjoying his first ride in the Ramblin’ Wreck at the football team’s opening home game against USF (a win, no less!). Be sure to read the in-depth look at the man and his career in this issue of the Alumni Magazine (page 10), where you’ll also get to know a little more about our first lady and fellow alum Dr. Beth Cabrera, MS Psy 93, PhD Psy 95, and their children Alex, CS 19, and Emilia. While I also may be a new face to many of you readers, I’m not new to Georgia Tech. Not only am I an alumnus, but also for the past 12 years I have been fortunate to serve in the Institute’s government relations office, representing Tech and sharing its success stories with elected officials all across Georgia and in Washington, D.C. I am a proud Ramblin’ Wreck through and through, and I am excited about my new role as president of the Alumni Association. I will strive to balance the time-honored traditions of the Institute with innovative new ways of serving all of its alumni. Stop by and see us sometime at the Alumni House!

DENE SHEHEANE, MG T 91 PRESIDENT GEORGIA TEC H ALUMNI ASSOCIATION

GEORGIA TECH ALUMNI MAGAZINE VOL. 95 | NO. 3 PRESIDENT & PUBLISHER Dene Sheheane, Mgt 91

VP MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS Dawn Churi

EDITOR Roger Slavens

DESIGNER Karen Matthes

CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Melissa Fralick

COPY EDITOR Barbara McIntosh Webb

COMMUNICATIONS INTERN Nora Powell

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Chair Brent Zelnak, Mgt 94 Past Chair, Finance Bird Blitch, IE 97 Chair of Roll Call and Gold & White Jocelyn Stargel, IE 82, MS IE 86 Vice Chair of Engagement Shan Pesaru, CmpE 05 Member at Large Rita Breen, Psy 90, MS IE 91 Member at Large Garett Langley, EE 09 Member at Large Sheri Prucka, EE 82, MS EE 84 Member at Large Magd Riad, IE 01

BOARD OF TRUSTEES Michelle Adkins, IM 83; Clint Bailey, TE 97; Carlos Barroso, ChE 80; Amrit Bhavinani, CM 09; Trevor Boehm, ME 99, MS ME 04; Jeff Bogdan, Mgt 88, MS MOT 98; Jason Byars, ME 96; Randy Cain, IE 91; Alina Capanyda, IE 10; Aurelien Cottet, MS AE 03; Andre Dickens, ChE 98; Scott Hall, ME 96; Tim Holman, MS EE 88, PhD EE 94; Keith Jackson, Mgt 88; Joy Jordan, ChE 92; Mary Beth Lake, IE 04; Juan Michelena, TE 85; Angela Mitchell, PTCH 04; Jerald C. Mitchell, MBA 11; Alex Muñoz, Mgt 88; Anu Parvatiyar, BME 08; Blake Patton, IE 93; Debra Porter, ME 86; Bert Reeves Jr., Mgt 00; Amy Rich, MBA 12; Jean Marie Richardson, Mgt 02; David Sotto, BME 09, PhD BioE 15; James Stovall, CS 01; Betty Tong, ME 93, MS ME 95; Kate Tyler, MS CE 09; Brian Tyson, EE 10; Jef Wallace, Mgt 94; Kristin Watkins, Mgt 13; Sam Westbrook, IE 99; Stephenie Whitfield, Bio 93; Bruce Wilson, EE 78, MS EE 80

ADVERTISING Justin Estes (404) 683-9599 justin.estes@alumni.gatech.edu

GEORGIA TECH ALUMNI MAGAZINE (ISSN: 1061-9747) is published quarterly by the Georgia Tech Alumni Association, 190 North Ave. N.W., Atlanta, GA 30313. Periodical postage paid in Atlanta and additional mailing offices. © 2019 Georgia Tech Alumni Association

POSTMASTER Send address changes to: Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine, 190 North Ave. N.W., Atlanta, GA 30313.

TELEPHONE

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Georgia Tech Alumni Association (404) 894-2391

VOLUME 95 ISSUE 3

FEATURES 46

TEC H

Read about 100 of the Instituteâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most fascinating alumni, students, teachers, researchers, campus leaders, big ideas and traditions right now. ON THE COVER

PHOTOGRAPH BY CHRISTOPHER MOORE

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | FALL 2019

VOLUME 95

DEPARTMENTS

ISSUE 3

WHERE YELLOW JACKETS HISTORY COMES TO LIFE A Tech-centric tour of the College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta unleashes nostalgic memories of gridiron greatness.

PHOTOGRAPH

KAYLINN GILSTRAP

CONTENTS

AROUND CAMPUS Meet the President 10 Talk of Tech 20 MBA Triple Threat 24

ON THE FIELD Tech’s Gridiron Greatness 30 Athletics News 34

IN THE WORLD A Fairy Tale Bench 38 Jacket Copy 42 Dollars & Sense 44

ALUMNI HOUSE Homecoming 2019 78 Alumni Travel 80 Ramblin’ Roll 84 In Memoriam 90

100

TECH HISTORY 25 Years of Bringing the Past to Life 100 The Original Mr. Georgia Tech 104 Back Page 106

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | FALL 2019

VOLUME 95

AROUND CAMPUS

ISSUE 3

HAMMOCK HANGOUT On a beautiful late-summer evening on campus, student Alex Touchberry couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t pass up the chance to climb into a hammock on Tech Green and relax.

PHOTOGRAPH

DALTON TOUCHBERRY

MEET THE PRESIDENT

TALK OF TECH

MBA TRIPLE THREAT

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | FALL 2019

AROUND CAMPUS

MEET ÁNGEL CABRERA.

STUDENT. TEACHER. HUSBAND. FATHER. THINKER. DOER. ENGINEER. PSYCHOLOGIST. HIGHER EDUCATION ADMINISTRATOR. GLOBAL LEADER. TECH ALUMNUS. GEORGIA TECH’S 12TH PRESIDENT.

BY KELLEY FREUND

Á NGEL CA BRER A

took over the helm of Georgia

Nobel Prize–winning authors.

Tech on Sept. 1, 2019, following a dynamic period of

He’s also an active, energetic man who rides his

unprecedented growth and acclaim for the Institute. But

e-bike to work (you can’t miss his Tech gold helmet).

if there’s anyone who can take Tech’s stellar trajectory

Cabrera always takes time to stop and talk to students

even higher, it’s a Ramblin’ Wreck like Cabrera who

when he’s walking around campus—even if it’s in the

has a track record of excellence at the highest levels

middle of a magazine photo shoot (ahem)—because

of academic leadership. As the first Spanish president

he’s interested in getting to know them better. He

of an American university, he spurred George Mason

deeply cares about the student experience, because

University to Research 1 status, the youngest school

28 years ago, he was in their shoes trying to balance

in the country to reach that elite level, and he sees

life and studies at the Institute.

numerous opportunities for Tech to soar to new apogees.

The most important thing to know about Ángel Cabrera is that he’s the grandson of a teacher and a

But who is Cabrera as a person? If you ask his fam-

first-generation college student whose life was trans-

ily, they’ll tell you he’s the owner of a really ugly

formed by higher education. It’s why he has spent

pair of running shoes. And that his voracious curios-

the last 19 years making sure others have that same

ity once earned him the nickname “Angel Fish” on a

opportunity.

snorkeling trip. (He found the sea life so fascinating,

Find out how Cabrera went from a kid growing up

they had to drag him out of the water.) It’s this curios-

in a working-class neighborhood in Madrid to a grad-

ity that has made him suited to a career in education,

uate psychology student at Georgia Tech (where he

a life-long learner who is fluent in three languages

met the love of his life) to an alumnus returning to his

and is working his way through a pile of books by

university to serve as its president.

FALL 2019 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

Ă ngel Cabrera, MS Psy 93,

PHOTOGRAPH

ROB FELT

PhD Psy 95, returned to Georgia Tech in September to become the 12th President of his alma mater.

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | FALL 2019

AROUND CAMPUS

WHEN ÁNGEL CABRERA, MS Psy 93, PhD Psy 95, was a child, he and his three brothers spent their summers in their mother’s hometown of El Torno, a poor farming village in the secluded mountains of Extremadura between Spain and Portugal. The four Cabreras ran in the woods, swam in creeks and climbed trees, and if they got into trouble, they uttered a phrase that seemed to charm the people of the small town: “Soy el nieto de Don Cesáreo, el maestro.” Translation: “I am the grandson of Don Cesáreo, the teacher.” Don Cesáreo was the town’s only teacher, and the responsibility fell on him to educate all of El Torno. Whoever was scolding Cabrera and his brothers would immediately soften and begin to tell the boys how much they had learned from their grandfather, that everything they knew they owed to him. “I grew up thinking that being a teacher was the greatest thing anyone can do,” Cabrera says. “The way people

talked about my granddaddy was like he was king of the world.” Cabrera’s grandfather had a teaching certificate, but he never attended college—and neither did Cabrera’s parents. This was not unusual for the times. During the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, from 1939 until his death in 1975—higher education was reserved for a very lucky few. Cabrera’s father had to forgo college to work in the family business to earn money, and his mother didn’t even go to high school because her parents could only afford to educate one child. But there was no doubt that Cabrera and his brothers would go on to college.

“THE ONLY PLACE THAT REALLY WAS WILLING TO GIVE AN ENGINEER A GEORGIA TECH,” CABRERA SAYS. FALL 2019 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

ROB FELT

OFF TO COLLEGE—AND THE UNITED STATES Cabrera enrolled at the Universidad Politécnica of Madrid to study engineering. When he first began his

PHOTOGRAPH

CHANCE TO STUDY PSYCHOLOGY WAS

“My parents were adamant that studying was the most important thing,” Cabrera says. So when he wasn’t playing soccer or hiking with his Boy Scout troop, Cabrera was studying in the family’s small apartment in a working-class neighborhood on the outskirts of Madrid. He learned French and English, and even traveled to summer camps in France and England. And after Franco’s death, as the country made massive investments in public higher education, three of the four Cabrera boys took advantage of the opportunity to further their studies. “In just one generation, we went from a country where very few people could go to college to one pretty much on par with all the developed countries in terms of tertiary education attainment,” Cabrera says. “All of a sudden, social class and income was not the impediment to go to school.”

undergraduate program, he didn’t know there was such a thing as graduate school. It wasn’t until Cabrera began working more closely with some of his professors that he learned about dissertations and doctorates and discovered that one of his instructors had studied in America. “Many of the papers I read were coming from these great American universities,” Cabrera says. “So I started asking questions. How do you study in America? How do you pay for it? And then I learned about the Fulbright Scholarship.” The scholarship would pay for all four years of Cabrera’s master’s and doctoral education in the United States. He had originally planned to continue studying engineering, but while doing neural network research in Madrid, he became fascinated by how people think and how they solve problems. Cabrera decided he wanted to switch to psychology. While he had no problems getting into the top engineering schools in the United States, when he started looking into psychology programs, he was shot down. “The only place that really was willing to give an engineer a chance to study psychology was Georgia Tech,” he says. So he boarded a plane in 1991 with two suitcases. He had a moment of panic when the pilot came over the loudspeaker to address the passengers as they began their descent into New York City—Cabrera couldn’t understand a word he said. While he could read and write technical papers, it seemed his grasp on the spoken language wasn’t as strong. “And here I am, going to the United States to get a doctorate,” Cabrera says. “Not just to say, ‘Where’s the

bathroom?’ That was a moment when I thought, ‘This is going to be interesting.’” The first time Cabrera went out to a bar with his classmates, he felt the same panic. The bar was loud, people talked fast and most of the conversations were full of cultural references—a popular television ad or the reigning World Series champions. So Cabrera gravitated towards a group of international students from Mexico, Puerto Rico and Venezuela. They all spoke Spanish, and they played dominoes on the weekends. But this was not what Cabrera had in mind when he decided to study in America. He had begun his journey excited and curious about his new home. “So I decided I needed to go back and hang out with my other classmates and try to understand this country,” he says. “And I did such a great job getting to know the locals that I married one.” Her name was Beth Fraser, MS Psy 93, PhD Psy 95, and she had grown up in Florence, Ala. She was a year removed from Rhodes College in Memphis, Tenn., where she earned a degree in business administration, and she was at Georgia Tech to study industrial-organizational psychology. Before classes started, she received a list in the mail with the names of her fellow psychology classmates and noted the diversity. There was a guy from Japan— and a woman from Spain named Angel. When she attended an orientation barbecue hosted by department chair Andy Smith, a male student walked up to the house alongside her and introduced himself. “Hello, my name is Ángel.” Beth scanned the list in her head. Ángel? “Oh! You’re Angel!”

PRESIDENTIAL BRIEF NAME:

Ángel Cabrera (first name is pronounced Ahn-hel)

TITLE:

12th President of the Georgia Institute of Technology

A G E : 52 COUNTRY OF B I R T H : Spain DE G R E E S :

Telecom Engineer (equivalent to Bachelor's and Master's in Electrical and Computer Engineering), Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (1990); Master’s (1993) and PhD (1995) in Psychology, Georgia Tech

FORMER ACADEMIC POSTS:

President of George Mason University (2012–1019); President of Thunderbird School of Global Management (2004–2012)

SPOUSE:

Beth Fraser Cabrera, MS Psy 93, PhD Psy 95

CHILDREN:

Alex Cabrera, CS 19, and Emilia Cabrera

Cabrera claims Beth was the smartest person in the cohort, but Beth insists it was him. They had a stats class together, a 6-hour course on quantitative research methods and data analysis that all psychology students were required to take. And then there was Cabrera, an engineer who excelled in math. GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | FALL 2019

AROUND CAMPUS

“He had to get up and help the professor finish some of the problems on the board at times,” Beth says. “And then he would ask us questions. We’d think, ‘This is so far over our heads. Please stop.’” But Beth liked how smart he was. She liked his accent. And she thought he was cute. Turns out Cabrera was thinking the same things about her. “She had traveled a lot with her family—to Europe and Russia and Australia,” he says. “Not many of our classmates had been outside the United States, so I was intrigued by that. And she was beautiful.” Once Cabrera decided to stop playing dominoes with his fellow Spanish speakers, he went out every Friday with his fellow psychology classmates and professors at Limerick Junction, and that’s how he and Beth got to know each other. During the fall of their second year at Georgia Tech, Cabrera asked her to go hear the Spanish Symphony at the new Ferst Center. “At the time, we both didn’t think this was anything serious,” Beth says. “I just thought it would be cool to go see the Spanish Symphony with a Spaniard. After all, he was going back to Spain in three years. We just thought it was fun.” BUILDING A FAMILY AND A CAREER But that mindset changed quickly. The couple started dating, and they were married in March of their third year at Georgia Tech. When they finished their doctorates in 1995, they moved to Spain. Beth became a professor at a new university outside Madrid that was open to faculty who would teach courses in English. She wound up teaching as much in Spanish as she did in English and was the first American to receive 14

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Top: The Cabrera family celebrates Alex's graduation from Georgia Tech in May. Right: Emilia and Alex at Tech Square years ago.

tenure at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, which is now one of the top schools in Spain and an exchange partner with Georgia Tech. Cabrera took a job with Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) and quickly became a manager. But higher education was still in the back of his mind, and, after a few twists and turns, he ended up teaching organizational behavior at IE Business School in Madrid in 1998. A couple of years into teaching, at the age of 33, Cabrera was promoted to dean. Under his leadership, the school recruited over 20 professors from the United States, launched programs taught in English, and tripled its enrollment of international students. The school, once known only in Spain and Latin American communities, started going up in the ranks. (Today, it’s among the best in Europe.) Cabrera did so well growing the programs at IE that in 2004, he was approached by a business school in Arizona—the Thunderbird School of Global Management (now part of Arizona State University). They offered him the job of president. By this time, the Cabreras had two

children, Alex and Emilia, and the couple thought it was time for them to get to know their other home country. “Plus, honestly, in academia, American higher education is like the NBA in basketball,” says Cabrera. “That’s where the best universities are, it’s where the action is. So, when I was given the opportunity to run a business school in the U.S., I said, ‘Count me in.’” A MAN OF STRONG CONVICTIONS After reading Born to Run, a book that describes how its author Christopher McDougall modeled his running after a Mexican tribe who runs in thin sandals, Cabrera went out and purchased a pair of bright yellow-green Vibram FiveFinger shoes. According to the research behind barefoot running, such shoes allow feet to perform naturally, which prevents injuries. And, according to Cabrera’s family, they are incredibly ugly. But Cabrera insists on wearing them when he runs. He’s also worn them on the Great Wall of China, in the Grand Tetons, the Grand Canyon and wherever he’s hiking. Beth says it embarrasses

her and the kids, but Cabrera doesn’t seem to care that people are staring at his feet. To him, these shoes are the best way to run. So he wears them. “He has never done what anyone else has wanted him to, which believe me, as his wife, that’s very frustrating,” Beth jokes. In his personal life, Cabrera’s Vibram shoes are a humorous example of how he is always completely himself, standing up for what he thinks it right, even if it’s not a popular opinion. But his tenure at George Mason University (GMU) provides a more serious example of how those qualities have made him a successful leader in higher education. In 2017, five years into his presidency at GMU, questions arose about the future of the several hundred children of undocumented immigrants who were then GMU students. Cabrera asked his team to do whatever possible to support the students and even wrote a blog post about the issue. Around the office, some staff pushed back—the topic was too political. But Cabrera argued that the issue was central to the university’s access mission and GMU needed to stand firm on its commitment to serving students. Just as it had stood firm the prior year amid criticisms over the decision to name the law school after U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia following two major gifts received in his honor. Some people opposed the naming because of the conservative ideology they associated with Scalia. But rejecting the Scalia name on ideological grounds, Cabrera defended, would run against the university’s commitment to diversity of ideas and freedom of thought. As long as we are consistent with our core values as a university, he always argued,

we can take whatever criticism comes our way. “Integrity is paramount to him,” Beth says. “If he feels that something is the right thing to do, it doesn’t matter if everyone else in the room doesn’t want him to do it.”

CHAMPIONING ACCESS TO HIGHER ED The idea of access to education is one Cabrera has been championing throughout his higher education career. Among his most memorable moments from his time at George Mason is when he was invited to speak in front of the

MEET THE FIRS T FAMILY DR. BETH FRASER CABRERA, MS PSY 93, PHD PSY 95

In addition to being Georgia Tech’s new first lady, Beth is an academic thought leader—her research focusing on applying the science of well-being to the workplace. Through her company Cabrera Insights, she teaches leadership courses and gives seminars and keynote speeches on building positive work environments. In 2015, she published the book Beyond Happy: Women, Work, and Well-Being, she has given a TEDx Talk on the power of positivity and she is the author of a streaming course, “How to Build a Thriving Workplace: A Leader’s Guide,” available through The Great Courses company. “Today there are norms we have in our society that are hurting our well-being,” Beth says. “The workplace is more demanding, and we’re expected to be ‘on’ 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And through technology, our ever-present smart devices, we have lost the ability to disconnect. People are looking for something to improve their life, and I think positive psychology has answers for that.”

ALEX CABRERA, CS 19

After graduating as a Stamps Scholar from Tech in 2019 with a bachelor’s degree in computer science and a minor in economics, Alex is now pursuing a PhD at Carnegie Mellon University, researching how people work with artificial intelligence and developing systems that improve interactions. “That interest developed primarily due to research I conducted at Georgia Tech, where I worked on a system that helps data scientists find potential biases in their machine learning models,” Alex says. “I’m continuing this type of research at Carnegie Mellon, and may end up following my parents’ path into academia.”

EMILIA CABRERA

Emilia is currently a junior at Harvard, where she is also studying computer science. She’s not sure what she wants to do following graduation, but says that if her family has any say in the matter, she’ll be pursuing a graduate degree, perhaps at Georgia Tech so she can have that Tech degree like the rest of the family. “For me, computer science has always been the most useful tool in investigating the world around us,” Emilia says. “I believe it can be applied to practically any field and can leverage mass amounts of computing power to solve problems that have never before been within our reach to solve.”

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | FALL 2019

AROUND CAMPUS On his first official day on the job, Cabrera was kept busy with events and meetings all across campus.

Lincoln Memorial to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s March on Washington. In his speech honoring the legacy of a man who devoted this life to social change, Cabrera expressed his strong personal belief that no one should be denied access to higher education for reasons other than their talent and willingness to work hard. Not surprisingly, Cabrera saw himself in many of the students at George Mason University. Forty percent of those enrolled are first-generation college students, and many are immigrants or come from working-class families. When Cabrera joined GMU in 2012, some wanted it to be recognized as a top research university and didn’t necessarily want to focus its messaging on the diversity of the school and the educational access it provided to those groups. But Cabrera fought back and asked the community to look at George Mason’s diversity and mission of access as an asset. “I did a lot of work to engage the community in a conversation about what we were about and crafted a vision around this notion of access to excellence,” Cabrera says. “What’s unique about Mason was that it was one of the most diverse universities in the United States, a minority-majority institution, and that it delivered consistently strong outcomes across demographics. We should have been incredibly proud of that. In fact, we needed to lead with that.” During Cabrera’s seven years at George Mason, the school was reclassified as an R1 institution (Research 1-Doctoral Universities with very high research activity), the youngest of its kind in the country. He helped to launch 33 new degree programs, headed up the school’s most successful 16

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PHOTOGRAPHS

ROB FELT

fundraising campaign ever, and left GMU as the largest, fastest-growing public university in Virginia. Throughout all of it, he never forgot the people at the heart of those accomplishments. “Ultimately our mission is about serving students,” he says. “Administrators sometimes lose track of that, getting lost in priorities and all the pressures you’re under. But you have to keep grounding yourself in the students— who they are, their fears, their wishes, their aspirations.” A SPECIAL KIND OF HOMECOMING In many ways, the Cabreras never even left Georgia Tech. In fact, when Cabrera started his presidency at the school in September and was given his new email address, the handle was AC50. “I’m the president,” he said. “Can’t I get an easier username than AC50?” The staff explained that this was his username while he was a grad student An alias was created, but technically, Cabrera’s address is the same one he used 28 years ago. And while he and Beth only lived in Atlanta for four years in graduate school, Georgia Tech and its host city have always felt like home. They’ve tuned in from afar, watching football games on TV from their previous homes in Spain, Arizona and Northern Virginia, but they’ve also stopped by on the way to Beth’s hometown in Alabama, visiting with college friends who still live here. Cabrera has long served on the Georgia Tech Advisory Board, which increased their campus visits, as did Alex’s enrollment at Tech as a student. This long history at the institution makes Cabrera’s appointment all the more special—it’s one thing to start a new job, quite another to start one at a

place you’ve known and loved for years. Cabrera is thrilled to be returning “home,” but he’s also enthusiastic about the opportunities available to Georgia Tech as one of the top engineering and technological research universities, and as the school continues to attract faculty and students from all over the world. The research being done at Tech is leading to breakthroughs in fields ranging from artificial intelligence to health and business, and, as Cabrera put it when he gave his Institute Address in early September, the school and Atlanta have become a hub of technology and innovation that holds answers to some of the world’s most pressing issues. But Cabrera is quick to point out that innovation is not just about technology, and that technology in a vacuum isn’t going to cut it at Georgia Tech. “It’s technology that becomes a viable business, that influences better policies, technology that is designed with the understanding of the economic implications,” he says. “I’m excited to be at a technological university that carries that name in its title, but to have the full impact of what that means, we need to be equally strong in all those other programs.” While much has changed since Cabrera’s student days in the School of Psychology as a grad student, he says that the Institute culture he experienced is still very recognizable on today’s campus. He looks forward to spending more time with students and faculty to understand their current needs as well as their aspirations for the Institute’s future. PLANNING GEORGIA TECH’S FUTURE The arrival of a new president provides a natural opportunity for change—and for the university to take a step back and

CABRERA ON HIGHER ED’S BIGGEST ISSUES ÁNGEL CABRERA HAS SPENT T H E PA S T 19 Y E A R S L E A D I N G HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS, HELPING TO GROW THEIR ENROLLMENT AND PROGRAMMING, RAISING FUNDS AND REMOVING BARRIERS TO LEARNING. IT HASN’T BEEN AN EASY JOB. HERE HE NAMES THE TOUGHEST CHALLENGES FACING UNIVERSITIES ACROSS THE U.S. TODAY.

ADAPTING EDUCATION

“Institutions have been slow at adapting higher education in the last couple of years,” he says. “Georgia Tech has demonstrated what can happen when you actually embrace technology, with the first accredited online master’s program in computer science. followed by analytics and cybersecurity. What does this mean for the rest of the Institute?”

COLLEGE ENROLLMENT

“The United States used to lead the Western world in tertiary education in terms of participation,” Cabrera says. “We no longer do. We need to figure out what Georgia Tech can do about that.”

STUDENT DIVERSITY

“Throughout my career, it has become clear to me that diversity makes a community stronger, smarter, and more resilient,” he says. “When we listen to, learn from and collaborate with people who have different experiences and perspectives—who bring different strengths— we see opportunities and find solutions that would be invisible from only one wavelength. Promoting diversity will be an important part of my work because it’s the right thing to do and because it makes all of us better.”

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | FALL 2019

AROUND CAMPUS

decide what the next decade will look like. Cabrera says the most important thing he’ll work on in the first few months is developing a new strategic plan. Georgia Tech’s current strategic map is now nine years old and had a 25-year horizon, so Cabrera insists the Institute is due for a rethink. He plans on having broad conversations across the Tech community in the coming months that will not only help him become more acquainted with every aspect of the Institute, but also give him an idea of the type of university we want to become. As some of those conversations have already taken place, Cabrera has noticed the issues most pressing on people’s minds and understands that work will need to take place in the years to come to tackle these big problems that are affecting universities across the country. These include creating an environment of diversity and inclusion and focusing on student well-being, including the curtailing of sexual violence on campus and increasing resources for

SPANISH HERITAGE ÁNGEL CABRERA WAS BORN AND RAISED IN SPAIN. AFTER HE AND BETH MET WHEN THEY WERE STUDENTS AT TECH AND THEN GOT MARRIED, THE CABRERAS SPENT 10 Y E A R S L I V I N G A S A FAMILY IN THE COUNTRY. HERE ARE A FEW OF THE SPANISH TRADITIONS THAT FOLLOWED THEM BACK TO THE U.S.

FALL 2019 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

“INTEGRITY IS PARAMOUNT TO HIM,” SAYS BETH CABRERA. “IF HE FEELS THAT SOMETHING IS THE RIGHT THING TO DO, IT DOESN’T MATTER IF EVERYONE ELSE IN THE ROOM DOESN’T WANT HIM TO DO IT.” students dealing with mental health issues. Beth Cabrera has done a lot of work in the area of well-being, and she’s hoping to be able to volunteer her time to help in promoting student mental health at the university. Cabrera is quick to point out that any sort of success a university has in overcoming these issues, or in creating an institution that has the capacity to drive change in the world, is due to the hard work of the myriad of departments and people that comprise it. “I don’t think our role as leaders is

FÚTBOL

Ángel’s favorite sport is fútbol. “Real Madrid is the best team in the universe,” he says. “This is not just personal bias. There are statistics to back that up.” Also, during the Women’s World Cup this past summer, he found himself in a tough spot. The United States faced Spain in the Round of 16. Cabrera was leaning slightly toward a Spanish victory because the team was the underdog, but sent out a tweet based on a Spanish expression meaning “split heart.”

ESPAÑOL VS. ENGLISH

to be the smartest person in the room, but to build a team and then support that team so that they can do their jobs,” Cabrera says. “What can I do to help them? At the end of the day, the president doesn’t write the grant proposals, doesn’t teach the classes, doesn’t do the research. In some ways, I’m like a basketball coach—I don’t score the baskets. I’m supporting people, creating an environment where they can be successful.” But how do you measure success at a university? Cabrera says that while he’ll brag shamelessly when the school’s

Amongst themselves, Ángel and Beth Cabrera have always spoken English because they met in America. Since Alex and Emilia were born in Spain, they spoke Spanish to each other and with their friends, but switched to English at home. After moving to the United States, English has become the primary language used by everyone in the family—but they occasionally slip into Spanish at home.

LA COMIDA

The Cabreras like to cook Spanish food for friends and family. Ángel loves playing chef, and has perfected his paellas and fabada recipes. Alex and Emilia will often spend the day watching him cook a Spanish feast for weekend gatherings. “We are constantly eating,” Emilia says. “Every family vacation is just a series of restaurant reservations with filler activities that get us in the direction of one meal to the next.”

A LOVE OF (BAD) DAD JOKES HE MAY BE A SUCCESSFUL LEADER IN HIGHER EDUCATION, BUT ÁNGEL CABRERA IS STILL JUST DAD TO ALEX AND EMILIA— WHICH MEANS ANY NUMBER OF THINGS HE DOES HAVE THE ABILITY TO ELICIT EYE ROLLS. ACCORDING TO C ABRERA , THE MOS T LIKELY CULPRIT IS HIS JOKES.

Perhaps more than anything, President Cabrera enjoys taking the time to talk to students.

PHOTOGRAPH

ALLISON CARTER

rankings are good, ultimately, an institution’s focus should be its students and the difference they make in the world. “If your alumni are doing well, that means you’re doing your job,” he says. “When I look at Georgia Tech’s alumni, it’s impressive. Our alumni are leaders in science and technology, are leaders in academia, public service and leaders in the business world. I run into CEOs of some of the most extraordinary companies. We’re here to give opportunities to young people to develop their full potential and do great things in life. That’s how we should measure success.” EMBRACING CHALLENGES—AND RISKS While president at George Mason, Cabrera often walked to work. It was a route that entailed going through the woods, jumping over a fence and crossing four lanes of traffic. He lives a little farther away from Tech, so those walks have become commuter rides down 10th Street on his new e-bike. (It’s hard to miss him pedaling onto campus since he likes to wear a gold bicycle helmet a Tech student sold him at his neighborhood bike store.) But once he gets there, the challenges that face him

are even greater. During his Institute Address, Cabrera told the Georgia Tech community that he had a goal written on his desk in his new office: Don’t screw it up. “I get a little bit of a thrill by seeking these challenges,” Cabrera says. “Something that will stretch me, push me and force me to learn.” Every new step in his career has been a risk, whether it was becoming a dean at the age of 33 or moving from a small business school to a large public university. And it was a risk to get on that plane from Madrid 28 years ago when he couldn’t even understand the pilot, as he was enrolling at Georgia Tech as an engineer studying psychology. But these risks changed his life—and the organizations he led—for the better, and there’s reason to believe this one will, too. “In retrospect, everything I've done in my life I owe to public higher education,” Cabrera says. “It’s crazy that a kid like me, from a working-class neighborhood outside of Madrid, would end up running a great research university in the U.S. The odds are almost zero. I’m only here because of the opportunities that higher education opened up.”

“ THEY DON’T ALWAYS APPRECIATE MY SENSE OF HUMOR,” C ABRERA SAYS. “I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHY. IT’S PERFECTLY FINE.”

HERE, ALEX AND EMILIA SHARE THEIR FATHER’S WORST ATTEMPTS. ALEX: “The kicker is that most of

his jokes are originally in Spanish. I will sometimes try to retell them in English, and what was a bad joke to begin with often becomes nonsensical. Here is a classic one he told us while we were growing up, that I’m now convinced is somesort of anti-joke: “‘What sound does a 100-pound bird at the top of a tree make?’ In a deep and exaggerated voice: ‘Chiiiirrrrrp, chiiiiiirrrrrrp.’ “We’re still not sure if it counts as a joke.”

EMILIA: “One of his favorite

things to do is recite old Spanish sayings and idioms in English. This would absolutely crack him up. But for me, growing up I had no idea which idioms were actually English and which were translated. I got blank looks from saying to my friends such things as “at the fifth pine tree” and “at good hour green sleeves.” I realized that basically every saying I learned from him had to be scrapped. And he just found that even funnier.”

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | FALL 2019

TALK OF TECH

REPUTATION

GEORGIA TECH NOW RANKS NO. 5 AMONG NATION’S TOP PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES GEORGIA TECH climbed three spots in the rankings of the country’s top public universities, securing the No. 5 spot— the Institute’s highest rank ever—while 10 of its engineering programs were named among the best in the country, according to the latest U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges rankings. The following are some of Tech’s superlatives in this year’s lists.

NATIONAL RANKINGS #5

PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES

M O S T I N N OVAT I V E

#5 #12 #20

BEST CO-OP/ INTERNSHIP PROGRAMS

BEST COLLEGES

#10

FOR VETERANS

#29

SENIOR C APS TONE PROJECTS

LEARNING COMMUNITIES

C O M B I N E D P R I VAT E AND PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES U N D E R G R A D UAT E RESEARC H/ C R E AT I V E P R O J E C T S

BUSINESS #22

U N D E R G R A D UAT E

BUSINESS PROGRAMS

R A N K E D I N T O P 10 N AT I O N A L LY

#3 #4

M A N AG E M E N T I N F O R M AT I O N S Y S T E M S Q UA N T I TAT I V E A N A LY S I S

PRODUCTION/OPERA -

T I O N S M A N AG E M E N T

M A N AG E M E N T / LO G I S T I C S

FALL 2019 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

S U P P LY C H A I N

ENGINEERING

P R O G R A M OV E R A L L

OV E R A L L 4 BUSINESS DISCIPLINES

U N D E R G R A D UAT E ENGINEERING

10 E N G I N E E R I N G D I S C I P L I N E S R A N K E D I N T O P 5 N AT I O N A L LY

INDUSTRIAL

MECHANICAL

A E R O S PAC E

BIOMEDICAL

CIVIL

E N V I R O N M E N TA L

M AT E R I A L S

ELECTRICAL

CHEMICAL

COMPUTER

DIVERSITY

TECH HONORS AFRICANAMERICAN TRAILBL AZERS

PHOTOGRAPHS

CHRISTOPHER MOORE

BY VICTOR ROGERS

A C A P A C I T Y C R O W D of students, faculty, staff and alumni gathered at the Georgia Tech on Sept. 5 to explore the Institute’s racial diversity journey at the 11th Annual Diversity Symposium. The event was highlighted by the unveiling of two statues in honor of Tech’s first African-American students—Ford C. Greene, Ralph A. Long Jr. and Lawrence Williams—and Tech’s first black graduate, Ronald L. Yancey, EE 65. “It’s often said that the current generation is the beneficiary of the sacrifices of previous generations,” said Archie Ervin, vice president for Institute Diversity. “This is especially appropriate today, for we are indeed standing on the shoulders of giants—strong men and women whose courage to act nearly six decades ago has altered the course of Georgia Tech forever.” Jacqueline Royster, professor and former dean of the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts, facilitated a panel with these African-American trailblazers. She began by asking them: “Why did

you choose to come to Tech, and what did you bring with you?” Long answered: “All of us had outstanding academic achievements, as well as sports and the arts. My objective was to dispel several myths—No. 1, that black kids could not withstand the academic rigors of Georgia Tech.” After applying several times, the three young men were accepted and began classes in 1961. Yancey enrolled a year later. They didn’t socialize or study together, but they knew each other’s schedules—just in case. The men shared stories of feeling isolated and unwelcome at Tech. But there were some bright moments along the way. Greene spoke about being the only African-American in the band, which traveled to the University of Georgia for a competition. On the way back to Atlanta the bus stopped at a restaurant. “They wouldn’t take my order,” Greene said. The band director ordered everyone back on the bus. “It made me feel like I had a bunch of brothers who really

cared about me. That was the first time I felt like I belonged in the group.” When asked how their parents felt about sending their sons off to an allwhite university, Yancey recalled: “My mother was terrified, but she never said it. My father asked me what I was thinking, but they were both happy to see me get away from demonstrating in downtown Atlanta, so they felt I might be a little safer at Georgia Tech.” Two different sculptures were unveiled honoring these men. The first, called The Three Pioneers, depicts Greene, Long and Williams striding purposefully across campus and will reside in Harrison Square. The second, dubbed The First Graduate, depicts a seated Yancey and will be housed inside the Clough Commons building. “These pieces have much to teach us,” said Rafael L. Bras, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs. “The journey of these four men, the trailblazers, is a part of our history that must not be forgotten.” GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | FALL 2019

TALK OF TECH

AWARDS

DESCENT busts myths about dance and disability.

RECENT ACCOLADES F O R T E C H FA C U LT Y A N D S TA F F M E M B E R S

ARTS

A NEW DIRECTOR, A NEW ARTS@TECH SEASON

The Board of Regents of the Uni-

GEORGIA TECH’S OFFICE OF THE ARTS

team will focus on promoting students’

versity System of Georgia voted to

has welcomed a new director, Aar-

creative voices and connecting perfor-

bestow upon G.P. “BUD” PETERSON

on Shackelford, who joins the Tech

mances with classroom work.

the title of President Emeritus of

community from the University of Mas-

“The arts enhance the same qualities

sachusetts at Amherst. His arrival

we strive to instill in students across the

coincided with the start of a new Arts@

Institute: creativity, global perspectives,

Tech season in the newly renovated

ideation, curiosity,” Shackelford says.

Ferst Center for the Arts.

“Artists are asking the same important

Beyond bringing in professional art-

questions as our students and facul-

ists of the highest caliber working at the

ty, and arts experiences can open up

intersection of art, technology, design,

new ways of thinking and approach-

and engineering, Shackelford and his

ing these problems.”—SARA WARNER

A R T S @ T E C H 2019 – 2 0 SC H ED U L E DÖKK BY FUSE* F R I D A Y , O C T . 4 , 8 P . M .

Witness a masterful multimedia performance of light, sound and aerial dance movement with Dökk, the Icelandic word for “dark,” produced by the Italian studio company fuse*.

FOUR SEASONS DOUBLE CON CER T O

F R I D A Y , N O V . 15 , 8 P. M . , & S U N D A Y , N O V . 17, 3 P. M .

Georgia Tech, as well as name him a Regents Professor.

LING-LING NIE, Georgia Tech’s

general counsel and vice president for ethics and compliance, was named to Atlanta Business Chronicle’s 40 Under 40 list.

Experience a School of Music world premiere with the Tech Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Chaowen Ting, featuring high-tech production elements and guest artists.

DESCENT BY KINETIC LIGHT F R I D A Y , N O V . 2 3 , 8 P . M .

DESCENT obliterates preconceived perceptions of dance, beauty and disability as it reimagines the Rodin sculpture of Venus and Andromeda as a love story between two women.

KID KOAL A’S SATELLITE TURNTABLE ORC HES TRA F R I D A Y , F E B . 15 , 2 0 2 0 , 7 P. M . & 9 : 3 0 P. M .

Enjoy the return of Kid Koala, the renowned DJ and musician whose Nufonia Must Fall was a 2018 hit. Play your own mini-turntable and meld with the dreamy, atmospheric tracks.

ENRA: DREAM S F R I D A Y , M A R C H 2 8 , 2 0 2 0 , 8 P . M .

Tokyo-based enra entwines dance, juggling, and martial arts with brilliant, animated computer graphics that synchronize with the performers’ movements.

SCRAP AR T S MUSIC: C HILDREN OF METROPOLIS F R I D A Y , A P R I L 17, 2 0 2 0 , 8 P. M .

Scrap Arts Music rounds out the season with Children of Metropolis – a percussive extravaganza with more than 100 unusual and original sculptural instruments.

FALL 2019 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

ILYA KAMINSKY, the Bourne Chair

in Poetry and director of Poetry@Tech was awarded the prestigious Academy of American Poets Fellowship, with a $25,000 stipend and residency at the T.S. Eliot summer home in Massachusetts.

UNDER THE

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AROUND CAMPUS

The MBA programs offered by Tech's Scheller College of Business rank among the best in the country.

AN MBA TRIPLE THREAT THAT’S TOUGH TO BEAT

THE THREE DISTINCT MBA PROGRAMS FROM THE SCHELLER COLLEGE OF BUSINESS PROVIDE A WINNING COMBINATION OF TECH EXPERTISE AND BUSINESS FUNDAMENTALS TO GIVE PROFESSIONALS THE TOOLS THEY NEED TO EXCEL IN TODAY’S GLOBAL MARKETPLACE.

IT WAS 2007, and Joe Urban could see that business was undergoing a sea change. From his vantage point as a sales and marketing professional at the medical tech company Boston Scientific, it was clear that business was getting more technology-focused and globally aware. Urban was ready to get his MBA to turbocharge his career, and he was eager to attend a school that was attuned to the shift. When he looked into Georgia Tech’s Scheller College of Business, he found a school with an approach that didn’t just align with what he had already seen in his career—it doubled down on it. “I wanted to be part of what they were building,” says Urban, MBA 08, of Scheller’s global, tech-oriented education. “They were right at the forefront of technology and global business.” 24

FALL 2019 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

BY ERIN PETERSON Urban’s time at the school, which included residencies in Buenos Aires and Dubai, paid significant dividends. He’s now the CEO of Potrero, a Silicon Valley–based medical AI company. To date, it’s raised more than $50 million to develop technology to detect and predict acute kidney injury, a condition that kills 300,000 people each year. The integrated technology and business focus of Scheller’s three unique MBA programs may have felt a bit unusual a dozen years ago. But today, they reside squarely at the heart of almost all meaningful business, says Assistant Dean of MBA Programs Katie Lloyd. “Almost all of the exciting things happening in the world and in business right now—supply chain, business analytics, innovation, digital disruption—are happening at the intersection of business and technology,” she says. “This isn’t just about IT. It’s about marketing and finance, and

it’s about nearly every industry.” If Scheller’s tech strengths are deeply embedded in its DNA, its business bona fides have been strengthened with the innovation ecosystem that’s developed in Scheller College’s home in the Midtown Atlanta’s Tech Square. Innovation Centers— partnerships with more than a dozen high-profile companies ranging from The Home Depot to Panasonic— are where students, faculty, researchers and companies work together to explore how business and technology can work together seamlessly. One recent beneficiary of these collaborative efforts was Lindsey Waters, a current full-time student who landed at Georgia Tech after graduating from Harvard and working in marketing at Coca-Cola. While visiting The Home Depot's innovation studio during orientation, she learned about the HoloLens, an augmented-reality product developed by Microsoft that was being used to train Home Depot employees. “That demonstration made me realize how technology could be used across business functions,” she says. A month later, while at the National Black MBA Conference in Detroit, she talked to Microsoft recruiters about the HoloLens—a conversation that later led to her summer internship with the company. “The program does such a good job of connecting us with these companies and helping us get in front of them,” says Waters. “Then we’re able to use experiences from Christian White, MBA 16, and Christian Hyatt, MBA 16, got an entrepreneurial boost from their time at the Scheller College.

THREE DISTINCT PROGRAMS, ONE BIG GOAL:

BREAKING DOWN SCHELLER’S MBA OFFERINGS THE THREE MBA PROGRAMS OFFERED BY THE SCHELLER COLLEGE OF BUSINESS SUPPORT A DIVERSE RANGE OF PROFESSIONALS READY TO TURBOCHARGE THEIR CAREERS THROUGH AN MBA THAT EXCELS IN INTEGRATING TECHNOLOGY AND BUSINESS, EQUIPPING ITS GRADUATES TO TACKLE THE CHALLENGES OF THE EVER-CHANGING GLOBAL LANDSCAPE.

FULL-TIME MBA

The 22-month program is designed to help students focus on what interests them most. Students tackle their core courses during the first semester, which frees them up to pursue electives, dive deep into immersive tracks within the Tech Square innovation ecosystem, and pursue areas of focus and leadership development opportunities. “Scheller’s emphasis on leveraging analytics as a tool, rather than a buzzword, has been crucial for my career. The curriculum empowered me to understand and deploy analytical tools in real time to make evidence-based decisions with confidence.”

– K A T I E W O O D S , M B A 19 , A S S O C I A T E B R A N D B U I L D I N G MANAGER AT GEORGIA -PACIFIC

EVENING (PART-TIME) MBA

The part-time program allows working professionals to complete the program at their own pace with evening, as well as select weekend and online courses. (Most complete the program within 2 to 3 years.) Students get the same opportunities and rigorous curriculum as full-time students, including real-world projects and connections to Fortune 500 companies. “Learning all facets of business—information systems, finance, accounting, leadership—as well as making connections with people at big companies like Delta and Coca-Cola, was incredibly empowering.”

–SAWYER WILLIAMSON, CURRENT EVENING STUDENT AND VICE PRESIDENT AT WILLIAMSON BROS. BAR-B-Q

EXECUTIVE MBA

This 17-month program, with courses on weekends, is designed to hone students’ expertise in global business skills and emerging technologies with two options—global business and management of technology. The Global Business Capstone project brings teams together to tackle strategic issues faced by partner Fortune 500 companies, while the Management of Technology Capstone puts forth new products and services in a “Shark Tank”–style format. “The international residencies were really eye-opening for me. And that paid dividends at one of my later companies, when I did 22 international trips in 12 months. But I felt comfortable, because I’d already had the initial exposure when I was at Georgia Tech.”

–JOE URBAN, MBA 08, CEO AT POTRERO MEDIC AL

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | FALL 2019

AROUND CAMPUS the program and turn them into opportunities for ourselves.” It’s not just the students who are noticing the benefits. Scheller’s MBA programs have earned an armful of accolades and top rankings. Among them: a top 10 ranking from U.S. News & World Report for full-time and evening programs, a top 5 MBA Career Services ranking from Financial Times, a top 10 MBA for return on investment by QS World University Rankings, top 20 Executive MBA program in the U.S. from Financial Times, and a No. 1 in Career Progress for EMBA Alumni from Financial Times. For current evening student Sawyer Williamson, the rankings are notable—but numbers he’s been most impressed with are the ones he’s seen with his own business. Williamson, a vice president at Williamson Bros. Bar-B-Q, currently balances his role at the company with evening classes in the MBA program.

He wanted more than theory. “Anything I was going to devote myself to had to have some kind of payback—and not on a three- to five-year scale, but immediately,” he says. His MBA program has delivered, and his improved decision making is having a real impact on his company—a multimillion-dollar business with more than 200 employees. “I’ve gone into a class and learned new techniques in cost accounting that I’ve been able to take into work the next morning to change our accounting system,” he says. “I’ve seen a huge upside.” Even those who aren’t balancing a job and school are getting plenty of chances to do real-world work with practicums and other types of experiential learning. Waters, for example, took a strategy course that paired her with employees at Delta Air Lines. Her project focused on improving Delta's engagement with corporate travelers. “In practicum courses, you learn about facing conflict in a team setting anddealing effectively with clients—all the real-life experiences you’ll need in your career and for responses to interview questions,” Waters says. For entrepreneurs, Tech’s location and support can help bring great ideas to life. Christian Hyatt, MBA 16, and Christian White, MBA 16, were able to stress test a business idea they had about information security and compliance through an array of opportunities at Tech. “We iterated through product/service-market fit in a sandbox environment,” White says. “We were encouraged to reach out to entrepreneurs, we were introduced to growing technology startups, and we were provided an ecosystem to prepare, develop and ultimately launch a successful business venture.” The information risk management firm— called risk3sixty—that they launched as a result of this work is thriving. Declan Nishiyama, MBA 18, a chemical engineer who had been working at Exxon before arriving at Scheller’s faculty brings a multidisciplinary approach to teaching, leveraging Tech's strengths in science and engineering.

FALL 2019 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

TECH SQUARE:

WHERE INNOVATION HAPPENS Artist's rendering of Tech Square's Phase III.

AS THE WORLD BECOMES EVER MORE FOCUSED ON TECHNOLOGY—FROM AUGMENTED REALITY TO AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES TO CYBERSECURITY— BUSINESS MUST KEEP PACE. AT GEORGIA TECH, THIS TECHNOLOGY FOCUS IS SECOND NATURE, AND THE INSTITUTE HAS WORKED TO MAKE IT E V E N S T RO N G E R I N T E C H S Q U A R E . M O R E T H A N 1. 4 MILLION SQUARE FEET OF SPACE ARE DEVOTED TO AMBITIOUS INNOVATION INITIATIVES IN BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY. HERE’S WHAT YOU’LL FIND: 10 0 - P L U S S T A R T U P S 2 2 C O R P O R A T E I N N O VA T I O N C E N T E R S , INCUDING AT&T, BOEING AND HONEYWELL T H E A D VA N C E D T E C H N O L O G Y D E V E L O P M E N T CENTER (ATDC), A STARTUP INCUBATOR THAT HELPS TEC HN OLOGY ENTREPRENEURS L AUN C H A N D B U I L D C O M PA N I E S VENTURELAB, WHICH WORKS WITH STUDENTS TO CREATE STARTUPS BASED ON RESEARC H CODA, A 755,000-SQUARE-FOOT FACILIT Y DESIGNED TO ENCOURAGE COLLABORATION BET WEEN UNIVERSIT Y RESEARCHERS, STUDENTS AND INDUS TRY

AND THAT’S JUST THE START. TECH SQUARE KEEPS GROWING, AND THE PHASE III EXPANSION OF ATL ANTA’S PREMIER INNOVATION HUB WILL INCLUDE THE SCHELLER TOWER (PICTURED), WHICH WILL HOUSE TECH’S MBA AND EXECUTIVE EDUCATION PROGRAMS. IT’S SL ATED TO OPEN IN 2022.

Georgia Tech’s program, was drawn to the Scheller’s College strength in entrepreneurship. He did a project as a part of the TI:GER (Technology Innovation: Generating Economic Results) program, which teams up MBA, engineering and computing students with industry mentors and corporate innovation centers. He was one of a trio of students who focused on commercializing autonomous vehicle research. Among his tasks were to learn exactly how they could position their efforts to attract companies including Uber and Google. While the tools and techniques are valuable to students, perhaps the most important benefit of an MBA from Scheller is the alumni network—a community of people who are excited to support fellow Yellow Jackets as they seek their next job and solve the next problem. There are more than 165,000 alumni,

and they can be found in in every state and more than 130 countries. That includes 4,000 C-suite executives ready to help. Among those standing at the ready to help Scheller students is alumnus Joe Urban. After earning his degree in 2008, he’s stayed connected to Scheller. He happily invites Scheller students who go on annual Silicon Valley tours to visit Potrero to learn about the ethos of their work—and the benefits they might expect to see from Georgia Tech even beyond their graduation. “We love to show them the way that we operate—failing fast and failing often, learning and moving forward,” he says. “Our team presents to them, gives them a tour and has lunch. We’ll crack a beer at a happy hour. I’m happy to open up my arms and welcome Georgia Tech, because they gave me such a great opportunity to be part of their program.” GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | FALL 2019

VOLUME 95

ON THE FIELD

ISSUE 3

SPIKING TEMPERATURES The Yellow Jackets womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s volleyball team has started out the season hot, winning a number of their matches in convincing fashion.

PHOTOGRAPH

DANNY KARNIK/GEORGIA TECH ATHLETICS

TECH’S GRIDIRON GREATNESS

CROSS COUNTRY SUCCESS

MEN’S HOOPS SCHEDULE

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | FALL 2019

ON THE FIELD

REVISITING TECH’S GRIDIRON GREATNESS

A YELLOW JACKET–CENTRIC TOUR OF THE COLLEGE FOOTBALL HALL OF FAME IN ATLANTA SHOWCASES NUMEROUS TRIBUTES TO HISTORIC TECH PLAYERS, COACHES, TEAMS AND MILESTONES.

GEORGIA TECH owns a storied football history—from the birth of our bitter rivalry with the University of Georgia to the winn i ng of mu lt ipl e national championships—populated by numerous legendary players and coaches who will never be forgotten by the Yellow Jacket faithful. It’s only fitting that the Chick-fil-A College Football Hall of Fame now resides just a few city blocks away from the Institute. The Hall provides a perfect setting to sift through those special teams that forged thrilling gridiron memories spanning decades of Tech football. Getting to the Hall from campus is easy. Just head east past The Varsity 30

FALL 2019 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

BY BILL CHASTAIN, IM 79 to take a quick MARTA trip from the North Avenue station and exit at Peachtree Center. After a short stroll you’ll find yourself at the Hall’s doorstep at 250 Marietta St., NW, just across the way from iconic Centennial Olympic Park and surrounded by a host of other downtown attractions, including the World of Coca-Cola, the Georgia Aquarium and the National Center for Civil and Human Rights. The College Football Hall of Fame hasn’t been so conveniently located for Tech fans for long. The Hall first opened in 1978 in Kings Mills, Ohio, before being relocated to South Bend, Ind., in 1995. It was finally in 2014 that it moved to its current location in downtown Atlanta and into a $68.5 million, 95,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art facility that has three floors, five themed galleries and over 50 interactive exhibits. Buy your ticket outside and then head

right in. The first room you encounter in the Hall is the towering lobby called “The Quad.” You'll look up and gawk at the massive, three-story display of more than 750 college football helmets ranging from NCAA Division I powerhouses to NAIA schools. Next to the helmets, you also can’t miss a colorful Steve Penley mural which features Buzz and the GT logo. Your Hall journey officially starts here at an interactive registration panel where you activate your All-Access Pass—an RFID-coded card hitched onto a lanyard—and set it up to feature your school of choice. In mere moments, you’ll be equipped to home in on the prodigious amounts of Yellow Jacket-oriented materials, displays, videos, memorabilia and more located throughout the building.

PHOTOGRAPHS

KAYLINN GILSTRAP

More than 750 college football team helmets are displayed in “The Quad” lobby.

The tour kicks off immediately when you’re directed to find your team's helmet. Locating Tech’s iconic gold dome would be a daunting task amidst the sea of colorful headwear if not for your All-Access Pass, which triggers a red light that switches on next to the Tech helmet which will remain lit for the rest of the day to mark your fandom. Moving to the second floor, the Why We Love College Football media wall provides a fascinating stop. Once again, you leave the work to your All-Access Pass. The technology activates the panel to flip to a Tech-only compilation across the many screens. Wandering fingers bring Tech to center stage no matter

where they touch. Select a Tech vs. UGA highlight from the 2013 game at Bobby Dodd Stadium and in an instant, you'll see Vad Lee threading the needle to DeAndre Smelter for a 26-yard touchdown that put Tech up 16-0. A host of replica trophies are next. Prominent among these are the National Championship Trophy, the Heisman Trophy and the Dodd Trophy. Of course, Tech has played a role in each. (See story on Page 33.) Loop into the Game Day Theater to get your mood primed for the college football season. A 10-minute movie puts you inside the game, and makes you feel as though you’re part of the GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | FALL 2019

ON THE FIELD

The Hall of Fame is packed with interactive exhibits to bring the past to life.

action. Yellow Jackets are included in their fair share of the movie’s scenes. Feeling like you’re ready to bust through the line for a long gainer, a Tech fan’s enthusiasm will only increase upon stepping into the Hall of Fame Rotunda. Every player enshrined in the Hall can be found in some form, with year-by-year listings dating back to the first induction in 1951, which included Tech coach William Alexander. Of the 5.1 million people to coach or play college football so far, only a select group of 1,300 have been inducted into the Hall. Since Alexander’s induction, 17 total Georgia Tech players and coaches have become part of the Hall of Fame. IncludingAlexander (1951), they are: John William Heisman (1954), Allen Ralph Flowers (1955), Henry Rudolph Pund (1963), Joseph Napoleon Guyon (1971), George Everett Strupper (1972), William Enoch Fincher (1974), Robert Thomas Davis Jr. (1978), George

FALL 2019 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

KAYLINN GILSTRAP

senior season.” A clip of “Little Joe” connecting on a touchdown pass with Dez White accompanies the Hamilton file. For those inclined to belt out a song, stop by the Fight Song Karaoke station, where you can sing “Ramblin’ Wreck”— accompanied by the Yellow Jacket band. The video is saved via your All-Access Pass for later viewing at home. If you still want to ham it up, venture to the College Game Day Desk, where you’ll step into virtual reality and join Reese Davis and Desmond Howard on the ESPN Game Day set. As the third member of the crew, you’ll deliver your dialogue— which is Georgia Tech-specific—then don the Buzz headgear like Lee Corso, to select the winner of the big game. Where Tech is concerned, one of the more striking visuals comes at the Kia Building a Champion Galleria that pays homage to what it means to be a coach and an athlete. Two-time Pulitzer Prize–winning editorial cartoonist Mike Luckovich created an original mural that depicts some of college football’s biggest winners and personalities, including Bobby Dodd . There's also a quote from the legendary Tech coach: “Either love

PHOTOGRAPHS

Augustus Morris, Jr. (1981), Maxie Callaway Baughan Jr. (1988), Lawrence Cleo Morris (1992), Robert Lee Dodd (1993), Ray Merrill Beck (1997), Randall Patrick Rhino (2002), Patrick Travis Swilling (2009), Joseph Fitzgerald Hamilton (2014), and Calvin Johnson (2018). Again, here your All-Access Pass cues up the Tech stories on an interactive panel. Each of the inducted players is featured with a bio that offers a revue of his playing history and what he did Fight Song Karaoke provides a spot to belt out “Ramblin Wreck.” after his playing days. For example, touch on Hamilton’s and you’ll hear:“Joe Hamilton played quarterback for Georgia Tech from 1996 to 1999 under coach George O’Leary. The school’s all-time leading passer, Hamilton amassed a Hall of Fame career in Atlanta that culminated with the winning of the Davey O’Brien National Quarterback Award his

Bobby Dodd looks over the Hall of Fame, in a cartoon by Mike Luckovich.

THE HEISMAN TROPHY PHOTOGRAPH

DEBBY WONG/SHUTTERSTOCK

your players or get out of coaching.” Just past this mural, the Hall pays homage to Heisman—a long-time Tech coach and leader of the 1917 national champion Golden Tornado team—with a plaque detailing his career along with a glass display where his playbook is housed. Obviously, Tech is not the sole focus of the Hall. Plenty of other displays will catch the eye. Notably, The Evolution of Equipment, where uniforms from the distant past to the present can be viewed. The dramatic evolution has seen far more than just a facemask being added to the helmet. Shoes, jerseys, pads and more have all made advancements. At the Rivalry exhibit, Tech’s three main rivalries are identified—Georgia, Clemson and FSU. The FSU panel brings to life the wild finish of the 2015 game. Tech blocked FSU’s game-winning field-goal attempt and Lance Austin returned the kick 78 yards for the game-winning score. No Tech fan will

ever forget the Miracle on Techwood. College Football is celebrating a milestone anniversary this season, which prompted a special exhibit for this fall—the 150 Years of College Football showcase. The outside wall of the exhibit immediately catches a Tech fan’s attention as it reads: 222-0. Cumberland College is still smarting from that loss. Inside, unique content from the early days of college football and showcases some of the game’s oldest artifacts dating back as far as 1873. There's a rule book published in 1906 and a box of dirt from the site of the first game ever played, plus much more. A detailed timeline of the game's progression is brought to life with a collection of jerseys, helmets, and other memorabilia. Here, Tech is acknowledged as the sixth best team of the 1950s and pennants from Tech and Colorado commemorate their 1990 co-national championship. Finish off your visit to the Hall at the Indoor Playing Field where you can feel

like a player by running through the Touchstone Tunnel to the Indoor Playing Field and Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl Skill Zone to test your abilities kicking a field goal, throwing a pass, and running an obstacle course. After showing off your athletic prowess, a stop at the well-stocked gift shop will complete your visit. The College Football Hall of Fame is well worth a visit by any college football fan, but particularly so for Ramblin’ Wrecks.

THREE TECH FOOTBALL LEGENDS,

THREE TROPHIES NAMED IN THEIR HONOR JOHN HEISMAN and BOBBY DODD are synonymous with Georgia Tech and college football. Two of the sport’s most significant annual awards bear the names of these coaching legends—the Heisman Trophy and the Dodd Trophy. And replicas of both can be found in the College Football Hall of Fame. The Heisman Trophy is awarded annually to the outstanding college football player in the United States by the Downtown Athletic Club of New York City, Inc. Though Heisman coached at eight different colleges over the span of three decades, Georgia Tech—where he coached from

1904 through 1919—remains the stop for which he is most remembered After retiring from coaching, Heisman became the first athletic director of the Downtown Athletic Club of New York City. Under his guidance, the award that would eventually bear his name came to fruition. The Dodd Trophy is awarded annually to the most outstanding head football coach in America. Dodd joined Tech coach William Alexander’s staff in 1931 following a standout playing career at the University of Tennessee. He would serve as an assistant before taking over as the school’s third head coach prior to the 1945 season. Dodd retired from coaching following the 1966 season, but he remained Tech’s athletic

director—a position he filled from 1950— through 1976. Since the trophy was stablished in 1976, Bobby Ross (1990) and George O’Leary (2000) are the only Tech coaches to win the award. Heisman and Dodd are both enshrined in the CFB Hall of Fame. But let’s not forget Homer Rice. A heavyweight college award is named after the man who served as Tech’s athletic director from 1980 through 1997. The Homer Rice Award is presented annually by the LEAD1 Association (made up of 130 FBS athletic directors and programs) to a retired athletic director who has made significant and meaningful contributions to intercollegiate athletics throughout their career.

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | FALL 2019

ON THE FIELD

FEGANS LEADS THE WAY FOR TOP 30-RANKED WOMEN’S C R O S S C O U N T RY T E A M G E O R G I A T E C H women’s cross country ranks No. 29 in the Women's Cross Country National Coaches' Poll, and junior Nicole Fegans has been the Yellow Jackets’ top performer so far this spring. The team won the Georgia Bulldog Invitational in late August, claiming seven of the top 10 finishing times, with Fegans coming in second overall with a time of 13:26.6 over 4000 meters. She followed that performance up by placing fifth overall among 195 finishers in the Coast-to-Coast Battle in Beantown with a personal best 5K time of 17:22, while the women’s team finished fifth overall and the men coming in ninth. Both the men’s and women’s cross country squads will head back to competition on Oct. 18 for the Penn State Invitational.

C O MPL ET E MEN ’ S Y EL LOW JAC KET BAS K ET BAL L S C H ED UL E

MEN’S HOOPS SEASON INCLUDES HOME GAMES AGAINST DUKE AND NATIONAL CHAMPS VIRGINIA GEORGIA TECH will lift the lid on its new 20-game Atlantic Coast Conference schedule at NC State on Nov. 5, and host Syracuse for its home conference opener at McCamish Pavilion on Dec. 8. Among the highlights this coming season are a visit from 2019 national champion Virginia on Saturday, Jan. 18, five-time NCAA champion Duke on Wednesday, Jan. 8, and weekend visits from NC State on Jan. 25 and Miami on Feb. 29. 34

FALL 2019 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

OCT. 20 GEORGIA COLLEGE (exhibition) N OV. 5 @ NC State N OV. 11 ELON N OV. 20 @ Georgia N OV. 25 ARKANSAS DEC. 1 BETHUNE-COOKMAN DEC. 4 NEBRASKA (Big Ten/ACC Challenge)

DEC. 8 SYRACUSE DEC. 14 @ Kentucky DEC. 18 BALL STATE (Diamond Head

Classic campus game)

DEC. 22

Boise State

DEC. 23

Houston or Portland

DEC. 25

Final round

DEC. 31

@ Florida State

(Diamond Head Classic) (Diamond Head Classic) (Diamond Head Classic)

JAN . 4 @ North Carolina JAN . 8 DUKE JAN . 11 @ Boston College JAN . 15 NOTRE DAME JAN . 18 VIRGINIA JAN . 22 @ Louisville JAN . 25 NC STATE JAN . 28 MOREHOUSE FEB. 1 @ Notre Dame FEB. 4 VIRGINIA TECH FEB. 8 @ Pittsburgh FEB. 12 LOUISVILLE FEB. 19 @ Wake Forest FEB. 22 @ Syracuse FEB. 25 CLEMSON FEB. 29 MIAMI MAR. 4 PITTSBURGH MAR. 6 @ Clemson MAR. 10-14 ACC Tournament

(Greensboro, N.C.)

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VOLUME 95

IN THE WORLD

ISSUE 3

LET DOWN YOUR HAIR The Rapunzel Bench in the West Architecture Building is a striking work of art designed by Tech students, and forever linked to legacies of distinguished alumni.

PHOTOGRAPH

ALEX SEIDENBERG

A FAIRY TALE BENCH

JACKET COPY

DOLLARS & SENSE

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | FALL 2019

IN THE WORLD

A FAIRY TALE OF A BENCH AND THE PEOPLE WHO MADE IT

BY ANN HOEVEL, STC 98

I T ’ S D U B B E D R A P U N Z E L for obvious reasons. And at its heart, this bench is fairly simple. It’s made of curved plywood and just a little bit of metal. It gives students a spot to land as they rush between studios in the West Architecture Building. Aside from it being massive—it’s three stories tall— there is something so captivating about its presence that it has become an endearing visual signal for students that they’re home at the College of Design. The story behind the bench is far more complex. Not only does it represent the School of Architecture’s shift toward technologically focused education, but it also perfectly combines early adoption of new manufacturing techniques with human-centered design aesthetics. And it was made by a team of five undergraduates, in a building designed by a prestigious School of Architecture alumnus. The result is steeped in Georgia Tech culture and history.

FALL 2019 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

ALEX SEIDENBERG

In the fall of 2004, Monica Ponce de Leon, the first Tom Ventulett Distinguished Chair in Architectural Design, gave her class (Arch 8832: Case Study in Digital Manufacturing) a groundbreaking assignment: Create five semi-permanent installations in the East and West Architecture buildings using advanced parametric modeling techniques.

PHOTOGRAPHS

THE ASSIGNMENT

THE DESIGN

The back of the bench features sinusoidal curves that are out of phase with one another. One of the curves is sloped, which made installation difficult. Part of the bench concept was throne-like seating for visiting architects, as they juried student work.

THE PRODUCTION

The bench uses 375 sheets of Baltic birch plywood purchased from Peach State Lumber. It took 45 minutes to cut each sheet on the Computer Numerical Control (CNC) router.

THE CONNECTION

The bench is attached to the atrium balcony on the third floor of the West Architecture Building by a friction saddle, held together with steel pins. The base of the bench is self-ballasting.

THE PAR T S

Each piece of plywood that makes up the bench is labeled in MEC SOFT, a single-stroke font commonly used by CNC routers. Any of the pieces can be refabricated when necessary, and the parts are easily replaceable.

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | FALL 2019

IN THE WORLD

THE PEOPLE

A project as significant as the Rapunzel Bench was only possible because several innovative and influential Ramblin’ Wrecks contributed to its creation—even if only indirectly. Many of these students, faculty members and alumni have gone on to make a big impact on the design and architecture world at large.

RICHARD AECK JR., MS ARCH 07, PAUL ERHET, ASA MARTIN, MS ARCH 05, MIHN NGUYEN, AND RAJIV PINTO, MS ARCH 05: The architecture students who designed, manufactured and installed the Rapunzel Bench. THREE GENERATIONS OF AECKS: Richard Aeck Jr. followed in the footsteps of his father, Antonin Aeck, a founding principal of top architecture firm Lord Aeck Sargent, and his grandfather, Richard Aeck, Arch 36, who designed the Alexander Memorial Coliseum dome. JERRY COOPER, ARCH 52: The principal and chairman of Cooper, Carry & Associates Inc., Cooper led his firm’s design of Tech’s West Architecture Building in 1980. The Rapunzel bench was designed specifically to enhance this building. MONICA PONCE DE LEON: Tech's first Ventulett Chair. Later she founded MPdL Studio and become dean of the University of Michigan's College of Architecture and is now the dean of Princeton University's architecture school. RUSSELL GENTRY: Gentry was the class structural mentor. He now directs Tech’s Master of Science in Architecture program and researches recycling possibilities for decommissioned carbon-fiber wind turbine blades. TOM VENTULETT, ARCH 58: The founding partner of tvsdesign in Atlanta, Ventulett endowed the Thomas W. Ventulett III Distinguished Chair in Architectural Design. He also funded the materials for the Rapunzel Bench.

T R I S T A N A L - H A D D A D , A R C H 01 :

As the digital manufacturing class teacher’s assistant, Al-Haddad helped students manufacture the bench. He runs Formations Studio in Atlanta, is known for designing the 70,000-lb. installation called Stealth in Midtown Atlanta, and is a parttime lecturer for the School of Architecture.

NADER TERHANI: Tehrani was the second Ventulett Chair. His firm, NADAAA, renovated Tech's Hinman Building using the same plywood as the Rapunzel Bench. He is the architecture dean at The Cooper Union. ELLEN DUNHAM JONES: She directed the architecture program during the Rapunzel Bench project and now is the director of Tech’s master's program in Urban Design. THOMAS D. GALLOWAY: As dean of the College of Architecture from 1992 to 2007, Galloway founded the Digital Fabrication Lab, where the bench was manufactured.

FALL 2019 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

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FALL 2019 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

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BACK TO EARTH(LINK)

AS THE NEW CEO OF A ONE-TIME LEADING HOME ONLINE SERVICE PROVIDER, TECH ALUMNUS GLENN GOAD IS STRIVING TO PROPEL THE ATLANTA-BASED COMPANY BACK TO THE FOREFRONT OF THE INTERNET INDUSTRY.

I N T H E L AT E 1 9 9 0 s, dialup internet service was the standard and companies flooded your mailbox— your physical mailbox—with compact discs to get you to join the throngs going online. At the time, internet service provider EarthLink was not only an industry leader, but also a household name. By 2000, EarthLink’s merger with Atlanta-based MindSpring made it the second-largest ISP, behind AOL. But as the online space changed rapidly, the spotlight moved on to other tech darlings and the company fell off the public’s radar. EarthLink didn’t disappear; the company simply moved away from residential internet to focus on business services and enteprise-level products.. Today, its relatively new CEO, Glenn Goad, MS MoT 07, is determined to return the 25-year-old ISP back to its position as an industry leader. Goad sat down with the Alumni Magazine to share how he’s leveraging EarthLink’s partnerships and growth opportunities to strike the ideal combination of what customers truly want and what the latest advances in technology can provide.

YOUR CAREER TRAJECTORY IS UNUSUAL FOR A TECHNOLOGY CEO: THE AIR FORCE, THEN THE HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY, THEN TECH. TALK US THROUGH THAT PROGRESSION. A: The Air Force gave me three takeaways: service, respect and accountability. The hospitality industry is one where you have to enjoy serving others; you’re always trying to create memorable experiences for others. While in the hospitality industry, I was an early adopter of technology and leveraged it long before it was common. I built spreadsheet algorithms for rate optimization and leveraged the internet for acquiring customers for our hotels. That led me to technology-driven companies and ultimately into digital customer acquisition. 44

FALL 2019 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

BY KRISTIN BAIRD RATTINI

Q: HOW DID YOUR DECADE IN DIGITAL CUSTOMER ACQUISITION PRIME YOU FOR YOUR EARTHLINK POSITION? A: My previous jobs at Allconnect and Qology Direct were to acquire customers for companies like AT&T, Comcast and EarthLink. In fact, during my tenure at Allconnect, we were EarthLink’s number one acquisition partner for a number of years. So I had a chance to get to know the brand’s attributes and history. We sold a lot of internet. We probably connected over five million consumers to EarthLink’s Internet during that time. What I learned through that process is that customers were not able to buy the Internet the way they wanted to buy it. The value proposition for most companies had become that if you bought a bundle, it was cheaper, so consumers ended up with

“TO HAVE THAT INTERSECTION OF GOING TO GEORGIA TECH, BEING IN ATLANTA AND THEN LEADING THIS ICONIC BRAND THAT EVOLVED HERE, IT ALL FEELS LIKE IT WAS MEANT TO BE,” GOAD SAYS.

Glenn Goad became CEO of EarthLink in January 2019, following top roles in companies that worked closely with the service provider.

things like a home phone, video or some other add-on that they didn’t really want. They also had to pay for speeds they didn’t need. EarthLink delivers a far more straightforward, streamlined internet offering. And to join this ISP that delivers the internet the way companies should seemed a natural opportunity for me.

Q : YOU CAME TO EARTHLINK THROUGH A MERGER WITH YOUR PREVIOUS COMPANY, NQUE TECHNOLOGIES. WHAT ARE THE SYNER GIES BETWEEN THE TWO FIRMS? A: NQue was about serving the next customer in the queue. We built a technology that gathers as much information as possible before you get to an automated system. It takes the consumer through the quickest path to either answer their question or get them to the person they need without having to answer the same questions over and over. We knew this technology would be useful to EarthLink in creating a superior customer service experience for a company that recognizes that customers are the most important thing. Q: WHAT IS YOUR GREATEST CHALLENGE AT EARTHLINK? A: I think it’s managing the pace of change. This is a 25-yearold business that has very loyal customers and is very rooted in certain ways, whether it’s technology, process or people. I can’t come in, snap my fingers, turn that all upside down and say, “We’re going to be a very different company tomorrow.”

PHOTOGRAPH

COURTESY OF EARTHLINK

Q: WHAT ARE EARTHLINK’S ADVANTAGES IN THE MARKETPLACE? A: We are a pure internet service provider. That is what we come to work every day to be better at. If you look across the spectrum, there’s nobody we compete with where that’s all they do—internet is only a part of what they do in addition to a multitude of other services. Another advantage is that we are not tethered to a single technology. Our responsibility is to always be chasing and partnering with the best technologies out there, and our business is grounded in those trusted partnerships. We have them across the spectrum, whether it’s fiber, 5G, etc. The tech doesn’t have to be invented here at EarthLink. Our job is to find the right technology, put the right experience with it, put our wrapper around that, and provide it to our customers.

Q: WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO MAKE EARTHLINK AS RELEVANT AND INNOVATIVE TODAY AS IT WAS AT ITS OUTSET? A : In the past year, we’ve invested in three areas that I think put EarthLink back in the limelight. One is delivering

speeds up to 1 gigabyte per second. Although most people don’t need that speed, everyone wants to know it’s available if they want it. Second, this company has always had privacy and security at its forefront, and it is a stake in the ground for us as we go forward. When you have an EarthLink account, you’ll have the same level of privacy as a VPN where nobody knows who you are, what and where you are searching. And we’ll be deploying a product—a box for inside the home— that will monitor content coming across the network, in both directions, in real time. Third, we want to deliver a customer service experience like no other ISP. We want to create an environment where you enjoy using our service and feel like you have a partner in us. We’re deploying technology, like the NQue platform, and we’re training agents to provide a better experience.

Q : H O W H AS Y O U R M A N A G E M E N T O F T E C H N O L O G Y M AS T E R ’ S DEGREE FROM TECH SERVED YOU IN YOUR CAREER? A : Prior to having my master’s degree, I made a lot of decisions that were based on experience and/or my gut. For the most part, that worked out. But at Tech, I learned a lot from both my professors and classmates that made my decision-making process more formal, repeatable and, probably more importantly, understandable for those around me. To have that intersection of going to Georgia Tech, being in Atlanta and then leading this iconic brand that evolved here, it all feels like it was meant to be. GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | FALL 2019

10 x 10 x

TECH LEARN ABOUT 100 OF THE INSTITUTE’S MOST FASCINATING PEOPLE, IDEAS, TRADITIONS, PLACES AND INNOVATIONS —BOTH OLD AND NEW. COMPILED & EDITED BY ROGER SLAVENS ILLUSTRATIONS BY CHARLIE LAYTON LET’S FACE IT: When trying to make a list of the exponential ways Georgia Tech has made a difference on the world today, we easily could have taken 10 to the third or fourth power. But for now, 100 seems like the right number—10 examples in 10 different categories—to give you just a sample of the Institute’s incredible and enduring impact. Add them up, and these stories of thought leadership and envelope-pushing research, alumni successes and student excellence, paint a bigger picture that showcases just how Tech keeps creating the next.

FALL 2019 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

TECH t

dition

RAMBLIN WRECK (MODEL A FORD)

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The original Ramblin’ Wreck car—a 1914 Model T driven by Dean Floyd Field in the 1920s—might have been aptly named, but today’s version is anything but. The painstakingly restored and maintained 1930 Model A Ford arrived on campus in 1961, and has led the football teams onto the gridiron ever since. While the Ramblin’ Wreck is used primarily for on-campus activities, it’s also made appearances for games in Denver, El Paso, Tex., and Jacksonville, Fla. To help fund its ongoing maintenance, it is also rented out for weddings and birthday parties.It’s occasionally been the target of pranksters. In 1963, University of Tennessee vandals splashed orange paint all over the car, and a small amount of orange paint still flecks the struts. The Wreck sustained more significant damage in the summer of 2007 when a trailer failed while it was being towed to a wedding. The good news? The iconic vehicle was repaired in time to lead the football team out onto the field that fall. These days, Georgia Tech takes every precaution to ensure that the Wreck is safe and ready for the next century. “They’ve got it down to a science,” Living History Director Marilyn Somers says of the student-led Ramblin’ Reck Club. “They know how to handle it, and it’s always got somebody securing it.”—ERIN PETERSON

HOMECOMING (TECH STYLE) RESEARCHERS

TRADITIONS

CAMPUS LEADERS

ALUMNI ON THE RISE

PLACES

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Every school has its share of special homecoming traditions, but nobody does them quite like Georgia Tech. • Freshman cake race. The freshman cake race earned its name in 1913 thanks to the tasty prize delivered to the winner. By 1935, the race was mandatory. These days, it’s optional, but any first-year student willing to wake before dawn to participate in the co-ed, half-mile sprint earns a cupcake. The top male and female finishers earn a full cake—and a kiss from either the Homecoming King or Homecoming Queen. • The Mini 500. Grab your pit crew, hone your riding technique, and hop on a mode of transit you probably haven’t seriously considered since your pre-school days. The Mini 500 tricycle race attracts 51 teams of seven vying to finish the 10 or 15 laps around Peters Parking Deck first. Engineers’ skills are put to the test: What’s the best way to reinforce a trike designed for toddlers? How can the pit crew shave precious seconds off of required wheel changes? And most important: What’s the best way to highlight a strong performance on a job resume? • Ramblin’ Wreck Parade. Since 1932, the Ramblin’ Wreck Parade has been an ideal venue for students to showcase their engineering ingenuity. The parade features classic, themed, and “contraption” cars that get judged on both creativity and effectiveness. Past entrants have included some remarkable vehicles, from a spinning water cyclone to a Scooby-Doo themed Mystery Machine. —ERIN PETERSON

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GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | FALL 2019

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SHAQUILLE “SHAQ” MASON CLS 15, OFFENSIVE GUARD, NFL, NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS

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CLS 20, GUARD, NBA, MINNESOTA TIMBERWOLVES Josh Okogie was not even 3 years old when his parents, Pius and Anthonia Okogie, won the lottery—the U.S. State Department lottery for green cards to move from Nigeria to the U.S. As a result of their good fortune, young Okogie developed an early passion for basketball, one of America’s signature sports. When Okogie was a middle-schooler in Snellville, Georgia, he would wake up at 5 a.m. to dribble, shoot, and work with a trainer before class. Despite his dedication, Okogie was not a highly touted high school player, not even ranked by ESPN in their list of top 2016 recruits. He received only one major college offer, from nearby Georgia Tech. Undeterred, Okogie immediately cashed in on the opportunity, averaging more than 16 points and 5 rebounds as a freshman shooting guard for the Yellow Jackets, earning a spot on the Atlantic Coast Conference All-Freshman Team. Barely a year later, in June 2018, Okogie and his parents were guests of honor at an NBA Draft watch party in Midtown Atlanta. There, via the broadcast projected on the big screen at the front of the room, Okogie’s name was announced as the first-round pick of the Minnesota Timberwolves, the 20th overall selection of the draft—not quite a lottery pick. Of course, Okogie has learned there’s much more to success than just luck of the draw. —TONY REHAGEN

FALL 2019 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

CHARLIE BLACKMON

JOSH OKOGIE

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It’s become a cliché that most students, let alone student-athletes, prefer to sit in the back of the classroom, far from the lecturer’s monitoring gaze. But not Shaq Mason. Tech professors remember the 300-pound All-American offensive lineman sitting front-row and center, at full attention during their classes. It makes sense when you consider that Mason’s job on the gridiron is to be on the front lines, blowing holes in the defense for running backs and protecting the quarterback. Mason started 39 of 41 games for the Yellow Jackets in his last three years (2012–2014), including every game his junior and senior years, earning first-team All-ACC in 2013 and 2014 and first-team All-American in 2014. He was drafted by the Patriots in the fourth round of the 2015 NFL Draft to help guard future Hall-of-Famer Tom Brady en route to three Super Bowls. Mason works for more than just the glory and recognition. During the summer before his senior year at Tech, his girlfriend gave birth to a baby girl, Kamrie. From that moment on, Mason had the only reason he needed to show up for work every day.—TONY REHAGEN

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BA 11, RIGHT FIELDER, MLB, COLORADO ROCKIES Most people recognize Charlie Blackmon, nicknamed “Chuck Nazty,” for his long, scraggly black beard and a smooth left-handed power swing that has made him a four-time Major League Baseball All-Star outfielder. Less well known is that just two years at Georgia Tech forever altered the course of his career. When Tech recruited Blackmon as a junior-college transfer in 2006, it was as a standout pitcher with more strikeouts than innings pitched. But before his first season as a Yellow Jacket had gotten underway, Blackmon developed tendinitis in his throwing elbow, forcing him to redshirt. Tech coach Danny Hall decided to let Blackmon transition to the outfield, a move that paid off mightily for both the team and the future major-leaguer. When discussing his success in professional sports, Blackmon is quick to credit his experience on Georgia Tech's campus, where he studied business and graduated with highest honors, almost as much as that at Russ Chandler Stadium. “Tech was challenging for a lot of reasons,” he told the Alumni Magazine in 2017. “There are big classes. And there’s so much work done outside of class. You’re really challenged to find out how you learn best. All those things can be applied to the game of baseball.”—TONY REHAGEN

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STEPHEN RUFFIN ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF AEROSPACE ENGINEERING & DIRECTOR OF THE GEORGIA SPACE GRANT CONSORTIUM

VAN LEER INTERDISCIPLINARY DESIGN COMMONS & MAKERSPACE

Long a proponent of STEM education in K-12 schools, Stephen Ruffin strives to make sure everyone has access to resources for success. The son of two science professors, he grew up fascinated by the NASA space program, but wasn’t always encouraged by everyone. “When I was in high school a guidance counselor asked me where I was going to apply for college. I said 'Princeton, MIT, and Georgia Tech',” he recalls. The counselor told him be needed to be more realistic. Realistic? He wound up attending two of those schools and teaching at the third. As a faculty member at Tech and the director of the NASA-funded Georgia Space Grant Consortium, Griffin works tirelessly to provide opportunities to all who seek to study space and other STEM subjects. The consortium helps train K-12 STEM teachers and, at Tech, it has funded fellowships, prepared mentors, performed outreach and even supported the work of the Ramblin’ Rockets Club.—ROGER SLAVENS

Opened in the fall of 2018 as part of an $11 million redesign of the Van Leer Building, the Interdisciplinary Design Commons is a 15,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art makerspace—the largest of its kind in the nation—that caters specifically to electronics and computer engineering design and innovation. However, students of all majors can use the IDC, which like other makerspaces on campus offers them a hands-on learning environment where they can work together to solve technology design challenges. The IDC sprawls across three floors, with each featuring a different focus. The first floor includes a woodshop, a host of 3D printers, laser cutters and a plasma cutter, while the second hosts lab benches equipped with function generators, multimeters, power supplies, soldering irons and additional benchtop equipment. The third floor features computers and embedded systems equipment, as well as a student lounge area. What’s particularly cool about the IDC is that it’s manned by Tech students through the campus organization known as The Hive. They’re trained as peer instructors to operate all of the IDC equipment and help fellow Yellow Jackets work on their projects. —ROGER SLAVENS

THE ROBOTARIUM

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Funded by a $2.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation and the Office of Naval Research, the high-tech Robotarium is a 725-square-foot-facility located in Georgia Tech’s Van Leer Building (Room 261, to be precise). However, you need never step foot in this leading-edge lab to use it. The Robotarium houses nearly 100 rolling and flying swarm robots that are accessible to virtually anyone from anywhere across the globe. Remote researchers can write their own computer programs, upload them and then see the results as the Georgia Tech small robots carry out their commands from afar. The Robotarium is the brainchild of Magnus Egerstedt (pictured below), the Steve W. Chaddick Chair and professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and his team of researchers at Tech. Egerstedt says the concept behind the facility is simple: robots for everyone. This type of research is often prohibitively expensive and requiring significant investments in manpower and resources. However, the Robotarium opens up these doors to anyone with new ideas they want to test out on real robots rather than through mere simulations.—ROGER SLAVENS

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SANDEEP AHUJA MS ARCH 15, CO-FOUNDER OF COVE.TOOL Sandeep Ahuja is an Atlanta-based pioneer in sustainable design and construction. She’s worked locally as a business performance consultant through the analytics firm Pattern r+d that she founded, and now has rolled that practice up into a new company called Cove.Tool. Her goal? To better integrate energy analysis into the design and construction process. Oh, and “to save the planet in small ways,” she says. At Cove.Tool, Ahuja is helping to develop an an energy efficiency platform that can automate up to 50 percent of the tasks that consultants and designers perform. Not only does this speed up the process—sustainability work is time-consuming— but it also cuts costs for builders. A well-known thought leader in the space, Ahuja was named to the Atlanta Power 30 Under 30 list for her innovative work.—ROGER SLAVENS

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | FALL 2019

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JOHNNY SMITH

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ME 13, PHD ME 17, WOODRUFF TEACHING FELLOW At heart, David Torello is a maker. So it’s no surprise in his role as a Woodruff School of Mechnical Engineering Teaching Fellow that he emphasizes hands-on instruction and real-world, problem-solving skills. The Tech alum specializes in non-destructive evaluation, which has endless real-world applications in enabling engineers to prevent structural failure before it happens and determine where a material is in its total engineering life. As the faculty mentor of the A. James Clark Scholars Program at Georgia Tech, Torello works with an exceptionally bright and talented cohort of students from the start of their engineering life. He serves as an essential resource for these outstanding students throughout their academic career at Tech as they hone not only their technical expertise, but also their service contributions and leadership skills. —KRISTIN BAIRD RATTINI

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EMILY WEIGEL

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PHD BIO 10, ACADEMIC PROFESSIONAL IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES As an ecologist, Emily Weigel seeks to understand how individuals are shaped by their environment. It’s a perspective that informs and enriches her courses in the School of Biological Sciences and her role as an academic advisor. It also led to her winning both the 2019 Undergraduate Educator Award and Undergraduate Academic Advising Award. Weigel’s selection as a University System of Georgia Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) Fellow gave her the opportunity to design and develop a classroom-based research project and sharpen analytical skills to then pass along to her students and advisees. Her engagement with her students is evident in such courses as “Extreme Atlanta,” an interdisciplinary examination of local environmental changes and their impact on organisms (including humans), and how they are tied to global climate change. She is equally engaged with her advisees, responding to calls for assistance after hours and empowering them to succeed on campus and in the working world.—KRISTIN BAIRD RATTINI

FALL 2019 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

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Professional sports may have the veneer of a carefree diversion, but Johnny Smith recognizes them for what they are: a telling reflection of the cultural and political fault lines of their times. As the Julius C. "Bud" Shaw Professor of Sports History in the School of History and Sociology, Smith specializes in the history of sports and American culture. In his celebrated books, he has examined the relationship between Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X, Mickey Mantle’s ascendancy as the ideal post-WWII icon in the 1950s and UCLA’s basketball dynasty in the context of political conflicts of college athletics in the 1960s and 1970s. His astute insights have twice earned him the Journal of Sport History's Best Article Award as well as the Ivan Allen College Teacher of the Year Award and recognition as a Distinguished Lecturer by the Organization of American Historians. —KRISTIN BAIRD RATTINI

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BRINGING THE GYM CLASS RIGHT INTO YOUR LIVING ROOM PELOTON COFOUNDERS CEO JOHN FOLEY, IE 94, AND CTO YONY FENG, CMPE 06, MS ECE 07 Sometimes the biggest ideas are the simplest ones. For instance, what if you could get the regimented, low-impact workout of a spin class in the comfort of your own living room? That is essentially the idea at the heart of Peloton, the bike and shared-exercise experience company cofounded in 2012 by Tech alums John Foley and Yony Feng. Foley was a competitive cyclist, triathlete, and all-around fitness buff who had trouble fitting classes into his schedule as CEO of tech companies Evite.com and Pronto. com and president of Barnesandnoble.com. Partnering with Feng, Foley’s new endeavor paired a sleek, high-end exercise bike with easy-to-use technology that delivers an online spin class into homes via a virtual cycling studio. A 22-inch touchscreen brings it all alive for workout warriors, and a monthly gym-class subscription model keeps revenues flowing for the company. The tech in the bike allows you to hone and monitor your exercise and performance, while the online capability gives you the instruction— as well as the peer motivation of immersive social media. Peloton has since expanded its offerings to treadmills and fitness apps and, to significant fanfare recently, the company successfully went public. —TONY REHAGEN

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DOROTHY MURRAY CROSLAND

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HON 61, DIRECTOR OF LIBRARIES In 1925, Dorothy Murray Crosland came to work at Georgia Tech as an assistant librarian. Through her tireless work at Tech and in the library community, she earned a national reputation. Crosland assumed responsibility for building the library's collection, and determined that it should rival those of MIT and other leading technological institutes. She served on a number of boards, including as president of the Southeastern Library Association and the Georgia Library Association. She oversaw the construction of the S. Price Gilbert Library and Graduate Addition—the latter of which would be renamed the Crosland Tower in her honor. Crosland’s influence and responsibilities went far beyond the library. Upon discovering that Georgia was the only state that didn't have an engineering or architecture school for women, she wrote a persuasive letter to the Georgia Board of Regents. No surprise that Tech admitted its first women students soon after in 1952. Crosland also played a key role in the founding of what would become the College of Computing. For all of her contributions, Tech made her an honorary alumna in 1961.—ROGER SLAVENS

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KAYE HUSBANDS FEALING CHAIR AND PROFESSOR OF PUBLIC POLICY Kaye Husbands Fealing specializes in the science of innovation policy and the public value of federal research expenditures on research and development. But perhaps her most important and impactful work has been her dedication to addressing the underrepresentation of women and minorities in STEM fields and the workforce. In recognition of her efforts, she was named a 2017 Trailblazer Award winner for the National Medical Association Council on Concerns of Women Physicians. She developed a program at the National Science Foundation and serves on the NSF’s Committee on Equal Opportunities in Science and Engineering, where she is the liaison to the Directorate for Education and Human Resources Advisory Committee—providing advice, guidance, and recommendations on programs for education and human resource development. In addition, Husbands Fealing serves on the Executive Board of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences (AAAS) and is an AAAS Fellow, and was recently elected a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.—TONY REHAGEN

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PHILIP SANTANGELO PROFESSOR OF BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING Phil Santangelo’s groundbreaking biomedical research is focused on three primary areas: native RNA regulation, RNA virus pathogenesis and RNA therapeutics and vaccines, where the application and development of imaging technology is applied to all three areas. The goal? His lab is developing RNA-based therapeutics and vaccines that could be used to fight the SIV and HIV viruses. His team is using PET/CT imaging tools for interrogating SIV infections to learn vital information that could be applied to approaches seeking to “cure” HIV. To address RNA regulation, localization and dynamics in the cellular milieu, his lab developed single molecule sensitive approaches for imaging native RNAs and RNA dynamics in live cells, as well as the first assay to detect native RNA-protein interactions in situ. To date, the results of these methods have been applied to the cell biology of human respiratory syncytial virus infections and RNA regulation during tumorigenesis.—WALTER RICH

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G. WAYNE CLOUGH, CE 64, MS CE 65, HON PHD 15, GEORGIA TECH le

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PRESIDENT EMERITUS, FORMER SECRETARY OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION G. Wayne Clough’s extraordinary tenure as the first alumnus president of Tech is summed up in a word: promise. Clough saw the promise, the potential that the university and its students held and spearheaded sweeping measures to fulfill that promise. During his 14-year tenure, Tech’s national rankings rose into the top 10 among public universities. The student population increased from 13,000 to 18,000. More than $1 billion was invested in new buildings and campus improvements. He established the G. Wayne Clough Georgia Tech Promise Scholarship, enabling hundreds of financially disadvantaged students to graduate debt-free. Clough subsequently applied his same visionary leadership as Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. He presided over more than $1 billion in renovation and new construction, positioning the august institution to fulfill its promise and purpose—the increase and diffusion of knowledge—with renewed energy and robust resources in the 21st century.—KRISTIN BAIRD RATTINI GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | FALL 2019

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BRITTAIN DINING HALL

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Harry Potter had the Great Hall at Hogwarts, but Tech students have Brittain Dining Hall. Since its construction in 1928, the Marion L. Brittain Dining Hall has been the source of much nostalgia for Ramblin’ Wrecks and interest from outsiders. The red brick building, with its limestone trim, Doric pillars, lofty ceilings and gorgeous stained glass windows, was once named “the South’s most stunning college dining hall” by Southern Living magazine. The creation of the building was a joint effort by many of Tech's departments: The architecture department designed the building, the ceramics department manufactured the tile for the floor of the tower, the mechanical engineering department supplied the wrought iron for the light fixtures in the main hall and the textile department made tapestries for the walls. It’s been restored and updated four times over the decades. And although the building has been visited by thousands of students, it still holds a secret most don’t know: There’s a small apartment above the dining room that was occupied by Daisy Daniels, the dining hall’s supervisor starting in 1938. —VICTOR ROGERS & STEVEN NORRIS 52

FALL 2019 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

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MS EE 82, PHD EE 88, EXECUTIVE VP OF RESEARCH For Chaouki Abdallah, the Institute’s vision statement serves as a daily directive: Georgia Tech will define the technological research university of the 21st century. While his own research and courses in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering focus on control and communications systems, Abdallah’s role on the Executive Leadership Team charges him with oversight of Tech’s complete research program, which reached $1 billion in new grants, contracts and other awards in fiscal year 2019. This IEEE Millennium Medal recipient is now front and center on Tech’s most ambitious projects, from its highly successful commericialization efforts to the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI)— which serves an increasingly vital role for national security—to the research being conducted at the cutting-edge, $355 million new Coda building on Tech Square.—KRISTIN BAIRD RATTINI

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NANCEY GREEN LEIGH

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ASSOCIATE DEAN FOR RESEARCH, COLLEGE OF DESIGN For years, everyone from scientists to politicians to journalists have talked about the impact robots are having and will have on the economy and society in general. But it’s all been just that—talk. Georgia Tech’s Nancey Green Leigh, an expert on economic development planning, is cutting through the speculation and answering the question with hard evidence. She and her colleagues are gathering information for the first-ever dataset of robot use and development in the U.S. Through manufacturer and systems integrator surveys, workforce analysis and case studies, Leigh looks deeply into such topics as robots and the future of employment, the changing nature of the workplace, the strategies of independent robotics firms, and the rapid evolution of robotics technology. The goal is for Leigh’s findings to enlighten and enable policymakers, workers and corporate leaders to make informed decisions as these machines become commonplace in nearly all lines of work.—TONY REHAGEN

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GIL WEINBERG

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DIRECTOR OF THE CENTER FOR MUSIC TECHNOLOGY

LYNN DURHAM

In addition to his teaching position in School of Music, Gil Weinberg is also the founding director of Georgia Tech’s Center for Music Technology. His research focuses on creating innovative music tech that can revolutionize the way in which we create, experience, and learn music. Within the Center, Weinberg heads up the Robotic Musicianship Group, which develops artificial creativity and musical expression for robots and augmented humans. Thus far, the project has manifested itself in a robot that plays the marimba using machine learning for jazz improvisation and a prosthetic arm that restores, and in some cases even enhances, an amputee’s ability to play the drums. Weinberg’s robotic music has been performed all over the world with orchestras like Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the National Irish Symphony Orchestra, and the Scottish BBC Symphony. He also organizes the annual Guthman Musical Instrument Competition at Tech, which attracts inventor/musicians from all over the world to compete and showcase their novel instruments and give listeners an idea of what music might sound like in the future.—TONY REHAGEN

As a long-time advisor to student organizations, Lynn Durham demonstrates Tech’s commitment to the successful transition and engagement of new and returning students resonates from top to bottom. It’s a natural extension of her custodianship for all students on campus that she has shown since joining Tech in 1995 and especially as a member of Tech’s Executive Leadership Team. After becoming associate vice president and chief of staff in 2010 for then Tech President G.P. “Bud” Peterson, she spearheaded campus initiatives in such critical areas as student mental health and sexual violence prevention. She not only tackled ethics awareness, but also led the search for a vice president for ethics and compliance. In her new role leading Institute Relations, she serves as an ambassador both on campus and beyond, taking input from students, faculty and alumni, as well as civic and corporate leaders, and helping turn it into action for the advancement of the Institute. —KRISTIN BAIRD RATTINI

VP OF INSTITUTE RELATIONS

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | FALL 2019

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BOBBY DODD, FORMER HEAD FOOTBALL COACH,

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NAMESAKE OF TECH’S FOOTBALL STADIUM The Bobby Dodd Stadium at Historic Grant Field pays tribute to a legendary coach who dedicated more than four decades to Tech’s football program. During his 22-year career as head football coach, Bobby Dodd—a former star quarterback at Tennessee and a assistant coach at Tech for 15 years—led the Yellow Jackets to a national championship, victories in nine of the 13 major bowl games the team played and two Southeastern Conference (SEC) championships. He amassed 165 wins and nurtured 22 All-American players. After retiring as head coach in 1966, he remained as director of athletics for another decade, during which he received a “Citation of Honor” by the Football Writers Association of America for his contributions to the game. Further accolades followed after his death in 1988. The Tech stadium was named in his honor in 1989, and in 1993 he was inducted into the College Football of Fame a second time, as a coach.—KRISTIN BAIRD RATTINI

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NEHA NARKHEDE

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BME 09, PHD BME 15, STRATEGY OFFICER FOR THE GATES FOUNDATION

As a software engineer for large social media network LinkedIn, Neha Narkhede helped develop Apache Kafka—an open-source, stream-processing software platform written in Scala and Java--to handle the networking site's huge influx of data. In 2014, she and two LinkedIn colleagues founded Palo Alto, Calif.-based Confluent to build tools for other companies such as Goldman Sachs, Netflix and Uber—using the Apache Kafka platform which had became open source three years earlier. Narkhede and her Confluent team raised $125 million in January 2019 from Sequoia Capital, bringing its total funding to $206 million. Thanks to her engineering know-how and entrepreneurial spirits, she now finds herself the chief technology officer—managing the engineering process—of a company that’s valued at $2.5 billion. Forbes Magazine ranked her No. 60 on its list of 2019 America’s Self-Made Women with a net worth of $360 million.—ROGER SLAVENS

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David Sotto’s young career has been committed to nothing less noble than addressing inequality in health care systems both in the U.S. and abroad. Most recently, David has supported national and state reforms in partnership with the Government of India serving 500 million of India's poorest and most vulnerable citizens as the strategic lead for health systems design and transformations at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Prior to focusing on global reforms, David helped shape the data, product and organizational strategies for the U.S.'s largest hospital system, pharmaceutical companies and health insurers as a manager in the health systems and services practice at McKinsey and Company. He spent 9 years as an undergraduate and doctoral student at Georgia Tech, where he distinguished himself as an innovator—founder of Tough Cuff, a pressure monitor for silverback gorillas—and as an academic researcher in stem cell and nanoparticle-based therapeutics, as well as a strategy leader in global health systems design. Still, he considers his most life-changing moment at Tech to be meeting his future wife Surabhi Dosi, ME 13. He currently serves a member of the Georgia Tech Alumni Association’s board of trustees.—ROGER SLAVENS

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JIMMY CARTER, CLS 46, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, HUMANITARIAN From his humble roots in rural Georgia, Jimmy Carter ascended the political ladder straight to the top. He studied at Georgia Tech and the U.S. Naval Academy and served a term in the Georgia governor’s mansion along his way to the White House in 1977. Upon leaving the Oval Office in 1981, Carter set a new course, one oriented around philanthropy and humanitarian efforts. He and his wife, Rosalynn, founded the Carter Center, dedicated to “Waging Peace. Fighting Disease. Building Hope.” The center’s ongoing multifaceted programs reach the far corners of the globe and range from Guinea worm eradication to mental health treatment to conflict resolution. Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his “decades of untiring efforts to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.”—KRISTIN BAIRD RATTINI 54

FALL 2019 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

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In 1914, James Herty Lucas wrote an editorial in The Yellow Jacket Magazine proposing that all new students wear a RAT Cap, a common practice on many campuses at the time. The editorial proved persuasive: RAT caps made their debut at Georgia Tech in the fall of 1915, emblazoned with a white “F” for freshman. (It was later swapped out for the more familiar “GT.”) Eventually, the short-brimmed caps became more personalized: Students had to write their last names on the front bill, their graduation year, and the phrase “To HELL with georgia” on the back. Students also received detailed instructions on other written requirements: hometown and state, and scores of football games. Those who didn’t wear the cap risked a variety of punishments: among them, being listed on the Freshman Slacker List in the Technique, or appearing—and often being punished—through “RAT courts.” Today, all incoming first-year students receive a RAT cap as a keepsake at Convocation, though typically only members of the band wear them regularly to practice and band camp. “They are the stalwart keepers of traditions,” says Living History's Marilyn Somers.—ERIN PETERSON

JIMENG SUN ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF COMPUTATIONAL SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING

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A decade ago, artificial intelligence (AI) was little more than a theory. But today, scientists like Tech’s Jimeng Sun are finding real-world applications for AI. Sun is one of the first researchers to introduce the technology to healthcare. Sun has currently turned his attention to computational phenotyping, with the goal of converting terabytes of electronic health records into applicable information for doctors and healthcare providers. He has used this methodology, called tensor factorization, to make breakthroughs that include development of a model to automate sleep-study scoring, creation of algorithms that can detect heart failure six months in advance, and the use of deep learning methods to diagnose pediatric patients at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. Sun’s worked has earned him a number of accolades, the most recent of which is being named one of the Top 100 Leaders in Drug Discovery and Advanced Healthcare, a global distinction for thinkers driving the field of data-fueled healthcare. —TONY REHAGEN

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“(I’m a) Ramblin’ Wreck from Georgia Tech” is among a handful of the most well known fight songs in the country, and its lyrics are uniquely its own. But it’s had to wrest the title from other schools who have used versions of the song for their own teams. The original composition upon which “Ramblin’ Wreck” is based, “Son of a Gambolier,” was a drinking song composed in the late 1800s. (A gambolier, by the way, is someone who likes to have a good time, often irresponsibly.) The tune was adapted as a fight song by Dickinson College, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, Colorado School of Mines, Ohio State University and Rensselaer Polytechnic. Not all continue to use the melody today—and none have gone on to reach the legendary status of Tech’s song. While fight songs aren’t typically known for their modesty or civility, various lyrics have caused agitation for more than a century: In the 1908 Blueprint, the words “hell” and “helluva” were expunged for being “too hot to print.” For now, the lyrics have remained—and the world still loves the tune. In 2017, USA Today named it one of the 10 best fight songs in college football. UGA’s (obviously) didn’t make the cut. —ERIN PETERSON

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BRIAN STONE DIRECTOR OF THE URBAN CLIMATE LAB Brian Stone’s current work is an especially hot topic. A professor in Georgia Tech’s School of City and Regional Planning, Stone teaches about climate change and urban environmental planning. His research focuses on spatial drivers of urban environmental phenomena, specifically urban heat islands created by human activity and concentration and the building materials that trap warmth, causing temperatures to increase and air quality to decrease. Stone leads the Urban Climate Lab, a cadre of Tech researchers who are looking into the connections between climate change and the artificial environment and using expertise in environmental science, urban design, and public health to formulate strategies to combat climate change in cities. His work on urbanization as it relates to warming has been featured on CNN and NPR, and in Forbes, The New Yorker, Wired and The Washington Post. His book, The City and the Coming Climate: Climate Change in the Places We Live (Cambridge University Press) recently won the Choice Outstanding Academic Title Award.—TONY REHAGEN

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | FALL 2019

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INNOVATING A NEW FOOD SOURCE (FOR LIVESTOCK) SEAN WARNER AND PATRICK PITTALUGA, CO-FOUNDERS, GRUBBLY FARMS Cousins and fellow Yellow Jackets Sean Warner, BC 15, and Patrick Pittaluga, BA 14, saw that the future of food was in edible insects. Together, they bought 700 black soldier-fly grubs and housed them in their laundry with the intent of turning the bugs into burgers. But after the pair tested their new product on some friends, they pivoted to using their stock for chicken feed. And after going through CREATE-X Startup Launch, a Georgia Tech initiative to give entrepreneurial students the confidence and know-how to build their own businesses, Grubbly Farms was hatched. Grubblies are Warner’s and Pittaluga’s snacks for chickens that are not only nutritious for the birds, but also good for the environment. Before being dehydrated and packaged as feed, the black soldier flies are fed pre-consumer food waste from places like bakeries, breweries, and restaurants. Warner and Pittaluga estimate that for every pound of feed, about 10 pounds of food waste is spared from the landfills.—TONY REHAGEN

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KAREN FITE HS 78, INTERIM VP AND DIRECTOR OF THE ENTERPRISE INNOVATION INSTITUTE Innovation doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Throughout her 26 years of economic development experience at Georgia Tech, Karen Fite has served as an indispensable conduit between the university and Georgia’s businesses, fostering partnerships and channeling resources that propel all parties forward in their innovative initiatives. Now in her role as Interim Vice President and Director of the Enterprise Innovation Institute (EI2), Fite provides leadership across all 12 of the institute’s programs, advancing commercialization, entrepreneurship and business and industry services throughout the state. Since 2013, Fite has served as director of the largest of EI2’s programs, the Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership (GaMEP). The partnership elevates the competitive position and economic impact of Georgia companies by connecting them with Tech’s vast resources on safety, procurement, trade and other vital aspects of business development. Fite’s decades of dedication have helped EI2 grow into the largest and most comprehensive university-based program of its kind in the nation.—KRISTIN BAIRD RATTINI

PROFESSOR AND FORMER DEAN OF COMPUTING Georgia Tech’s College of Computing may not bear Zvi Galil’s name, but it has his signature all over it. During Galil’s transformational nine-year tenure as the John P. Imlay Jr. Dean of Computing—from which he stepped down this year—the college rose into the top 10 nationally and internationally. Applications increased 10-fold and undergraduate enrollment doubled, making computing the largest and most selective major at the university. Galil oversaw the launch of Tech’s highly successful and groundbreaking Online Master of Science in Computer Science program, which has since been joined by similar programs in analytics and cybersecurity. The annual Computing Career Fair sets attendance records annually, with more than 160 companies competing to hire Tech students. During his last year as dean, participation in the college’s corporate affiliate programs (CAP) quadrupled, with 63 companies raising $1.13 million in fiscal 2019. That successful fundraising has helped establish four Interdisciplinary Research Institutes and four Interdisciplinary Research Centers, double the number of endowed senior faculty chairs to 10 and increase faculty from 85 to 102, with even more members slated to join this academic year.—KRISTIN BAIRD RATTINI

BECOMING THE WORLD’S TOP STARTUP CAMPUS

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Instilling entrepreneurial confidence in students and empowering them to launch real startups has become an increasingly important part of a Georgia Tech education. CREATE-X is an initiative that follows a Learn-MakeLaunch programmatic process, where students explore entrepreneurship through experiential learning and receive seed funding, legal assistance and intensive coaching from Tech experts. “With CREATE-X and other initiatives on campus, we are working toward making Georgia Tech the No. 1 startup campus in the world,” says Raghupathy Sivakumar, CREATE-X’s founding director and the Wayne C. Holman Chair professor in electrical and computer engineering. “Over the last five years, we have launched over 150 companies that now have an aggregate valuation of more than $300 million. Our student founders have created dozens of jobs right here in Atlanta and have brought in tens of millions of dollars in investment into the state." Adds Steve McLaughlin, dean of Tech’s College of Engineering and Southern Company chair: “Today’s students are increasingly interested in either starting their own businesses or joining a startup. CREATE-X lets our students explore innovation at an incredibly creative time of their lives, and we provide an ideal situation for them to try—succeed or fail—in a supportive and learning environment.”—GEORGIA PARMELEE

FALL 2019 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

SASHA GOODLETT HTS 12, CENTER, TURKISH PRO BASKETBALL LEAGUE, CANKAYA UNIVERSITEI ANKARA

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Christopher Eubanks learned a lot as a business major and student athlete at Georgia Tech—but not much about failure. He was a two-time ACC Men’s Tennis Player of the Year, an Intercollegiate Tennis Association All-American, he won the 2017 National Division I ITA/Arthur Ashe Leadership and Sportsmanship Award, and spent two solid years ranked among the top 10 men’s collegiate players in the country.Since Eubanks passed up his senior year at Tech to turn pro, the accolades have been a bit slower to come. He is currently ranked No. 188 in the world, with a career record of just 2-6 at the professional level. But he’s only 23, and he’s already had a professional breakthrough, advancing to the quarterfinals of the 2017 BB&T Atlanta Open, and he qualified for the 2017 U.S. Open and the 2019 Australian Open. And his blistering serve recently earned him a spot among the Tennis Channel’s “10 to Watch.” Fortunately, attending Tech prepared Eubanks for the long haul. “Balancing being a student-athlete here is definitely difficult. (There’s no getting around that),” he told the Alumni Magazine in 2017. “But if there’s something Tech has taught me, it’s patience.” —TONY REHAGEN

MATT KUCHAR

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As a 6-foot-5, 200-plus-pound force in the paint and Mississippi state high school basketball champion for the Clinton Lady Arrows, Sasha Goodlett could’ve come to college expecting stardom from tip-off of her freshman year. But when she arrived at Georgia Tech in the fall of 2008, she quickly learned that nothing was guaranteed. “Everything [coach MaChelle Joseph] was saying was, ‘You’re not going to come here and start,’” Goodlett told the Alumni Magazine in 2012. “‘You’re going to have to earn it.’” Newly motivated, Goodlett did a great deal more than that, finishing her Tech career 10th all-time in points scored (1,364, including a whopping 506 in her senior year alone), 9th in rebounds (760), and fifth in shots blocked (127), and leading the Jackets to their first-ever NCAA Tournament Sweet 16. She was selected by the Indiana Fever as the 11th overall pick in the 2012 WNBA Draft. As a rookie, she would go on to help the team win its first WNBA Championship that year. Like many American basketballers, Goodlett is now playing professionally in Europe, where she has won four more championships. Last year, she averaged a double-double (25.8 points per game; 11.6 rebounds) for Cankaya Universitei Ankara in Turkey. But overseas, most contracts are given out on a year-by-year basis. Next season is never guaranteed. Goodlett knows she’ll have to earn it. —TONY REHAGEN

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Though he was born and raised in Florida, Matt Kuchar came to Georgia Tech and found his second home. Here, he met his future wife, Sybi (Mgt 99). And it was on the greens and fairways of Atlanta where he honed the swing that would make him one of the world’s most successful professional golfers. Since he turned pro in 2000, Kuchar has won 14 wins, 9 of them PGA Tour events, including the 2012 Players Championship, the tour’s flagship tournament. In 2010, he won the Vardon Trophy with the tour’s leading scoring average, and that year he was also the tour’s leading money winner. In Rio 2016, he won the first Olympic bronze medal given to a golfer since the 1904 Summer Olympics, and he has been tabbed as high as No. 2 in the FedExCup rankings. Kuchar finished last season with more career winnings (nearly $50 million) than any other golfer in history without a major championship. Kuchar has taken a chunk of those winnings and put it right back into his adopted home. He and his wife host an annual Camp Twin Lakes Golf Tournament, which has raised more than $1.7 million to help provide a fully accessible summer-camp experience for thousands of Georgia children who have serious illness, disabilities, or other life challenges.—TONY REHAGEN

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | FALL 2019

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KEITH MCGREGGOR BS CS 82, MS CS 87, PHD CS 13, DIRECTOR OF VENTURELAB

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As a lifelong entrepreneur with more than 10 startups under his belt, creating startups is his forte. While his research and teaching focus in the College of Computing and Scheller College of Business as a professor of the practice is on cognitive science, artificial intelligence, and entrepreneurship, Keith McGreggor also leads his team at VentureLab, Georgia Tech’s comprehensive center for technology commercialization, which is open to all faculty, research staff, and students who want to form startups based upon their research. VentureLab transforms those innovations into startups by developing engaging business models, connecting researchers with experienced entrepreneurs, locating sources of early-stage financing, and preparing these new companies for global markets. With more than 500 active startups based on Tech’s technology and more than $1.9 billion in capital raised, under Keith’s leadership, VentureLab has been consistently ranked as one of North America’s top 10 university-based incubators. McGreggor also is the executive director and lead instructor of the NSF’s I-Corps South program, which provides entrepreneurial training and commercialization assistance to research universities throughout the South.—PÉRALTE PAUL

JENNIFER SINGH ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF HISTORY AND SOCIOLOGY

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As the winner of Georgia Tech’s 2019 Serve-Learn-Sustain Award for Excellence in Community-Engaged Sustainability Teaching, Jennifer Singh works to shape her students trajectories by the approaches she takes in the classroom. Courses like “Health Inequalities” and “The Sociology of Medicine and Health” challenge students to think beyond merely reading about social determinants of health and instead directly interact with the communities around them. She exposes them to real-life examples of inequality and develops their analytical skills via class projects that enlist community partners as their clients. One of her students, Olivia Rea, says that because of Singh, she “became much more aware of the greater Atlanta community and the resources students and faculty alike possessed to make a positive impact beyond the borders of campus.” Rea now volunteers regularly in a program that supports Atlanta Public School students. Singh’s goal is to get her students to realize their place and the part they can play in the greater society as a healthier, more aware individual.—ROGER SLAVENS

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JAMES K. RAINS PROFESSOR OF THE PRACTICE, BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING

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Since joining the faculty in 2012, James Rains has taught two of Tech’s most critical classes for creating the next generation of biomedical engineers. “Intro to Biomedical Engineering Design” and the “Biomedical Engineering Capstone” courses are bookends on the student experience in the BME program, which has consistently ranked among the best in the nation. Meanwhile, Rains helps give students more real-world healthcare problems from clinicians and medical companies than any other BME department in the world. He constantly strives to find the best and most diverse projects for his students, including in 2018, a new collaboration with the world-renowned Mayo Clinic. His BME student teams consistently win top honors in innovation competitions and mentors and coaches Create-X student startups. For all of his tremendous efforts, he was named the 2019 Undergraduate Educator of the Year by Tech’s Center for Teaching and Learning.—ROGER SLAVENS

FALL 2019 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

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EMILY MADSEN BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING STUDENT Emily Madsen is a biomedical engineering (BME) student who is using her skills as a painter and sculptor to illuminate complex topics. Through a student-run program based at Emory and Georgia Tech called Science.Art.Wonder., she's created a series of works designed to creatively interpret scientific research. She has worked with several researchers at Georgia Tech to bring art together with science in an effort to spark discussion about the researchers’ complex scientific topics. Madsen, who is entering her third year in BME, has worked across departments to translate their research into art. One of them, Stephen Beckett, says her sculpture depicting his research, “really explores how various types of abstractions can make us think and feel differently about our observations. It really captures some of the key steps in the scientific process.” —WALTER RICH

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GTRI COMPACT RADAR RANGE Call it the Blue Room. The Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) operates an indoor compact range used for radar cross section measurements and antenna testing. The facility is shielded against electromagnetic interference and used for both internal research and collaborations with industry. The range is 18 feet high, 24 feet wide, and 60 feet long. It can test at frequencies ranging from two gigahertz to 100 gigahertz, and that range can be extended down to 200 megahertz to accommodate UHF antenna testing. Shown under test here is a Skywalker X8 airframe that was being used as a test bed for swarming UAV research. The aircraft is undergoing antenna pattern characterization as part of an investigation into inter-aircraft communications. —JOHN TOON

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SHIRLEY CLEMENTS MEWBORN

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Shirley Clements Mewborn blazed a trail at Tech as both a student and an alumna. She was one of the first two female graduates, earning her degree in Electrical Engineering in 1956. Her 41 years of leadership in the engineering field earned her unanimous selection to the Georgia Tech Hall of Fame in 2003. She became the first woman to serve as president of the alumni association. She often gave speeches at Tech about perseverance and leadership—some of them as a guest coach for the women’s basketball team. Her dedication and generosity to her alma mater is evident on campus. Her name graces not only the softball stadium but the Shirley Mewborn Perseverance Scholarship, which supports the next generations of female Yellow Jackets in their studies at Tech.—KRISTIN BAIRD RATTINI

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BRINGING THE INTERNET TO THE NEONATAL WARD

3D-PRINTING BIOLOGICAL TISSUES AND IMPLANTS

Georgia Tech alumnus Lou Malice, IM 80, is the CEO for NFANT Labs, a medical device and digital health company dedicated to improving the standard of care in infant feeding. In the United States, up to 70 percent of infants born prematurely and troubles with feeding can result in significant health problems for the infant. The company’s nfant Feeding Solution provides a non-invasive, diagnostic biofeedback way to help clinicians identify and treat an infant’s ability to feed safely and efficiently, leveraging machine learning and predictive analytics. It’s also the first Internet of Things (IoT) device cleared by the FDA for Neonatal Intensive Care Units. In working to bring the tool to market, Malice—a veteran in the medical device field—got some added help from Tech’s Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC) Signature business incubator program. “ATDC gives businesses like ours access to expert advisers, qualified personnel, potential customers and partners, and learning programs that startups can leverage to fill gaps to their advantage,” Malice says.—ROGER SLAVENS

We’re not quite to the point where doctors can build us new, customized organs to replace our worn-out ones, but the idea is no longer just the fantasies of speculative science fiction. For example, Scott Hollister, who holds the Patsy and Alan Dorris Endowed Chair in Pediatric Technology at Georgia Tech and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, has developed a 3D-printed tracheal splint that’s been successfully placed in a pediatric patient. “The possibility of using 3D-printing technology to save the life of a child is our motivation in the lab every day,” says Hollister, who is also the director of Tech’s Center for 3D Medical Fabrication and a professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering. Meanwhile, Professor Michael Davis, director of the Children’s Heart Research and Outcomes (HeRO) Center, is working to produce 3D-printed heart valves and patches, while many other researchers on Tech’s campus are developing a wide range of 3D-printed biotissues and materials.—ROGER SLAVENS

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To the world, John Heisman is forever associated with college football, thanks to the trophy awarded in his name each season to the top college football player. But at Tech, he is a three-sport coaching legend. He served as Tech’s first basketball coach; the basketball venue bore his name in tribute for 18 years. He also coached the baseball team. Undoubtedly, though, Heisman’s greatest fame came on the gridiron. He coached the Tech football team through 16 winning seasons, a tenure that included a 32-game undefeated streak, three undefeated campaigns and four straight SIAA championships. His legacy extends far beyond his superlative record at Tech and 36-year coaching career. Among the game’s greatest innovators, he promoted the game’s split into quarters from halves and was responsible for legalizing the forward pass. He originated the center snap, quarterback count signals, double pass and the jump shift—better known as the Heisman shift.—KRISTIN BAIRD RATTINI

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | FALL 2019

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THE WHISTLE You never have to set foot on Georgia Tech’s campus to hear the steam whistle, one of the school’s most iconic sounds: You just have to be on a phone call with someone on campus at the right time. Steven Girardot, associate vice provost for undergraduate education, told a reporter in 2018 that he’s received plenty of bewildered queries over the years. “The most common question I get from people outside of Georgia Tech who aren’t familiar with the whistle is, ‘Are you in a train station?’” The whistle has been blowing since 1888. It’s most frequently used to mark class-changing times, and for touchdowns and football victories when the Yellow Jackets are playing at home. It’s also used during a ceremony to honor the memory of those who have passed away in the previous year. While the whistle might be a quintessential part of the Georgia Tech experience, it’s not universally beloved. In 1981, after a flurry of complaints from residents, Georgia Tech silenced the whistle. Later, an even larger outcry from steam whistle supporters led Tech to reverse the decision. These days, a computerized atomic clock keeps everything on track, and the steam whistle’s continued presence on campus seems assured. But it has seen one recent change: Because the campus has grown significantly since the 1800s, the class-changing times were increased to 15 minutes in 2017— requiring the steam whistle’s schedule to follow suit. —ERIN PETERSON

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OGUN KARGIN AE 19, GRADUATE STUDENT IN AEROSPACE ENGINEERING The future of airplane design may one day be determined by Tech international graduate student Ogun Kargin. A native of Turkey, Kargin earned his bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering this summer and is pursuing his master’s degree at the Institute to hone his skills. For the past four years, Kargin has been heavily involved with the Georgia Tech Design/Build/Fly Club— which builds model aircraft—and has led his teams to multiple international competitions and helped carry the Institute to the podium each and every time. But his head is not always in the clouds. Kargin recently participated in the Oxford Study Abroad Program and he’s long been involved in the Student Alumni Association, serving as a graduate student liaison. Blue skies continue to loom for Kargin, who has co-oped with Boeing and hopes to one day get to fly an airplane of his own design.—ROGER SLAVENS

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BUZZ MASCOT

FALL 2019 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

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Over the years, plenty of students have donned a bee costume to cheer on Georgia Tech. But it was the efforts of Richie Bland, Phys 81, that really helped the mascot Buzz —pardon the pun—take flight. With the help of a Six Flags–approved seamstress, Bland donned a foam-headed, Converse-wearing Buzz costume. He captured the imagination of fans when he sprinted out onto the football field during halftime of the Georgia Tech–Florida Gators game in the fall of 1980. Security was less enthusiastic: They escorted him off the field. After a bit of time and strategizing, Georgia Tech officials welcomed Buzz back to the field. In the years since, plenty of talented performers— both men and women—have donned the costume, and earned a scholarship for their efforts. They’ve also won armfuls of awards and honors: In 2000 and 2001, Buzz earned the National Cheerleaders Association mascot of the year, and in 2005 and 2006, Buzz was named to the Capital One All-American Mascot Teams. Buzz is as recognizable as ever, but has undergone one recent change. When Adidas became the official apparel provider for Tech in 2018, Buzz swapped out Chuck Taylors for some custom-designed Adidas kicks.—ERIN PETERSON

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JOY BUOLAMWINI CS 12, DIGITAL ACTIVIST & MIT RESEARCHER A self-styled poet of code, Joy Buolamwini uses art and research to illuminate the social implications of artificial intelligence (AI). Her research has uncovered large racial and gender bias in AI services from companies like Microsoft, IBM and Amazon, and she’s received a lot of attention internationally for her findings. She founded the Algorithmic Justice League to champion for ethical and inclusive technology, and she's stated her case at the World Economic Forum and the United Nations. Her TED Talk on algorithmic bias has over 1 million views. Describing her as “the conscience of the AI Revolution,” Fortune Magazine included her on its 2019 list of the world's greatest leaders.—ROGER SLAVENS

CLOUGH UNDERGRADUATE LEARNING COMMONS The five-story, 222,000-square-foot Clough Undergraduate Learning Commons—most commonly called just Clough—is one of Tech’s main hubs of activity throughout the school week. Since it opened in the fall of 2011, it’s housed classrooms, labs, an art gallery, academic services and student commons areas, and most importantly for some, a Starbucks. Named for the Institute’s beloved President Emeritus G. Wayne Clough, the building was designed to support collaborative learning, scientific instruction and undergraduate life right at the heart of campus. It’s a modern, open and inviting space with sustainable functionality at its LEED-certified core. Clough Commons’s 18,000-square-foot rooftop garden is teeming with native plants and spaces to sit—and it makes for a lovely place to study or hang out on most days. Hundreds of solar panels help generate electricity for the building, and Clough uses reclaimed rainwater from a 1.4-million-gallon cistern located underneath nearby Tech Green to irrigate the landscape and flush toilets.—ROGER SLAVENS

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GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | FALL 2019

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FRANCESCA STORICI

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PROFESSOR OF BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES In 2016, Storici was named one of 84 people from the U.S.—and the first and, thus far, only Georgia Tech researcher—to receive the first-time $1.5 million Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Faculty Scholarship, geared toward “early career scientists who have great potential to make unique contributions to their field.” It was just another first for Storici, who is widely known in the scientific community as a trailblazer in the new field of RNA-mediated genome stability. Her lab research focuses on things like RNA-driven DNA repair and modification, the function of ribonucleotides embedded in DNA, the mechanisms of genome stability, and the targeting, correction and editing of genes. Storici’s work led to the discovery of a new method of DNA repair using the transcript RNA, which are abundant in cells, as a template. The result might have a significant impact on genetic stability.—TONY REHAGEN

AUTONOMOUS RACING FACILITY

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At the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) Cobb County Research Facility—some 12 miles north of main campus—resides an unassuming, seemingly simple, dirt test track. At what’s known as the Georgia Tech Autonomous Racing Facility, faculty and students from the School of Interactive Computing and the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering routinely conduct cutting-edge research that could impact the future of transportation. They’ve programmed one-fifth-scale autonomous cars to race, slide and jump at the equivalent of 90 mph. The goal is to develop maneuvering techniques that can keep self-driving vehicles on the road and their occupants safe. Many futurists envision commuters napping through drive-time, high-speed convoys of networked big-rigs, and a huge drop in accidents as robotic vehicles take over from impaired and distracted humans. Tech is helping to make what once seemed like science fiction a modern-day reality.—RICK ROBINSON

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THE NANOTECHNOLOGY CLEANROOM The Marcus Nanotechnology Building not only is the headquarters for the Institute of Electronics and Nanotechnology, but also it’s home to the largest cleanroom laboratory dedicated to the fabrication, characterization and assembly of biomedical and semiconductor devices in the Southeast United States. There’s a total of 15,000 square feet of space—10,000 dedicated to semiconductor work and 5,000 for biological use. Much of the equipment in the cleanroom is custom built, including one of only about 100 specialized electron beam lithography machines in the world. Nanotechnology fabrication and assembly demands the best systems for keeping out contaminants—even the smallest mote of dust can cause problems. So that’s why everyone entering the cleanroom must begin in a dedicated gowning area to suit up in what seems like an excessive amount of coveralls, hair nets, hoods, shoe covers, boots, safety goggles and rubber gloves.—VICTOR ROGERS

FALL 2019 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

LISA MARKS ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, SCHOOL OF INDUSTRIAL DESIGN In a world constantly preoccupied with innovation and technology —sleeker, faster, more automated—Lisa Marks wanted to take a different approach on design and problem solving. Her research into traditional hand crafts and their applications in the real world led her to an approach that embraces culture and innovates the forgotten. Marks hasn’t turned her back on technology, rather she used algorithmic modeling to accentuate endangered traditional handcrafting. In so doing, she developed a revolutionary garment that can help ease women’s suffering all over the globe. Her Algorithmic Lace project combines novel, computer-driven algorithms with old-fashioned, hand-bobbin lace weaving to create a 3D lace that can be fashioned into a custom-fit, post-mastectomy bra. The design not only alleviates the discomfort that is common for women after surgery, but her methods also rejuvenated a fast-fading art form. Marks was named winner of the Grand Prix at the Lexus Design Award Event, a competition that received more than 1,500 entries from creators worldwide.—TONY REHAGEN

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CHLOE KIERNICKI

ARCHITECTURE STUDENT

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This past summer, undergraduate architecture student Chloe Kiernicki interned with the provincial government in Guangzhou, China, where she researched vernacular architecture in the region and investigated how traditional methods of building and design addressed the humid climate. But this was far from her first international experience as a student at Georgia Tech— Kiernicki has also studied social entrepreneurship in Eastern Europe and learned about sustainable development in Japan. This fall semester, she joined the Digital Fabrication Lab where she’s part of a team (called Re-Wind) that is researching ways to reuse wind turbine blades in artistic and functional manners after their end of life. It’s the perfect opportunity for her to pursue her passions of public art, sustainability and architecture. Kiernicki has been an active member of the Georgia Tech Student Foundation since her freshman year, and she’s been instrumental in building student awareness about the importance of investments and philanthropy. She’s personally paid her good fortunes forward as a former intern with the City of Atlanta, working with the Department of Urban Agriculture in community design and engagement.—ROGER SLAVENS

DAUGHTRY ST. JOHN She’s wanted to be a physician since age 4, and Daughtry St. John has gone above and beyond since to put herself on the path to becoming a doctor. Not only TECH has she taken all the right college classes—biology, chemistry, psychology—she’s also worked in a medist cal clinic in her hometown of Columbus, Ga. This past s udent summer, she also earned her EMT certification through Grady Hospital’s accelerated program which guided students through a 5-month program in just 6 weeks. She worked clinical shifts in Grady’s Level 1 trauma center in the heart of downtown Atlanta. “It was intense, to say the least,” St. John says. “I had never witnessed real trauma, medical crises or even deaths.” She came out shaken by these experiences, but even more convinced to help people. At Tech, her curiosity has led her to research the underlying cell and molecular processes of the brain and how they affect behavior. She’s participated in research in both the biomedical engineering and psychology departments, and now is engaged in her neuroscience capstone class. Somehow St. John has also made time to serve as a Student Ambassador and cofound the Precious Angel Project, which organizes volunteer visits to nursing homes.—ROGER SLAVENS

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DIANA TORO BIOCHEMISTRY STUDENT

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Soon after Diana Toro started volunteering for Hands On Atlanta’s Discovery education enrichment program, she quickly noticed the lack of STEM resources available at local elementary schools. She encouraged her Georgia Tech classmates to volunteer with her at Scott Elementary School to help fill the gap, and eventually with the help of her friend, Tessa Stubbs, they started their own initiative, called the Little Einsteins Organization. What had started as a volunteering project for a handful of friends has now grown into an active organization with nearly 100 members and over 2,300 followers on their Instagram account. Today, Little Einstein’s conducts STEM activities at two underserved elementary schools in Atlanta: Scott Elementary and Burgess-Peterson Academy. Toro says the rapid growth of Little Einsteins has helped solve a real problem in the community and address the needs of inner-city schools, and that it’s been a fulfilling extension of her academic pursuits. “Teaching STEM is important because we get to show the kids the potential of science and spark their curiosity,” she says. “We get to be role models to them, and we can model our love for STEM to them.”—JAMIEE FRANCIS

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NEUROSCIENCE STUDENT

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BIOCHEMISTRY STUDENT, TRACK & FIELD, JAMAICA Life is full of hurdles. For Jeanine Williams, the first major obstacle was being a wildly athletic youth going to a small Jamaican high school where opportunities were limited. She played every sport she could find, but it eventually came down to track… and dance. Ever self-reliant, Williams chose to run. The decision paid off with an opportunity to go to school at Auburn University, but she didn’t fit in there. Her high school coach then put her in touch with Nat Page, hurdles coach at Tech, where she felt more at home and she made the leap. Both parties benefitted greatly as she went on to represent the school as an 2018 NCAA All-American in both indoor and outdoor track. Williams runs the 60-, 100-, and 200-meter, as well as the 4X100 meter relays. But her forte is, naturally, the hurdles, where in 2019 alone, she wound up on the podium after 21 of 24 races, including 14 first-place finishes. After using up her remaning athletic eligibility last year (she's still finishing up her studies in biochemistry), her goal is to turn pro and represent her native Jamaica in the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. After that, she also eventually wants to go to medical school to become a pediatric surgeon—high bars that Williams feels confident she can surmount.—TONY REHAGEN

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | FALL 2019

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IGNACIO MONTOYA

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MS ME 18, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF HINRI LABS Even when the odds weren’t in his favor, Ignacio Montoya always managed to find his way. After his mother died when he was 5, Montoya and his father left Cuba for the U.S. so he could pursue a dream of being a pilot and study at Georgia Tech. But in 2012, he was in a car crash that put him in a coma for three months and then left him paralyzed. “My body was paralyzed, but my mind wasn’t paralyzed,” Montoya says. Six years later, he graduated with his master’s in biomedical innovation and development and a position as as the neurorecovery executive director HINRI Labs in Atlanta, which is focused on changing the standard of care for spinal cord injury patients. “We’re going after the long-term solutions,” he says. “We don’t want to improve the daily lives of these people; we want to get them out of a wheelchair.” He sees his own body as a research laboratory. “The protocols that I create, I implement them on myself first,” he says. In the next 10 years, Montoya wants to get hundreds, if not thousands, of people out of wheelchairs. Engineer, heal thyself indeed. —VICTOR ROGERS

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GARRETT LANGLEY

ANU PARVATIYAR

EE 09, SERIAL ENTREPRENEUR AND FOUNDER & CEO OF FLOCK SAFETY

BME 08, CEO OF ETHONOVA

Garrett Langley is an entrepreneur who strives to use technology to solve problems of everyday life. He spent the first 10 years of his career launching early stage companies across numerous industries, including banking, automotive, live events and sports, including Clutch, a monthly car subscription service for retailers and car owners, and Experience, a mobile technology company that helps companies enhance the live event experience for fans. Both companies were ultimately sold to Cox Enterprises. Most recently, Langley started Flock Safety as a solution for eliminating non-violent crime in residential neighborhoods after he personally experienced property crime at his home in Atlanta. After working with local police to understand how citizens can help prevent and solve crime, he and fellow Yellow Jacket Matt Feury, CS 11, started building the Flock Safety camera system. The duo was accepted into the competitive startup accelerator Y Combinator program in Silicon Valley and has raised more than $20 million in capital to make the community-based safety solution a reality. Langley remains very involved with the Georgia Tech community, and serves as an active member of both the Alumni Association board and the Athletic Association’s Alexander Tharpe Board.—ROGER SLAVENS

Global health has been a passion of Anu Parvatiyar’s since she was an undergraduate student at Georgia Tech. She knew she wanted to study the intersection between public health and technology, and when she didn't find an existing avenue of study or research, she made her own. She harassed the biomedical engineering department to let her design and take an independent study course she called Design for the Developing World and 10 years later Parvatiyar would use that same research to write the business strategy for her medical device startup, Ethnova. The company designs, develops and distributes new forms of medical technologies and treatment to transform care in underserved markets around the globe. She believes that patients and doctors in the most remote areas cannot be served with the same designs, approaches and assumptions as those present in traditional medtech markets. Parvatiyar spent the first 10 years of her career conducting clinical research in Grady Hospital's trauma center, designing cardiac access ports for heart valve repair in Atlanta, overseeing plastics extrusion for medical devices in China, interviewing nurses about diagnostics in Singapore, building communications platforms for healthcare workers in Nigeria, and deploying software for polio eradication in Chad. She serves on the Alumni Association’s board of trustees and won its Outstanding Young Alumni Award in 2016.—ROGER SLAVENS

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EE 13, PHD HCC 19, POSTDOC RESEARCHER AT STANFORD UNIVERSITY Recent doctoral graduate Caitlyn Seim’s research focuses on human cognition and learning from haptic interaction—responding to touch and motion technologies—to create new lightweight, mobile devices for rehabilitation. This spring, Seim was awarded an exclusive Neuroscience:Translate grant from Stanford University to augment her research into passive haptic stimulation. During her time at Georgia Tech, and with guidance from Professor Thad Starner, she designed a special glove that could be used to assist in stroke rehabilitation. Stroke survivors often lose function in their arms or hands, making it difficult to perform everyday functions like dressing or eating. Seim aims to further investigate how haptic gloves may provide therapy on-the-go for patients who don’t always have access to high-intensity rehabilitation.—ROGER SLAVENS

FALL 2019 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

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TECHNOLOGY SQUARE Who needs Silicon Valley? Located in Midtown Atlanta, Tech Square boasts the highest density of startups, corporate innovators and academic researchers in the entire southeastern United States. It’s a thriving ecosystem and community that spurs creativity and interaction among entrepreneurs, researchers, laboratories, venture capitalists, established multinational companies, Georgia Tech students and faculty. Opened in 2003 to foster a better connection between the Institute and Atlanta’s business sector, Tech Square has grown in size (about 10 blocks total) and reach (hosting more than 20 corporate innovation centers from major companies and a total of nearly 20,000 employees). The recently opened Coda building and data center for high-performance computing added 750,000 square feet of mixed-use capacity, creating even more opportunities for interdisciplinary research, commercialization and sustainability. Phase III for Tech Square is already underway on the northwest corner of West Peachtree Street and Fifth Street. It will include the new Scheller Tower (scheduled to be opened in 2022) and extend the footprint of the Ernest Scheller Jr. College of Business to house its MBA and executive education programs. An additional tower will be dedicated to the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial Systems Engineering and other programs.—ROGER SLAVENS

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Located on the ground floor of the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering’s Guggenheim Building, the low-speed wind tunnel is a stateof-the-art facility for experimental research. Over the years, aerospace researchers have used this laboratory to test and/or develop a wide range of products including radar antennae, stadium lights, laser scanners for cash registers, delta wings, rotor blades, business jets, fighter planes, the NASA X-38 Crew Return Vehicle, parafoils and the soil scoop arm for NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover. Five awards under the highly competitive Defense University Research Instrumentation Program, among other projects, have kept the tunnel at the leading edge of diagnostics capabilities for basic research. The wind tunnel operates entirely on sponsored research projects. These have included studies to improve the speed and safety of carrying slung loads under helicopters, to enable helicopter flight at high speeds, and understand fin vibrations on fighter planes at a high angle of attack, as well as a NASA project to improve the ability of future aerospace engineers to learn to innovate across several disciplines. —VICTOR ROGERS

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | FALL 2019

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POOJA JUVEKAR

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INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING STUDENT, UNDERGRADUATE SGA PRESIDENT

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Judging by her list of commitments and responsibilities outside her studies at Georgia Tech, Pooja Juvekar likes to stay busy. She was elected the undergraduate study body president last summer and added that to her ongoing roles as an Alumni Association Student Ambassador. She’s served as executive vice president of her sorority, Alpha Delta Pi, performed undergraduate research at the Work Science Center on campus and was director of internal affairs for Tech’s Institute of Industrial & Systems Engineers student chapter. But Juvekar has held a true passion for Tech’s student government, having been part of it since her first year on campus. One of her main goals during her term as SGA president is to increase communication and engagement between SGA and the student body. “I want SGA to be the most active that it’s been,” Pooja says. “I want it to be the most energized and engaged that it’s been.” Based on her stellar track record of success? Count on exactly that happening.—ROGER SLAVENS

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BEN CHESTNUT IE 98, CO-FOUNDER AND CEO OF MAILCHIMP With the mantra “listen hard, change fast,” Ben Chestnut found that while the splash of his web design agency Rocket Science Group and its large, corporate clients held a lot of promise, it was the more subtle, straightforward email marketing service he built on the side that proved to be the high-flying success he sought. Co-founders Chestnut and Dan Kurzius built up Atlanta-based Mailchamp as an alternative to the oversized and expensive email software that proliferated in the early 2000s. It did so well that in 2007, they closed the design agency and focused all their efforts on Mailchimp. Today, the company is one of the world’s top marketing platforms—it’s expanded far beyond just email—for small businesses around the globe, with over 1,000 employees and millions of users. Mailchimp was named company of the year by Inc. Magazine and recognized as one of the world’s Most Innovative Companies by Fast Company magazine.—ROGER SLAVENS 66

FALL 2019 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

JOHN YOUNG AE 52, NASA ASTRONAUT When John Young was selected in 1962 for the “New Nine,” NASA’s second class of astronauts, it launched an unparalleled 42-year career that made him NASA’s most experienced astronaut. He was the first astronaut to travel into space six times and the only one to go into orbit as part of the Gemini, Apollo and Space Shuttle programs. As commander of Apollo 16 in 1972, he spent three nights on the lunar surface, joining an elite group of only 12 astronauts (and the only Georgia Tech graduate) who’ve ever walked on the moon. He was co-commander of the first flight of the Space Shuttle era. When on the ground, he nurtured the careers of many other astronauts through his position as Chief of the Astronaut Office, the most senior leadership position for active NASA astronauts. —KRISTIN BAIRD RATTINI

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ROMAN REIGNS CLS 07, PROFESSIONAL WRESTLER, WWE When Joe Anoai left Georgia Tech 12 years ago, he probably couldn’t have imagined what his life was to become. At the time, he was a first-team All-ACC defensive tackle his senior year before taking his dreams to the 2007 NFL Draft. Unfortunately, he went undrafted and signed with Minnesota Vikings, who released him later that month. He was picked up by the Jacksonville Jaguars, promptly let go, and found himself in the Canadian Football League, where he lasted just a year. On top of all this, Anoai was battling leukemia. But he was hardly beaten. He battled his leukemia into remission and then he decided to fall back on the family business—pro wrestling. So Anoai traded his cleats for wrestling boots and climbed into the ring as Roman Reigns, a fan-favorite face (good guy) and heel (bad guy) who has held just about every championship in the sport, including the WWE Championship three times and pinnacle Universal Championship once. The Roman Empire was only brought down by a return of Anoai’s leukemia, which forced him to temporarily leave the ring. He has since returned, both to the WWE and now, to join fellow wrestlers like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and John Cena as a bigscreen action hero. He starred alongside Johnson in this summer's Hobbs and Shaw. The role was one he was well prepared for, both physically and mentally.. —TONY REHAGEN

Derrick Favors’s time at Tech was brief, but he certainly made the most of it. As a freshman during the 2009–10 season, he was second on the team in scoring (12.4 points per game) and rebounds (8.4), and was named ACC Rookie of the Year, while leading the Yellow Jackets to the conference championship game and the second round of the NCAA Tournament. But following that stellar debut, most experts projected Favors would be a Top 5 NBA Draft Pick, and the lure of The League was too great. He declared for the draft, left Tech, and was picked third overall by the New Jersey Nets, where he earned NBA All-Rookie Second Team honors in 2011. Favors has developed into a solid NBA veteran over 9 seasons spent with the Nets and then the Utah Jazz, where he’s averaged 12.1 points per game and 7.4 rebounds, helping the Jazz to three straight playoff berths before being traded to New Orleans this past offseason.—TONY REHAGEN

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TEEGAN VAN GUNST ME 17, BEACH VOLLEYBALL, AVP TOUR Teams facing off against the Yellow Jackets women’s volleyball team between 2013 and 2016 might have thought they were seeing their doom in double-vision. But it was just the Van Gunst twins dominating their side of the net. Over their four-year careers at Tech, middle blocker Annika Van Gunst Rowland and outside hitter Teegan Van Gunst each compiled more than 1,000 kills and 1,000 digs on the O’Keefe gym hardwood. Teegan was all-ACC first-team twice and played for Team USA at the 2017 University Games in Taipei; Annika made the ACC academic honor roll four times. Both received mechanical engineering degrees. And then they decided to hit the beach. After a year playing collegiate beach volleyball across town at Georgia State, where they both earned their MBAs, they took to the sand full-time as part of the Association of Volleyball Professionals (AVP) Tour. It was their first season as pro athletes. But after the summer ended, it was back to work for the sisters, so they can save up enough to hit the tour again next year (AVP teams generally pay their own way). Since their father and two brothers all have engineering degrees too, they’ve joked that with their newfound business acumen, they just might have to start a family business.—TONY REHAGEN

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | FALL 2019

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DAVID MACNAIR DIRECTOR OF LABORATORY DEVELOPMENT, MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

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ROBERT BUTERA ASSOCIATE DEAN FOR RESEARCH & INNOVATION It’s hard to pin down the impact that Robert Butera has made at Georgia Tech. Not only is he an associate dean, but he also is a professor of biomedical engineering and electrical and computer engineering. Certainly, he’s strong in research, having directed the Neural Engineering Center for three years, bringing interdisciplinary minds from across campus together. Yet Butera is remembered by most students for his teaching and care. In his lab, where young researchers learned about the intersection of engineering and neurology under his watch and developed skills in intracellular and extracellular electrophysiology, computational modeling and real-time computing. In recognition for his teaching and overall impact, he was given the 2019 ANAK Award, given annually to a faculty member who has demonstrated outstanding service to the Institute and to the student body.—ROGER SLAVENS

FALL 2019 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

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By this time tomorrow, your heart will have beaten 100,000 times. “It’s an amazing electromechanical pump that keeps on going in some people for 60, 70, or 80 years without needing a single repair,” says Ajit Yoganathan, a Regents Professor at Georgia Tech. Institute researchers—engineers, scientists and doctors—are working hard to make sure it stays beating in numerous ways. A collagen patch infused with regenerative protein could treat a heart attack. An RNA injection could replace electronic pacemaker. Stem cell injections could strengthen babies’ hearts before surgery. A-fib medication could be delivered straight to the heart with few side effects. A wearable monitor could alert doctors when it’s time to change medications. All these treatments and more are being investigated by Tech experts. And while they are not yet available for use on patients, they show real promise.—BEN BRUMFIELD

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A little more than four years ago, David MacNair took on the challenge of redesigning the instructional laboratories in the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering. He applied learning theory and evidence-based learning techniques to re-imagine the laboratory experience for Tech students. He created new laboratory platforms for them to use, and designed and produced data-collection equipment and pieces of experimental apparatus to help them navigate their work in labs more easily. MacNair also fundamentally improved the quality of the content by covering fewer topics but diving into far greater depth. Not only did he innovate the learning process, but he also prepared these students for the realities of engineering in the world beyond Tech. Finally, he worked closely train teaching assistants to ask the right questions to guide students to the answers and how to build better instructor-student relationships. Mechanical engineering students in his laboratories widely laud him for his efforts to make them better learners and, ultimately, better engineers.—ROGER SLAVENS

MENDING A BROKEN HEART

Whatever the subject, accolades from students are profuse about Plamen Iliev’s effectiveness as a teacher: “Best math teacher I’ve ever had.... Ten thumbs up!” “If I could have him for as a teacher for all my courses, it would be great.” “He always made his expectations very clear and always announced what he planned to teach us next. He cared very much whether or not students learned material.” “He knows his stuff backwards and forward.” “An amazing lecturer. Comes to class with no notes and somehow delivers extremely relevant examples.” Since joining Georgia Tech in 2003, Iliev has taught large, lectures such as Calculus I, II and III, Differential Equations, and Multivariable Calculus, as well as core graduate courses, to more than 3,000 students. His tried-and-true approach to teaching has made a broad impact on undergraduate education and has provided solid foundational training for graduate students. Iliev cares about his students, has high expectations of them, and has a track record of being effective and engaging. In fact, he won the prestigious 2019 Geoffrey G. Eichholz Faculty Teaching Award by Tech’s Center for Teaching and Learning for continued excellence. —A. MAUREEN ROUHI

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KOFI SMITH IE 99, MBA 09, PRESIDENT & CEO OF THE ATLANTA AIRLINES TERMINAL COMPANY Kofi Smith has always moved well, from his maneuvers on the football field to his keen ability to make sound business decisions. The former Yellow Jackets defensive back finds himself front and center in an even bigger show now. Smith serves as president-CEO of the Atlanta Airlines Terminal Company (AATC), the private company that keeps the world’s busiest airport running. He and his team oversee the facility operations and building maintenance of some 7.2 million square feet of the passenger terminal complex at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, serving the airport’s 55,000 employees and more than 100 million passengers annually. Smith has won numerous awards, including being named one of Atlanta’s Most Admired CEOs by the Atlanta Business Chronicle.—ROGER SLAVENS

GEORGE P. BURDELL When Ed Smith, CerE 27, made the impish decision to enroll the fictional student George P. Burdell at Georgia Tech in 1927, he might’ve assumed he was playing a short-lived prank. Instead, he created a legend. Smith kept up the ruse by enrolling Burdell in the same classes he had. He carefully completed all of the homework twice—with modest changes to ensure none of the professors caught on. “Burdell” went on to earn a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree—and remains on the active student rolls. Every generation of TECH students has breathed new life into the legendary character: Burdell served in World War II, spent more than a decade on Mad magazine’s board of directors, and was a potential candidate for Time’s person of the year in 2001 (briefly giving eventual winner Rudy Giuliani a run for his money). Burdell’s name was engraved on t s ra the Georgia Tech–built Prox-1 satellite, which was launched into space this past June. Burdell has even been dition updated for the digital age: You’ll find at least a dozen Twitter and Instagram accounts linked to Burdell, not to mention a LinkedIn account or two. Students love him as much as ever. On the RateMyProfessors website, more than 100 students have taken the time to praise Burdell as a professor of—well, almost everything. “One word,” wrote a recent gushing commenter about Burdell: “Unreal.” —ERIN PETERSON

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TODD STANSBURY

RENEE KOPKOWSKI

DIRECTOR OF ATHLETICS

VP OF INSTITUTE COMMUNICATIONS

In less than three years since he returned to his alma mater Georgia Tech as Athletic Director in 2016, Todd Stansbury has changed the face of Tech athletics—literally. Last year, the former Yellow Jacket linebacker not only oversaw a record-smashing fundraising year with more than $50 million in donations, but he also initiated a makeover in form of facilities upgrades, a landmark apparel and equipment sponsorship with Adidas, and an overall brand enhancement that codified the official Tech colors and logo. He’s an impact on the field as well: In 2018-19 alone, the school jumped 55 spots in the Learfield IMG Directors’ Cup Standings from 121st to 66th in success in all sports. But perhaps most importantly, under Stansbury’s tenure, the school became the only member of a Power Five conference to put up a multiyear Academic Progress Rate higher than the national average in every sport. And his student athletes have achieved an NCAA Graduation Success Rate of 89 percent—the highest in school history.—TONY REHAGEN

It’s Renee Kopkowski’s job to articulate for the world the answers to the question, “What does Georgia Tech think? Since joining Tech earlier this year, she’s focused the Institute Communications team on being the voice of Tech, increased transparency and advancing the Institute’s strong reputation. Her distinguished career in strategic communications serves as a springboard for these activities that aim to fortify the long-standing links between Tech and its countless partners in business and industry. Kopkowski’s decade in high-level communications roles for Mars, Incorporated, a $33 billion global food company, honed her ability to promote innovation and global thought leadership through communications. As president and partner at strat-igence, she leveraged all media channels to elevate the profile of clients in numerous industries. Her skills in advancing clients’ interests across state, national and international levels will guide Tech in its vision of defining the premier technological research university of the 21st century.—KRISTIN BAIRD RATTINI

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Freddy Lanoue, a revered swim coach at Georgia Tech and an accomplished swimmer and diver in his own right, didn’t believe in doing anything halfway. As the world edged ever closer to war in the late 1930s, officials in the Navy tapped him for a big job: come up with a water survival technique that sailors could use to stay alive in worst-case scenarios. He did. His “drownproofing” method — a process that allowed people to stay alive in the water for hours while conserving energy—was adopted by the Navy and continues to be taught to Navy SEALS today. Among Lanoue’s first guinea pigs as he honed his method were Georgia Tech athletes and students, who ultimately learned to perform the technique with both their arms and legs tied. The skill was considered so essential that it was a graduation requirement—at least some version of it—for students until 1986. Most alumni consider learning it a badge of honor. While students today might not be familiar with drownproofing, there’s no question it's had a lasting impact, says Tech’s Living History Program Director Marilyn Somers. “I go out and tell stories and mention drownproofing. People almost always come up to tell me their story about how they used it to save their life,” she says. “It really does work.”—ERIN PETERSON

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | FALL 2019

DIANA ALLEVA CACERES

PHD IA 15, CEO OF MARKET ACCESS INTERNATIONAL & PRESIDENT OF WORLD TRADE CENTER ATLANTA

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Diane Alleva Cáceres had a chance to start working on her doctorate straight out of college. Instead, she embarked on a career in international trade and investment, building connections all around the world before finally settling in Atlanta and choosing the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs to pursue an advanced degree. Now, Cáceres is a lecturer at the Nunn School, the CEO of Market Access International—an international trade and investment consulting firm—and the president of World Trade Center Atlanta. On top of that, the longtime elected member of the Council on Foreign Relations recently was awarded an International Affairs Fellowship in Canada by the organization. When she leaves for the 6- to 12-month assignment, she will be based part-time at the Institute for Research on Public Policy in Montreal, and will examine the nexus of science, technology, international trade and investment within the U.S.-Canada relationship.—MICHAEL PEARSON

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CANDICE BLACKNALL

DIGITAL MEDIA DOCTORAL STUDENT

JOINT MBA/MD STUDENT

Understanding how trust can inform the design of technology used in community engagement by local governments has become an important part of Eric Corbett’s PhD research at Georgia Tech. During his studies, he discovered the works of philosopher of technology Langdon Winner and his 1980 paper in which he asked, “Do Artifacts Have Politics?” In it, Winner cited the example of how New York developer Robert Moses deliberately built bridges too low for buses—making life more difficult for the poor and African Americans who depended on buses. Corbett realized that digital technologies can also present obstacles of access and literacy to underserved communities. “If we would start trying to understand our civic ecosystem and then building technology from that, maybe it would be more in tune with our needs,” Corbett says. At least one influential organization agrees with his thesis—last year Microsoft gave Corbett a $25,000 grant to help complete his doctor dissertation. He was just one of 11 PhD students in the U.S. and Canada to receive such a grant geared “to widen the narrow pipeline of women, African-Americans, American Indians, Latinos, Pacific Islanders, and those with disabilities who earn PhDs in computer science or related fields.”—ROGER SLAVENS

If you ask Candice Blacknall, she’ll say that her journey to medicine was non-traditional. In fact, she says it choose her rather than her choosing it—she’d always wanted to be cultural anthropologist. As a combat medic in the U.S. Army, she found that medicine was an opportunity for her to combine the community service, team-driven world of the military with the creative world of the social sciences. “Much like an anthropologist, when I enter a patient’s room, I am entering a world separate from my own,” Blacknall says. “I have to learn their language as I assist them in devising goals for their health and mapping the route that will help them achieve these goals.” By choosing a joint MBA/MD degree between Tech’s Scheller College of Business and the Morehouse School of Medicine, she’s added a third world to the mix. “I’m looking forward to learning the language of business and building relationships with the people that speak it. I love a new challenge so I’m motivated to discover the ways the MBA program will nurture my instinctive need to innovate and the ways my MBA colleagues will broaden my perspective by sharing their experiences.”—ROGER SLAVENS

IE 18, FULBRIGHT SCHOLAR & STARTUP ENTREPRENEUR

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Brianna Cochran went to the nail salon for her birthday one year and came back with quite a few complaints: The color of her artificial nails hadn’t turned out as expected, the shape wasn’t what she had asked for, and it took almost two hours to have the nails applied. For the price she had paid, the quality of her experience was severely lacking. In fact, her nails were physically hurting from the chemicals the salon had used to adhere her new manicure. So she put her industrial engineering knowledge to good use and set out to build a better artificial nail product she calls VAILS (Virtual Nails). Using the CREATE-X startup program as a catalyst, she’s started to develop these sets of custom, 3D-printed artificial nails that are designed through a mobile app. VAILS are water soluble, waterproof, customized and far less harmful to people and the environment. As she’s developing the business she co-founded, Cochran is also a Fulbright Scholar pursuing a master’s degree in entrepreneurship at University College London. “If I can help other people grow through my appreciation for self-expression and my hard-earned engineering background, then I know I am being the change I want to see in this world—one nail at a time,” she says.—ROGER SLAVENS 70

FALL 2019 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

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ANIMAL AFFINITY: LIONS, DOGS AND BEARS It’s not just students who have been able to call Georgia Tech home. Plenty of animals have made themselves fixtures on campus, inspiring love and (occasionally) fear. • In 1929, Georgia Tech’s football team received a live bear cub after besting California in the Rose Bowl. Football player Stumpy Thomason took over the care and feeding of the animal. While “Stumpy’s bear” occasionally got in trouble for pawing through garbage cans during his frequent appearances on campus—Dean Griffin described him as “smart as most Tech students with all the bad habits of modern youth,” the bear’s tenure on campus was fairly short-lived. Thomason took the bear with him when he moved to New York to take a coaching position with (appropriately enough) the Buffalo Bears. • In 1945, a white terrier with black patches named Sideways ambled onto Tech’s campus and straight into the hearts of the Tech community. She earned the moniker because of a surgery that caused her unconventional gait and quickly became a star on campus, attending classes and even leading the football team onto the field. Though she died just two years after her arrival, she is buried on campus under a monument near Tech Tower. • Another animal superstar was Clifford the Lion, who arrived on campus in 1961 with football player Joe Auer. For a lion, Clifford was well behaved: potty-trained and docile. He lived in Cloudman Hall, where residents would occasionally walk to the lavatories late at night, half-asleep, only to be startled fully awake by Clifford’s hot breath on the back of their legs. As Clifford got older, he began growling at night — a problem that eventually led students in the hall to sign a petition to send him away.—ERIN PETERSON

BOBBY JONES ME 22, CHAMPION GOLFER, CO-FOUNDER OF MASTERS TOURNAMENT

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Robert Tyre “Bobby” Jones shocked the world when he retired as a golfer in 1930, right after winning the Grand Slam. But his influence on golf was just beginning, as he spent the following decades promoting and nurturing the growth of the sport. Hailed as the greatest amateur golfer of all time, Jones applied his expertise to design the next generation of golf clubs as well as numerous prestigious golf courses. He not only designed the course at Augusta National but co-founded the illustrious Masters Tournament that calls that course home. Among his many accolades and tributes—including membership in the Georgia Tech athletic and engineering halls of fame—is the U.S. Golf Association’s Bob Jones Award. The USGA’s highest honor, the annual award is bestowed on individuals who demonstrate the same spirit, personal character and respect for the game as Jones himself.—KRISTIN BAIRD RATTINI GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | FALL 2019

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SENDING TINY SATELLITES INTO BIG SPACE

BONNIE FERRI PHD EE 88, VICE PROVOST OF GRADUATE EDUCATION AND FACULTY DEVELOPMENT After 31 years on the faculty of Georgia Tech, Bonnie Ferri is a wealth of institutional knowledge about how the university has evolved to keep pace in an era of dizzying technological change. Now the Vice Provost of Graduate Education and Faculty Development, Ferri was Tech’s first female PhD graduate in electrical engineering and the first female faculty member in Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE). She is a celebrated innovator who pioneered mobile hands-on learning and inexpensive portable experiments in ECE courses—advances earned her both the prestigious IEEE Undergraduate Teaching Award and Regent’s Award for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. Her keen foresight made her the ideal candidate to serve as co-chair of the Commission on Creating the Next in Education. Along with more than 50 faculty, staff and students, she helped guide the Institute-wide effort to envision the Georgia Tech of 2040.—KRISTIN BAIRD RATTINI

Our future in space looks small—really small. This summer, years of planning, design and testing paid off for hundreds of Georgia Tech students and young alumni who made up the brain trust behind the latest Tech-built satellite sent to space. Prox-1 measures about the size of a suitcase, weighs 154 pounds and is extremely delicate. It was part of the payload aboard the third launch of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy—the world’s most powerful operational rocket. Prox-1’s mission was to deploy LightSail, a solar sailing satellite developed by the Planetary Society. Grayson Huggins, AE 19, had just graduated but was part of the student team that built and tested Prox-1. “It is really one of my proudest achievements in my life, and it’s something nobody can ever take away from me,” said Huggins, who interned at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory this summer. “Something I built is in space, and that’s amazing to be able to say at 22 years old.” But this wasn’t Tech’s first nanosatellite rodeo. Two cubesats developed by students and researchers for the RANGE Project were successfully launched into orbit in December 2018 on board the SpaceX Falcon-9. And more nanosatellite projects are on the horizon.—STEVEN NORRIS

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REINVENTING THE TOILET (TO PROVIDE SANITATION FOR 2.5 BILLION PEOPLE) There’s a shiny black espresso machine prominently displayed in Shannon Yee’s office in Tech’s George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering. While Yee is indeed a coffee drinker, there’s a more important reason for the machine’s presence: Its compact and efficient design may hold the key to meeting the needs of the approximately 2.5 billion people worldwide who now lack improved sanitation. An associate professor specializing in energy technologies, Yee is leading a $13.5 million effort funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to reinvent the toilet—technology that hasn’t changed much in more than a century. High pressure, heat, and control of liquids are essential to making a good cup of espresso. They are also critical for a creating a 21st-century toilet that can operate with no plumbing or sewerage connections and as small an amount of electricity as a single solar panel could provide. Earlier research made significant progress, but gaps remain. Now research teams at Tech and other schools have 42 months to figure out how to make six new toilet prototypes ready for a commercial manufacturer.—JOHN TOON

FALL 2019 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

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VP & CHIEF DIVERSITY OFFICER Not only is he Georgia Tech’s top expert on diversity, Archie Ervin is also a nationally recognized thought leader on diversity, equity and inclusion in higher education. He is currently serving his second two-year term as president of the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education, the largest professional association of higher education chief diversity officers with a membership of more than 900 professionals representing more than 300 colleges and universities. He also is a founding member of of the association— which is the preeminent voice for inclusive excellence in U.S. higher education—and has served continuously as either a board member and/or officer since its inception. At Tech, Ervin has been a member of the president’s cabinet since he was hired in 2010, and is responsible for identifying institutional priorities, policies, programs and initiatives that advance the Institute’s inclusive excellence agendas for faculty, staff and students. Additionally, he serves as the liaison for ensuring compliance with nondiscrimination and equal opportunity laws and regulations, and chairs the implementation committees for two institutional initiatives: Black Student Experience Task Force and Gender Equity Initiatives. Under his leadership, Georgia Tech is a six-time recipient of the Higher Education Excellence in Diversity Award from INSIGHT into Diversity.—ROGER SLAVENS

TECH

GEORGE C. GRIFFIN, CE 22, MS IM 57, DEAN OF STUDENTS

gends

Just how revered is George C. Griffin among Tech alumni and faculty? The former dean of students, considered “The original Mr. Georgia Tech,” is honored on campus every year on May 16th, Dean Griffin Day, for his lasting impact on his students and the university he so loved. Known as “a friend to every student,” Dean created an emergency loan program that he dubbed his “Hip Pocket Fund” that enabled countless students to remain at Tech when their money ran out. He established, with his own money, Tech’s Central Placement Office, a mission he continued after retirement by creating the Alumni Career Services Program. His seven decades of dedication to his alma mater are best reflected in the Dean Griffin Day Luncheon, which honors faculty, staff and teaching assistants who, through their own actions, emulate this Tech legend. —KRISTIN BAIRD RATTINI

TECH

udents

ALEX IP

NARAYAN SHIROLKAR

ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING STUDENT

DOCTORAL MATERIALS SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING STUDENT, GRADUATE SGA PRESIDENT

Alex Ip has just started on his Tech environmental engineering degree, but he’s already built a tool for connecting with scientists and researchers around the world. His website, The Xylom, is a place specifically geared for scientists where they can share personal stories outside of their research and talk about everything from faith to race relations. Ip recently received a Millennium Fellowship to help him continue to develop The Xylom as a venue for connecting science professionals with each other, empowering voices less heard and building grassroots efforts. This spring, Ip also joined Atlanta’s Climate Reality Leadership Corps. Created through Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project, the Corps is charged to build a worldwide network of climate crisis activists to spread awareness and work on solutions. “We have passed the point where only reducing our wasteful behavior could be a catch-all solution,” Ip says. “We need to adapt and minimize the damage. As an environmental engineer, I have to be informed and engage with stakeholders so we can work together to tackle these problems.”—ROGER SLAVENS

TECH

gends

As president of Tech’s graduate student body, Narayan Shirolkar is working for change where his fellow Yellow Jackets can feel it: their wallets. Financial stress is a real concern for grad students on limited budgets and he’s already made an impact in his own academic department, leading a team that successfully researched and lobbied for a 22-percent increase in PhD stipends for students in materials science. And now he wants to look at other doctoral programs to see if they merit stipend increases, investigate the lowering of mandatory fees for all students and improve the availability of inexpensive dining options. Shirolkar loves Georgia Tech and he simply wants to make it even better. He particularly appreciates how engaged graduate students are at the Institute. “Although we are a highly ranked research institution, our grad students are doing amazing things beyond their labs,” says Shirolkar, whose own research focuses on the development of high-strength carbon fibers. “They’re running advocacy programs. They’re hosting K-12 outreach programs for students, and there’s a student organization for almost anything.”—ROGER SLAVENS

IVAN ALLEN JR., COM 22, FORMER ATLANTA MAYOR, NAMESAKE OF TECH’S COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS Ivan Allen Jr. was always Atlanta’s biggest booster. During his eight years as mayor from 1962 to 1970 and the decades before and after, the president and chairman of the Ivan Allen Company dedicated himself to growth, peace and progress for his hometown and its inhabitants. He turned Atlanta into a major league city, landing the Falcons, Hawks and Brewers. He cleared the way for MARTA, the completion of the downtown expressway system and the first direct international flights. His selection for the Martin Luther King. Jr. Nonviolent Peace Prize in 1981 honored his measures to end segregation in the city and success in keeping Atlanta peaceful when riots erupted elsewhere after King’s assassination in 1968. His passion for his alma mater—which he helped transform into a public policy powerhouse—is still reflected on campus today in the Ivan Allen Jr. College of Liberal Arts.—KRISTIN BAIRD RATTINI

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | FALL 2019

TECH

TECH TOWER The most recognizable landmark of the Institute, Tech Tower has soared over the center of campus—with much thanks to the hill on which it’s perched—since its completion in 1888, making it Georgia Tech’s oldest building. Originally constructed as the Administration Building, the tower itself rises three floors above the main structure, which houses four floors and a basement. It’s made of red brick, trimmed with granite, and sports a gabled, copper-shingle roof (originally terra cotta). The letters that spell out T-E-C-H on each side of the top of the tower, installed by Tech’s class of 1922, provided the edifice with its nickname. Light bulbs were added to the letters in the 1930s. Today, Tech Tower is officially known as the Lettie Pate Whitehead Evans Administration Building, named after one of the Institute’s most generous benefactors. The building currently houses the Registrar’s Office, the College of Engineering Dean’s Office and the College of Sciences Dean’s Office, among others. —ROGER SLAVENS

pla es c

TECH s

s le

MARYAM ALAVI DEAN OF THE SCHELLER COLLEGE OF BUSINESS True to her standing as a thought leader on digital business transformation, Maryam Alavi has been a driving force for change and growth during her tenure as dean of the Scheller College of Business. Over the past five years, the college has risen in both national and global reputation, grown in size and diversity in their three flagship MBA programs, advocated for gender equality and women in business and successfully expanded its outreach to alumni and the community. Alavi has launched several new programs including a dual MD/MBA program with the Morehouse School of Medicine, and dual MBA/MS and MBA/PhD degrees in collaboration with other Georgia Tech colleges. For her leadership in technology and education, Alavi was named the 2017 Woman of the Year by Women in Technology (WIT) in Georgia. The award recognized Alavi’s accomplishments as a mentor and role model for women and men pursuing careers in STEM fields.—KRISTIN BAIRD RATTINI

s lea

RAFAEL L. BRAS er

TECH

FALL 2019 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

PROVOST & EXECUTIVE VP FOR ACADEMIC AFFAIRS Rafael L. Bras’s tenure at Georgia Tech is marked by some of the Institute’s boldest innovations. In his leadership position, he has sought to provide a unique undergraduate learning experience, expand access to the world’s learners, and inspire the campus community through the arts. His vision for a 21st-century Georgia Tech guided Library Next, a multimillion-dollar, technology-focused reimagining of the intellectual center of the campus. Bras, the K. Harrison Brown Family Chair, launched the visionary Commission on Creating the Next in Education, an Institute-wide effort dedicated to new pilot programs that offer on-demand, real-time solutions for future learners. He led the opening of the Institute’s global campus in Shenzhen, China. His tenure has also seen the launch of the pioneering Online Master of Science in Computer Science (OMSCS) program, as well as online degree programs in analytics and cybersecurity, that together enroll more than 12,000 students globally. Bras’s passion has also ignited the Arts@Tech initiative, bringing the arts to life through performances and events, as well as a public sculpture collection that includes tributes to civil rights activist Rosa Parks and Tech's African-American student trailblazers. In his time, Bras has shepherded a new institutional philosophy around what it means to deliver higher education.—SUSIE IVY

TECH t

idea

BRINGING TECH'S TOP MASTER'S PROGRAMS ONLINE (FOR LESS)

dition

ons

TECH

innova

In January 2014, Georgia Tech, Udacity and AT&T teamed up to launch the first online master’s of science (OMS) degree in computer science from an accredited university that students can earn exclusively through the massive open online course (MOOC) format—and for a fraction of the cost of traditional, residential programs. This collaboration brought together leaders in education and industry to apply the disruptive power of technology to widen the pipeline of high-quality, educated talent in great demand in computer science fields. And the world took notice. In the 5-plus years since, the program has received more than 25,000 applications and enrolled more than 10,000 students, many of them already working professionals and all geting the same Georgia Tech experience as their on-campus counterparts. Due to the success of the OMS CS program, the Institute has since expanded its online master’s offerings in two other, high-demand fields— analytics and cybersecurity. These online programs provide the same rigor and end result: a highly sought after degree from Georgia Tech.—ROGER SLAVENS

THE GOOD WORD (TO HELL WITH...)

RETURNING TO THE MOON (AND THEN GOING TO MARS)

idea

ons

TECH

innova

NASA’s Artemis program plans to take people back to the moon by 2024—including the first woman—and three Georgia Tech graduates are among those who will help get them there. Alumni astronauts Eric Boe, MS EE 97, Shane Kimbrough, MS OR 98, and Doug Wheelock, MS AE 92, are all working on Artemis. “Only 12 people have ever walked on the moon,” Kimbrough says. “All were American men. Putting the first female boots on the moon will inspire a new generation of students, especially girls, to pursue STEM fields.” Collaborating with commercial and international space partners, NASA hopes to use new technologies to make long space flights more sustainable and surface explorations more thorough. NASA’s powerful new rocket, the Space Launch System, will send astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft a quarter million miles from Earth to lunar orbit. Astronauts will dock Orion at the orbiting spaceship Gateway where they will live and work around the Moon. The crew will take to the surface of the Moon in a new human landing system before returning to the orbital outpost. The crew—hopefully manned by Tech astronauts— will ultimately return to Earth aboard Orion.—ROGER SLAVENS

It’s hell on copy editors and spellcheck programs, but to Tech students and alumni, the best (and only) answer to “What’s The Good Word?” is “To Hell With Georgia!” The sentiment is clear enough on its own, but true Tech fans know that they can add insult to injury by using a lowercase letter when referring to their most-loathed rival, the University of Georgia. Often shortened to its common initialism, THWg, the slight is even sharper when the lowly preposition “with” gets capitalized. But Georgia? Forget it. (There’s a reason the annual clash is known is “Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate.”) The adversarial relationship got its start in 1893, when the two institutions’ football teams met for the first time on UGA’s home turf. Despite a raucous crowd, Tech stomped its way to a 28-6 victory. Since then, Georgia has built an edge in the ongoing series, but Tech has its own claim to fame: the longest streak of victories. Between 1949 and 1956, Georgia Tech didn’t lose a single contest. If the phrase was initially meant to demean Tech’s primary rival, it has since become a community builder. Successfully completing the eight-word call and response is the quickest way for alumni of all ages to signal that they share a common enemy—and a common bond.—ERIN PETERSON

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | FALL 2019

VOLUME 95

ALUMNI HOUSE

ISSUE 3

MUCH BUZZ ABOUT THE SAA The Student Alumni Association, the largest student organization on campus, held its annual kickoff at the beginning of the school year to recruit members.

PHOTOGRAPH

PICTURE THIS! PHOTGRAPHY

HOMECOMING & REUNION WEEKEND

ALUMNI TRAVEL

RAMBLINâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; ROLL

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | FALL 2019

ALUMNI HOUSE

Per tradition, the Yellow Jacket Band will play at a number of events during Homecoming & Reunion Weekend.

GET READY TO RAMBLE!

CHECK OUT THE GREAT EVENTS PLANNED FOR HOMECOMING AND REUNION WEEKEND 2019, THIS OCT. 31.–NOV 2.

THIS YEAR’S HOMECOMING AND REUNION WEEKEND is one you won’t want to miss. From Oct. 31 to Nov. 2, The Georgia Tech Alumni Association has planned a full weekend of events to help you reconnect with your alma mater. In addition to beloved Homecoming traditions and 78

FALL 2019 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

milestone class reunion celebrations, you won’t want to miss the opportunity to take part in a Q&A with Georgia Tech’s new President, Ángel Cabrera, watch the Yellow Jackets’ new playing style under Head Coach Geoff Collins, and more. Check out the roster of events on the next page for more happenings throughout the weekend.

O C T O B E R 31 OLD GOLD REUNION If you graduated in 1968 or prior, you are officially part of the Old Gold Society! Join fellow alumni and Old Gold

YO U N G A L U M N I H O M E C O M I N G PA R T Y LOCATION: Steady Hand Brewery, 1611 Eillsworth Industrial Blvd. Suite F., Atlanta, GA 30318

members for lunch and celebrate Tech

TIME: 6:30–9:30p.m.

traditions.

COST: $15 per person in advance and

LOCATION: Georgia Tech Alumni

$18 at door, includes 2 beer tokens, food, music, giveaways and more.

Association

TIME: 11 a.m.–1 p.m.

NOVEMBER 1 TRADITIONS P R E S E N TA T I O N W I T H M A R I LY N S O M E R S Join historian and storyteller extraordinaire Marilyn Somers, Hon 08, for a fascinating presentation about Georgia Tech’s history and traditions.

2 5 T H R E U N I O N PA R T Y LOCATION: Tech Tower Lawn TIME: 2.5 hours prior to kickoff

GEORGIA TECH VS. PITT FOOTBALL GAME Football tickets can be purchased through the Georgia Tech Athletic Association’s Homecoming ticket site

5 0 T H R E U N I O N PA R T Y LOCATION: Georgia Tech Hotel and Conference Center, Ballroom TIME: 6:30–10 p.m.

at https://ramblinwreck.com/ homecoming. For specific questions, please call 1-888-TECH-TIX.

LOCATION: Bobby Dodd Stadium TIME: Kickoff TBD

4 0 T H R E U N I O N PA R T Y LOCATION: Historic Academy of Medicine at Georgia Tech

TIME: 7–10 p.m.

LOCATION: GT Global Learning Center | Room 236

TIME: 11:30 a.m.–12:45 p.m. P R E S I D E N T ’ S U P DA T E

NOVEMBER 2 RAMBLIN’ W R E C K PA R A D E Check out this year’s parade of classic

Meet Georgia Tech’s 12th President,

cars and engineering oddities. This is a

Ángel Cabrera, MS Psy 93, PhD Psy

must-see Tech Tradition!

95, as he provides an update about the beginning of his tenure on campus and plans for the future of Georgia Tech.

LOCATION: Global Learning Center | Room 236

TIME: 1–2 p.m.

LOCATION: TBD TIME: TBD RAMBLIN’ WRECK R A L LY TA I L G A T E Drop by Tech Tower Lawn before the game for the best pre-game party on

CAMPUS WALKING AND BUS TOURS

campus. Pick up free game-day swag,

Join the Georgia Tech Student Ambas-

and enjoy live entertainment.

sadors for a tour of campus featuring beloved Tech landmarks as well as exciting new additions.

have your picture taken with the Wreck,

LOCATION: Tech Tower Lawn TIME: 2.5 hours prior to kickoff

LOCATION: GT Global Learning Center Atrium

TIME : 3:30–5 p.m. GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | FALL 2019

ALUMNI TRAVEL

SET YOUR COURSE FOR ADVENTURE

THE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION OFFERS DOZENS OF OPPORTUNITIES TO EXPLORE THE WORLD WITH FELLOW YELLOW JACKETS IN 2020. BY MARTIN LUDWIG ARE YOU READY to explore the world with the Yellow Jackets in 2020? The Georgia Tech Alumni Association’s travel program has dozens of exciting trips planned for next year, and we hope you will join us for one or more of them. Our tours are specifically selected for Tech alumni travelers and you’ll discover fascinating destinations—ranging from leisurely European river sailings to more exotic expeditions packed with adventure—while making new friends along the way. Alumni Travel works with some of the world’s best tour operators with strong reputations for providing travelers with exceptional service, luxurious accommodations, extraordinary tour guides and unique itineraries you likely won’t find booking a trip on your own. Take a look at next year’s tour offerings, and check out www.gtalumni.org/ travel for up-to-date information and pricing.

TREASURES OF PERU: MACHU PICCHU & LAKE TITICACA SEPT. 7 – 17, ODYSSEYS UNLIMITED

FEATURED TOURS AEGEAN MEDLEY (OCEANIA SIRENA) M AY 14 – 25, GO NEXT

PHILADELPHIA, THE POCONOS & B R A N DY W I N E VA L L E Y SEPT. 13 – 18, PREMIER WORLD DISCOVERY

FALL 2019 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

2020 ALUMNI T O U R C A L E N DA R SPRINGTIME IN WASHINGTON , D.C.

March 19 – 23, Beyond Group Travel

S W I T Z E R L A N D , G E R M A N Y, A U S T R I A & T H E PA S S I O N P L A Y JULY 1 – 11, AHI TRAVEL

DUTC H WATERWAYS (MS AMADEUS QUEEN)

April 7 – 15, AHI Travel C HINA , TIBET & THE YANGTZE RIVER (VICTORIA CRUISE LINES)

April 16 – May 4, Odysseys Unlimited PORTRAIT OF ITALY: AMALFI COAST TO VENICE

April 25 – May 10, Odysseys Unlimited SOUTHWEST NATIONAL PARKS

April 29 – May 7, Orbridge MAJESTIC SLOVENIA

May 14 – 22, AHI Travel GRAND SEINE RIVER &

V I L L A G E L I F E A R O U N D T H E I TA L I A N L A K E S APRIL 25 – MAY 3, GOHAGAN

NORMANDY PASSAGE (MS RENOIR)

May 30 – June 7, AHI Travel CELTIC L ANDS (LE BOREAL)

May 30 – June 8, Gohagan JOURNEY TO CORNWALL

June 6 – 14, AHI Travel ARCTIC EXPEDITION UNDER THE MIDNIGHT SUN (L’AUSTRAL)

June 9 – 19, Gohagan EASY COMPANY: ENGL AND

C O S TA R I C A ’ S N A T U R A L H E R I TA G E F EB. 3 – 13, ODYSSEYS UNLIMITED

TO THE EAGLE’S NEST

June 9 – 22, WWII Museum Travel

ALUMNI TRAVEL 2 0 2 0 A L U M N I T O U R C A L E N DA R ( C O N T I N U E D ) CAPE COD & THE ISL ANDS

FALL SPLENDORS/

July 18 – 24, Premier World Discovery

CANADA & NEW ENGL AND (OCEANIA INSIGNIA)

Sept. 26 – Oct. 6, Go Next

SUMMER VISTAS IN AL ASKA (OCENIA REGATTA)

July 23 – 30, Go Next

CL ASSIC SAFARI: KENYA & TANZANIA

Sept. 27 – Oct. 12,

RHINE HIGHLIGHTS

Odysseys Unlimited

(SCENIC OPAL)

July 28 – Aug. 5, Go Next

SWISS ALPS & THE ITALIAN L AKES

GRAND CANADIAN

DISCOVER SOUTHEAST AL ASKA ( A D M I R A LT Y D R E A M ) JUNE 26 – JULY 3, ORBRIDGE

Sept. 30 – Oct. 9, AHI Travel

PASSAGE

Aug. 2 – 8, Orbridge BASQUE COUNTRY:

SCOTL AND – STIRLING

Aug. 10 – 18, AHI Travel

Oct. 3 – 11, AHI Travel

MAJESTIC GREAT L AKES

TRADE ROUTES OF

(VICTORY I)

COASTAL IBERIA (LE LYRIAL)

July 31 – Aug. 10, Go Next

Oct. 3 – 11, Gohagan

BL AC K HILLS, BADL ANDS &

CRUISE THE HEART OF

LEGENDS OF THE WEST

EUROPE (AMADEUS QUEEN)

Aug. 12 – 18, Premier World Discovery

Oct. 3 – 18, AHI Travel

BALTIC & SCANDINAVIAN

T H A N K S G I V I N G I N N E W YO R K NOV. 25 – 29, BEYOND GROUP TRAVEL

FRANCE & SPAIN

PASSAGE ALONG THE

EMPERORS (OCEANIA MARINA)

DANUBE RIVER (AMADEUS

Aug. 28 – September 8, Go Next

SILVER II)

Oct. 4 – 16, Gohagan NORTHERN SERENADE (OCEANIA INSIGNIA)

PARIS FEATURING THE AFRICAN

Aug. 29 – Sept. 11, Go Next

AMERICAN EXPERIENCE

Oct. 24 – Nov. 1, AHI Travel RELICS & RETREATS (OCEANIA RIVIERA)

SAN ANTONIO FIESTA

Sept. 7 – 20, Go Next

& HOLIDAY

Dec. 3 – 7, Premier World Discovery EXPLORING AUSTRALIA & NEW ZEAL AND

SOUTHERN GRANDEUR:

Sept. 12 – Oct. 3, Odysseys Unlimited

HOLIDAY MARKETS

Dec. 6 – 14, Go Next NORTHERN LIGHTS &

V I C T O RY I N T H E PA C I F I C : 75T H A N N I V E R S A RY MARCH 20 – 30, WWII MUSEUM TRAVEL 82

FALL 2019 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

THE GREAT AMERICAN

READY TO TRAVEL?

MIGRATION

Call Director of Alumni Travel Martin Ludwig at (404)

Sept. 20 – 25, Orbridge

894-0758, email him at travel@gtalumni.org or visit www.gtalumni.org/travel. The tours and dates listed are subject to change and revision.

THIS IS NOT JUST A STUDENT. This is a future Industrial Engineer. A world traveler to places like the Shenzhen University in Shenzen, China. An inspiration to future students who inspire to pursue their dreams. This is a Georgia Tech student, and with your gift to Roll Call you can provide even more opportunities to students like Yumi.

Yumi Rivas 4th year Industrial Engineering Major, Engineering and Business Minor

Continue the tradition and make a difference for outstanding students, world-class programs, top-notch instructors and state-of-the-art facilities. ROLL CALL, GEORGIA TECH ALUMNI ASSOCIATION

Give to the 73rd Roll Call, Georgia Techâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Fund for Excellence gtalumni.org/giving 190 NORTH AVE, ATLANTA, GA 30313

404.894.0756

Gen. James C. McConville, MS AE 90, now Chief of Staff of the United States Army, discussed progress on a fighting position with a Soldier from 277th Aviation Support Battalion, at Novo Selo Training Area, Bulgaria, on July 14. McConville toured the 10th Combat Aviation Brigade's area of operations during exercise Saber Guardian 17 and recognized his soldiers' outstanding work.

RAMBLINâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; ROLL

CL ASS NOTES & ALUMNI UPDATES

PHOTOGRAPH

SUMMER 2019 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

U.S. ARMY/SPC. THOMAS SCAGGS

CLASS NOTES CARLOS ALVAREZ, MSE 10, joined the Institute for Defense Analyses as a research staff member in the Operational Evaluation Division. IDA is a not-for-profit corporation that operates three federally funded research and development centers in the public interest. IDA answers challenging U.S. security and science policy questions with objective analysis leveraging extraordinary scientific, technical and analytic

GEN. JAMES C. McCONVILLE, MS AE 90, IS NOW THE C H I E F O F S TA F F O F T H E U . S . A R M Y. McCONVILLE TOOK OVER AS THE ARMY’S TOP OFFICER on Aug. 9. He replaces Gen. Mark A. Milley, who was

me find tangible ways to overcome

confirmed in July as the next chairman

challenges while expanding my sense

of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. A decorat-

of what is truly possible if we work as

ed helicopter pilot, McConville is the

a team and don't limit our creativity.”

first aviator to serve as the Army’s

At Georgia Tech, McConville played

expertise.

chief. “Armed with a master’s in engi-

on the club hockey team and celebrat-

neering to go with decades of flying

ed the birth of his first son. (That son and

ANDRES BRATT-LEAL, PHD BME 11, is a researcher for the New York Stem Foundation Research Institute, whose science investigation was launched on the most recent SpaceX commercial resupply flight to the International Space Station. He is part of the Space Tango–Induced Stem Cells investigation, where cells from patients with Parkinson’s disease and multiple sclerosis will be cultured on the International Space Station to examine cell-to-cell interactions that occur in neurodegenerative diseases.

and maintaining helicopters, he brings

his two siblings are now all Army offi-

a unique understanding of how to oper-

cers themselves.) McConville praised

ate and support complex weapons and

the professors he studied under in the

equipment,” says Army Secretary Ryan

Daniel Guggenheim School of Aero-

McCarthy. “In this respect, no senior of-

space Engineering, especially Daniel

ficer is better prepared to lead the Army

Schrage and Dimitri Mavris. “They

as we undertake what will be a massive

were great mentors and coaches, and

and, yes, risky and costly transforma-

very committed to the development of

tion towards more advanced weapons

their students,” he says.

VICTOR BOROWSKY, MGT 01, has been inducted into Northwestern Mutual’s 2019 Forum Group. This elite membership honors commitment and drive to help families and businesses plan for and achieve financial security. Forum award qualifiers represent the top segment of Northwestern Mutual’s industry-leading financial representatives. Only 5 percent of more than 6,000 financial representatives receive this recognition.

and war-fighting approaches.”

McConville’s career includes stints

McConville served as the Army’s

commanding the 4th Brigade, 1st Cav-

vice chief of staff under Milley, where

alry Division, where his aviators played

he already had begun leading those

a decisive role in the battle of Fallujah in

modernization efforts. It’s work he

Iraq. Later, he became the longest-serv-

said he has been well prepared for,

ing division commander in Army history

in part, thanks to his graduate studies.

when he led the 101st Airborne Divi-

“Georgia Tech is a tremendous school

sion on multiple combat tours over three

of higher learning, and it helped me

years. “McConville is one of the most

as a leader to think critically, innovate

courageous and thoughtful officers I

and solve the most difficult problems.

have ever served with,” Milley says.

Georgia Tech also taught me the pow-

“Jim’s blend of battlefield experience,

er of technology and to challenge the

both in the Middle East and in Washing-

status quo,” McConville says. “The

ton, made him the perfect officer to take

practical knowledge I gained helped

over as chief.“—JOSHUA STEWART

WANT TO SHARE YOUR NEWS? Send your Ramblin’ Roll submissions to: Editor, Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine, 190 North Ave. N.W., Atlanta, GA 30313, or editor@alumni.gatech.edu. You can also submit your personal news, birth and wedding announcements (with photos!), out-and-about snapshots and in memoriam notices online at gtalumni.org/magazine.

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | FALL 2019

RAMBLIN� ROLL HATHAWAY NAMED FOX SPORTS CHIEF ENGINEER equipment for all live and recorded studio shows, post-production editing suites as well as venue-based production staging and camera infrastructure. An Emmy Award winner and patent-holder for a fully integrated portable internet-based event production system, Hathaway joins the networks after previously serving as

M AT H E W H AT H AW AY , E E 0 1 , is now

engineering supervisor for CNN.

chief engineer for the FOX Sports

Hathaway also served as an IP routing

regional networks serving the South-

infrastructure expert for the network’s

east — FOX Sports South, FOX Sports

testing of systems and code.

Southeast, FOX Sports Carolinas and FOX Sports Tennessee.

Hathaway received his degree in Electrical Engineering from Georgia

Hathaway will oversee engineer-

Institute of Technology and is a mem-

ing design and technical maintenance

ber of the Institute of Electrical and

of the networks’ studio production

Electronic Engineers. He and his wife

and transmission facilities. He will

Genny reside in Atlanta with their son

also manage broadcast television

and daughter.

CHRIS MOORE, EE 98, has been promoted to president of CarolinaPower, a leading employee-owned electrical cial, healthcare and federal markets in the two-state Carolinas region.

crew members. A strong advocate for workforce development, Moore is dedicated to

Or iginall y est ablished as a

working closely with industry associ-

branch of Georgia-based Metro-

ations and public schools to promote

Power, CarolinaPower has exhibited

construction trades as a viable career

strong and steady growth over the

option. He serves on industry advi-

past two decades under Moore’s

sory boards at Greenville Technical

leadership. Part of the PPC Partners

College and Clemson University, sits

family of companies, CarolinaPower

on the board of the Associated Build-

transitioned to a stand-alone busi-

ers and Contractors of the Carolinas

ness unit in 2018. The company now

and is chairman for the South Car-

has four offices in South Carolina

olina Upstate Electrical Contractors

and a field force that exceeds 100

Apprenticeship program.

FALL 2019 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

MALLORYE CROWELL, EE 16, is the founder and CEO of Higher Foundation Inc., a non-profit organization that helps students overcome college attainment barriers. The organization offers a scholarship to a Georgia Tech upper classman to support college retention. JIMMY ETHEREDGE, IE 85, was recently named Accenture’s Group Chief Executive – North America. In his new role, Etheredge will lead the company’s business in North America, its largest geographic market, with revenues of approximately $18 billion for fiscal year 2018, and will join Accenture’s Global Management Committee. RIC HARD HALL, MGTSCI 86, was promoted to president of Birkman International Inc. Birkman is a 68-yearold family-owned personality and behavioral assessment business located in Houston, Texas. TIMOTHY ISRAEL, IE 88, MS IE 89, is now the director of the Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership at Georgia Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute. He is responsible for the manufacturing resources and regional staff located across Georgia. He has been with Georgia Tech's extension program for 30 years.

MOORE NAMED LEADER OF CAROLINAPOWER

contractor serving industrial, commer-

CLASS NOTES

C HRIS McGOVERN , IE 05, launched McGovern Project, a Manhattan-based residential and commercial interior design and renovation services firm. McGovern was most recently an executive director at Moelis & Co., where he we worked as an M&A investment banker with industrial and manufacturing clients. The decision to launch McGovern Project followed a lifelong interest in architecture and design, and a strong belief there was market demand for a streamlined, process-driven approach to interior design and renovations projects.

A D D T O O U R Eâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;YE A R B O O K ! Help us spread the Yellow Jacket spirit and be a part of the first Homecoming and Reunion e-Yearbook. In an effort to bring all of our alumni together for Homecoming 2019 we are collecting photos and stories (old and new) of your time at Georgia Tech. Post a photo of your dorm, football game, a visit back to campus or anything Tech-related to your social media with @gtalumni #gtalumniyearbook and help us grow our yearbook!

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | FALL 2019

RAMBLIN� ROLL

BIRTHS 1.

JORDAN JONES, MGT 10, and SARAH (JEFFCOAT) JONES, MGT 11, welcomed son Evan Jordan Jones on May 28.

2. EMILY CHAMBERS WELCH, IAML 10, and WILL WELCH, IAML 07, IE 07, ECON 15, welcomed son Caleb Lee Welch on June 12. He is the son, grandson, great-grandson, cousin, nephew and great-nephew of Yellow Jackets.

AMANDA PRITCHETT, BC 04, MS BC 08, and DAVID PRITCHETT, CMPE 02, MS ECE 05, PHD 09, welcomed daughter Ava in January. The family lives in La Jolla, Ca.

4. DANNY GIGLIO, EE 09, MBA 17, and LAURA GIGLIO, EE 10, MS ECE 11, welcomed Thomas "Tommy" Hilton Wesley Giglio (THWG) on Dec. 21, 2018. The family lives in Marietta, Ga. Tommy is also the grandson of Bonnie Giglio, IM 77, and Jeff Giglio, EE 77. 5.

DAVID HORWATH JR., CE 05, and wife Lisa welcomed son Tyler Michael Horwath on Dec. 3, 2017.

CAROL KYUNGJIN MINN VACCA, IA 97, and Albert Alfred Vacca welcomed daughter Luciana Carol Minn Vacca on February 14, 2017. She joins older brother Albert. The family lives in Marietta, Ga.

MIRANDA WILLIAMS, IE 12, and DANIEL WILLIAMS, CHBE 13, welcomed daughter Eliana Grace Williams on Feb. 14. The family lives in St. Louis, Mo.

SARA BALLARD BLACKWOOD, IE 09, and STEVEN BLACKWOOD, BIO 07, welcomed Charles Lane Blackwood on March 29. He joins big sister Elizabeth and big brother William. The family lives in Oxford, Miss. 88

FALL 2019 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

TECH SAVVY. BUSINESS SMART. Full-time MBA Evening MBA (Public University) U.S. News & World Report 2019

Best Executive MBA for Career Progress Financial Times 2018

Best MBA Classroom Experience Princeton Review 2019

Full-time MBA for Employment in the U.S. Financial Times 2018

Best Business School for an MBA (Public University) Bloomberg Businessweek 2018

AN MBA THAT’S TECH SAVVY & BUSINESS SMART. As a Georgia Tech alum, you know solving problems means tackling issues from every angle and understanding technology’s impact on every situation. Scheller College of Business’ three globally-ranked MBA programs (weekend Executive, part-time Evening, and Full-time MBA) offer specialized graduate curriculum and experiential learning opportunities designed to prepare professionals to thrive in the technology-driven world of business. Uniquely positioned at the intersection of business and technology, Scheller College excels at developing innovative business leaders who are ready for today’s challenges and tomorrow’s opportunities. We are Tech Savvy. Business Smart.

GaTechScheller.com

RAMBLIN� ROLL 1

CLASS NOTES EDWARD B. POPE III, TE 95, has been elected to serve a two-year term on the board of directors of the Georgia Bankers Association. Pope has been president and CEO of F&M Bank in Washington, Ga., since 2016. Pope previously served on the GBA Asset/ Liability Management Committee and currently serves on the GBA Community Bankers Committee. MATTHEW WARENZAK, IE 02, was recently named the pro bono and community service partner at Smith, Gambrell & Russell LLP. Warenzak is a chair for the Community Outreach Committee of Georgia’s Intellectual Property section of the State Bar of Georgia and a member of the advisory board for Georgia PATENTS, a program cofounded by SGR aimed at helping solo inventors, nonprofits and small businesses find patent agents and attorneys to help draft and file patents on a pro bono basis. He is an active supporter of the arts, including serving as a board member for Dad’s Garage Theater, Atlanta’s leading improv theater group. In addition, Warenzak is an adjunct professor of patent law at the University of Georgia School of Law, also serving as its representative for the Georgia Intellectual Property Alliance.

WEDDINGS 1.

MEGAN SWEENEY, IE 13, and MATT KOGAN, BA 12, on May 4 in Atlanta. Megan is a COO with GXG and Matt is a senior manager with Cox Enterprises. The couple lives in Atlanta.

NICOLE HOLUBAR WALKER, MGT 09, and Marty Walker on May 25, in Canton, Ga. Nicole is an associate director at the Emory Alumni Association. The couple lives in Atlanta.

S O R E N S O N N A M E D 2 019 TA P P I F E L L O W MARK SORENSON, ME 79, HAS BEEN NAMED A 2019 TAPPI FELLOW.

worldwide pulp, paper, packaging, tis-

Converting Division and in the Coat-

sue and converting industries.

ing and Graphic Arts Division, most

Sorenson’s 45-year paper industry

recently as chair of that division. A

Fellow is an honorary ti-

career includes many years in engineer-

frequent short course and seminar in-

tle bestowed upon a small

ing at Beloit Corporation before joining

structor and conference presenter, he is

percentage of TAPPI’s

Kusters and then Andritz. He now serves

a recipient of the Coating and Graph-

membership and is given

as sales director for the Andritz Kusters

ic Arts Division Leadership and Service

Division at Andritz Inc.

Award.

to individuals who have made outstanding technical or service contributions

A s a n a c t i v e m e m b e r o f TA P -

A resident of Beloit, Wis., Sorenson is

to the industry and/or the Association.

PI, Sorenson has ser ved in many

active in his local church and a support-

TAPPI is the leading association for the

senior positions in the Finishing and

er of the local United Way group.

FALL 2019 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

IN MEMORIAM

WE REMEMBER & HONOR THE FOLLOWING

DR. AARON KING JR.: GEORGIA TECH ATHLETICS TEAM DENTIST AARON KING JR., OF ATLANTA, ON SEPT. 3.

that he provided to our student-athletes and, for many

Born on July 17, 1931, in Atlanta, Aaron King Jr.

former student-athletes, continuing to care for us well af-

was the only child of Aaron L. King, Sr. and Eliza King.

ter our playing days on The Flats were over.”

He graduated Bass High School in 1948 and went on

King first began molding mouthpieces for Georgia Tech

to serve in the U.S. Army. He graduated from Emory

football players in 1960 when they were quite rarely seen

College and went on to graduate from Emory Dental

on the field. According to an article published in 2003,

School, where he earned a DDS degree and worked as

the first Yellow Jacket that he provided a mouthpiece to

a part time instructor for many years.

was a young patient of his private practice—Bill Curry. Of

King practiced dentistry for nearly 65 years with sev-

course, Curry who would go on to be an all-American stu-

eral longtime prominent Atlanta dentists and was the

dent-athlete and Georgia Tech’s head football coach from

senior dentist in the partnership of King, Sanderson and

1980-86. That same ESPN.com article by Doug Carlson

Hoover. He was the team dentist for Georgia Tech athlet-

goes on to say that “Curry’s teammates saw the relatively

ics for 55 years, starting with football in 1965.

new device and inquired about getting one. King’s rela-

“For more than five decades, Dr. Aaron King was a

tionship with the team grew from there.”

fixture at Georgia Tech games and practices and one

Five years later, King became the official team den-

of the biggest supporters of our student-athletes, on and

tist of Georgia Tech athletics and held the role until his

off the field,” says Georgia Tech

death. The 2019 season was his 55th with Georgia Tech’s

director of athletics Todd Stans-

football program. He was the only person affiliated with

bury. “Our entire Georgia Tech

Georgia Tech athletics to be on the sideline for the Yellow

athletics family—current and for-

Jackets’ 45-21 win over Nebraska in the Florida Citrus

mer student-athletes, coaches and

Bowl that cemented the 1990 national championship and

staff—mourns the loss of this phe-

on the bench for both of Tech’s NCAA Men’s Basketball

nomenal man. We will forever be

Final Four appearances. King was inducted into the Geor-

indebted to Dr. King for the care

gia Tech Sports Hall of Fame in 2004.

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | FALL 2019

IN MEMORIAM

19 4 0S

JOHN G. ATTANAS, CLS 42, of

Southern Pines, N.C., on May 29. GEORGE A . C HAPMAN , ARC H 49, of New York, N.Y., on March 31. FREEL AND DEAN CRUMLY, EE 44, of Shalimar, Fla., on March 9. RAYFORD DOMINY, IM 49, of

Macon, Ga., on May 2. CARLETON LEROY DUVALL, CLS 47, of Augusta, Ga., on June 22. TURNER W. IVEY, C HE 48, MS C HE 51, of Austin, Texas, on April 12. ROBERT J. KYLE, C HE 49, MS IE 51, of Atlanta, on June 10. M.E. MCCOY JR., EE 44, of Bo-

keelia, Fla., on Aug. 20, 2013. EDWIN R. MACUC H, CE 47, of

Augusta, Ga., on April 13. GEORGE F. SC HMINKE III, IM 49, of Jefferson, La., on April 15.

19 5 0S

JOHN HUNT C HAPIN , EE 57, of

Marietta, Ga., on June 13. AL AN SYLVESTER CLEPPER, C HEM 58, of Pine Mountain, Ga.,

RIC HARD FRANKLIN PRESSLEY SR., ME 58, of Norcross, Ga.,

Vidalia, Ga., on May 8.

on June 7.

JULIAN D'AMICO, JR., ME 56,

THOMAS J. RABERN , IM 58, of

of Mooresville, N.C., on June 29.

Jacksonville, Fla., on April 19.

JAMES P. DOWNS, PHYS 56, PHD PHYS 60, of Sarasota, Fla., on

JAMES EARLE ROBERSON , ME 51, of Greenville, S.C., on April 12.

April 27. HARVEY "HUGH" FOSTER JR., EE 51, of Decatur, Ga., on June 30. C HARLES ROBERT GAMBLIN , ME 59, of Grant, Ala., on May 1.

27. RIC HARD "DIC K" HJELMAR SC HELDT, IM 50, MGT 51, of

HENRY SMITH, IE 54, of Atlanta,

on March 26. EDWIN HOLT GRAVES SR., IM 51, of Jacksonville, Fla., on July 1.

ROL AND C. SHERRILL, ME 53,

of Reston, Va., on June 17. WALTER HERSHELL HOPKINS, CE 54, of Marietta, Ga., on April 10.

DAN SPRINGER, ME 55, of

Acworth, Ga., on Feb. 23 MARION E. HOUSER JR., ME 54, of Tyler, Texas, on July 3.

LINTON GRADY L ANIER, TEXT 52, of Savannah, Ga., on April 4.

WILLIAM O. BANKS, IM 58, of

Macon, Ga., on June 2.

HOMER BERNARD LOVVORN , IM 58, of Davidson, N.C., on June 29.

WILLIAM BEHRENS BLY THE, CLS 56, of Hoover, Ala., on May 7.

THOMAS ELTON MARNEY SR., CLS 56, of Grayson, Ga., on June 11.

DAN MANGET BRAMBLETT, IE 51, of Orange Park, Fla., on June 18.

KENNETH E. McDONALD, C HE 58, MS C HE 62, of Houston, Texas,

FALL 2019 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

MARVIN LEWIS ROBINSON , CLS 52, of Alpharetta, Ga., on April

Kennett Square, Pa., on May 24. LOUIS EDWIN GATES JR., CERE 53, of Greer, S.C., on June 10.

DEVAN DUMAS ARD, ARC H 52, of Birmingham, Ala., on April 15.

Huntsville, Ala., on Jan. 31.

MOSES M. COLEMAN , EE 51, of

THOMAS RIC HARD KIRKL AND, IM 53, of Gastonia, N.C., on April 30.

Gainesville, Ga., on April 15.

WILLIAM D. POWERS, EE 53, of

April 14.

LEWIS SANFORD ANDREWS, TEXT 54, of Dalton, Ga., on April 5.

RIVES C. CARTER, IM 55, of

BOBBY GORDON POORE, ME 59, of Candler, N.C., on April 1.

GILBERT L ARUE STEINER JR., MS C HEM 57, of Jackson, Miss., on

April 3. ROBERT ROY STEWART, TEXT 50, of Opelika, Ala., on April 12. FRED SAM SINGER, IE 55, of At-

lanta, on May 24. CARL T. SWEET, IM 58, of Cum-

ming, Ga., on April 3. L AWRENCE KITT TUC KER III, IM 51, of Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., on

May 8.

on March 29. WILTON A . MOULDER, CLS 53,

of Peachtree City, Ga., on April 30.

DELMAS LINDER WEBB JR., IE 59, of Portland, Ore., on June 21.

K A RY M U L L I S : NOBEL PRIZEWINNING CHEMIST KARY MULLIS, CHEM 66, OF NEWPORT BEACH, CALIF., ON AUG. 7. Mullis was a Nobel Prize winner who helped make significant advances in DNA research and technology. He hared the 1993 Nobel Prize in chemistry for devising a technique known as polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, that enabled scientists to make millions or billions of copies of a single tiny segment of the DNA molecule. Often described as a major milestone of 20th-century biochemistry and molecular biology, the PCR technique opened the way for a wide variety of studies and applications of DNA. In only one of many applications, PCR was used by evolutionary biologists to study the mi-

most prominent representatives in the sci-

nuscule quantities of DNA discovered

entific community of the mind-set of the

Mullis was born Dec. 28, 1944, in Le-

in the fossils of ancient species. The pos-

counterculture that was centered in Cali-

noir, N.C. When he was about 5, the

sibilities suggested by this technique

fornia in the 1960s.

family moved to Columbia, S.C. In high

inspired the creation of dinosaurs in Jurassic Park.

untamed genius.

In his Nobel lecture, he told the as-

school there, he demonstrated an inter-

sembled dignitaries that “six years in the

est in science and scientific exploration

Mullis lived an unconventional life. In

biochemistry department didn’t change

by launching rockets, powered by home-

addition to being a scientist, he was also

my mind about DNA, but six years of

made chemical fuel. After receiving a

a surfer, a writer and a one-time bak-

Berkeley changed my mind about al-

doctorate in biochemistry from Berkeley,

ery manager who backed controversial

most everything else.” A fount of ideas

Mullis did research at other universities

ideas. Among the exploits and adventures

sufficiently offbeat to make fellow sci-

before joining Cetus Corp., then a San

for which he was known was experimen-

entists frown, he seemed skeptical of

Francisco Bay area biotechnology firm.

tation with the hallucinogenic drug LSD.

much conventional wisdom, including

He later became the chief of molec-

A 1966 chemistry graduate of Geor-

that climate change was man-made

ular biology for another corporation,

gia Tech who held a PhD from the

and that HIV caused AIDS. Such flout-

Xytronyx Inc., in San Diego. Subsequent-

University of California at Berkeley, he

ing of scientific norms led one colleague

ly, he has been described as freelancing

appeared in many ways to be one of the

to reportedly characterize him as an

as a consultant.

EDITOR’S NOTE We have changed the format for the In Memoriam section of the Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine. We will include an abbreviated version of each obituary in print, while publishing the full obituaries on our website. To read these full obituaries, please visit gtalumni.org/magazine.

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | FALL 2019

IN MEMORIAM

JAMES ALTON WILSON SR., TE 54, of Chester, S.C., on May 4.

RIC HARD HOWARD HORTON , IE 66, MBA 70, of Savannah, Ga.,

ANDREA KRISTEN FINNEGAN KIMBLE

on May 19.

19 6 0S

ERNEST REGINALD ANDERSON, EE 61, Huntsville, Ala., on June 11. THOMAS E. BRAZIL, IM 6 4, of

Newborn, Ga., on July 8. JULIAN K. BYRON , CERE 60,

Bainbridge Island, Wash., on April 27. CARL M. CARTER JR., EE 63, of

Chattanooga, Tenn., on May 14. SAMUEL WINDSOR COIL, IE 60, of Boise, Idaho, on March 23. GEORGE L ARRY CULPEPPER, CLS 63, of Atlanta, on June 19. JAMES H. CURREY, TEXT 61, of

Brentwood, Tenn., on May 22. THOMAS FRANCIS DALY, IE 63, of Atlanta, on June 8. DONALD CARLISLE EDWARDS, ME 65, of Mobile, Ala., on April 3. PETER FRANCIS GRAZZINI SR., IM 62, of Charlottesville, Va., on May

22. DOUGL AS MONTGOMERY GRIMM, IM 62, of Atlanta, on June

20. RAYMOND E.“RAY” HELTON , IE 67, of Maysville, Ky., on April 19. WILLIAM WHALEY HINES, MS IE 58, PHD IE 6 4, of Atlanta, on

June 25. JAMES THOMAS “ TOM” HORTON , IM 68, of Atlanta, on March 20.

C HARLES S. HUEY, IE 69, of

Concord, Ohio, on April 8. JOSEPH FRANK JACKSON JR., IM 65, MS IM 71, of Atlanta, June 16. PHILIP LEROY, CLS 6 4, of

Statesboro, Ga., on May 2. ROBERT M. LEWIS, IM 60, of

Dalton, Ga., on July 7. DANIEL W. LOWRY, EE 6 4, of

Springfield, Mo., on April 13. FREDDIE "FRED” MARION , AE 65, of Vero Beach, Fla., on June 11.

ANDREA KRISTEN FINNEGAN KIMBLE, MGT 09, OF CASTLE ROCK, COLO., ON APRIL 6. Kimble died peacefully in her home surrounded by family following a battle with cancer. She was born on in Fort Belvoir, Va., and lived in Virginia, New York, New

DAVID A . MARROCCO, C HE 61,

Jersey, Florida, and Georgia growing up.

of Clifton, N.J., on July 5.

She graduated from North Gwinnett High

DUDLEY A . MCRAE, IM 65, of

Dunwoody, Ga., on May 8. WILLIAM MOON , CLS 60, of

School in 2005. She enrolled at Georgia Tech, where she embraced the Yellow Jacket spirit and spent a summer exploring Europe through the Oxford University

Snellville, Ga., on May 29.

Study Abroad Program.

WARREN DAVID NELSON SR., CE 61, of Austin, Texas, on June 27.

in 2009, earning a degree in manage-

She graduated from Tech with honors

KELLY EUGENE NORTON , ME 62, of Lakeland, Fla., on April 2. C HARLES ANDREW PFAFF SR., IM 63, of Atlanta, on April 28. ROBERTO I. PEDROSO, C HE 63, of Lakeland, Fla., on May 24 ROBERT “BOB” ROSE RHINEHART, EE 65, of Atlanta, on May 19. ERNEST “ERNIE” C. RIETH, IM 61, of Ponce Inlet, Fla., April 20. JOHN C. SHAW, EE 62, MS EE 6 4, of St. Simons Island, Ga., on June 9.

ments and a certificate in technology and operations management. After graduation, Kimble moved to Arlington, Va., where she began working for SAIC/ Leidos as a program management analyst. In her new home, she enjoyed playing in kickball leagues and served as president of the Georgia Tech DC Alumni Network. It was in Virginia that she met her future husband, Kevin Kimble. Andrea and Kevin shared many adventures together and enjoyed hiking, skiing and traveling. During her courageous battle with cancer, she made a strong impression on the University of Colorado medical team with her positive attitude, constant cheerfulness and beautiful smile.

FALL 2019 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

ROBERT L. STOWELL, MATH 60, of Belmont, N.Y., on April 9

C HARLES E. LONG, ARC H 74,

CARLTON BERNARD WASKEY, IM 62, of Roanoke, Va., on July 5.

JOHN HARRIS PERRY JR., ME 71, MS AE 80, of Cordele, Ga., on

of York, Pa., on April 21.

DAVID LEE ERDMAN , MS IM 82, of Tucker, Ga., on May 27. DEREK HENRY GWINN , IM 85,

of Winter Park Fla., on April 3.

June 14.

19 7 0S

WILLIAM F. BIBB, PHYS 71, of

Decatur, Ga., on Feb. 1. MIC HAEL KENT CAULKINS, IM 70, of Pensacola, Fla., on June 14. THOMAS ALSTON C HAPMAN , IM 70, of New Bern, N.C., on June

DENNIS RING, IM 74, of Pensac-

EDWARD FREEL AND HARRIS, CE 88, MS CE 95, of Atlanta, on

ola, Fla., on June 10.

May 17.

HEBER STONE JR., ARC H 76, MS ARC H 78, of Temple Terrace,

WILLIAM J. HATC H, MS AE 84,

of Atascadero, Cal., on May 16.

Fla., on June 13. IGNACIO "NATC H" ANGEL VIL L AMIL, ME 72, of Baton Rouge, La.,

19 9 0S

23.

on June 20.

SCOTT FRANCE BISHOP, MGT 93, of St. Petersburg, Fla., on April 3

KATHLEEN DAY, IM 78, of Atlan-

JAMES "JIM" YOUNGBLOOD, TC H 75, of Louisville, Ky., on April 30.

TIMOTHY HENDRIX, AE 97, of

ta, on April 23. ROBERT F DUDLEY, MS ME 76,

of Darnestown, Md., on May 5. JAMES "JIM" CRAWFORD GRAY, CE 77, MS CRP 81, MS CE 80, of Atlanta, on June 17. QUINCY RAY JOHNSON III, ARC H 72, of Orlando, Fla., on June

25.

19 8 0S

EDWARD GENE “ TED” CAPE, C HE 86, PHD C HE 91, of

Gainesville Ga., on July 3.

Long Beach, C.A., on March 28. ERIKA KNEMEYER-BABIC, PSY 93, of Milwaukee, Wis., on May 21. C HARLES DANIEL “DANNY” NIC HOLS, MS HPHYS 93, of

Oak Ridge ,Tenn., on June 10. C HARLES L AWRENCE C HIPLEY, III, HPHYS 88, of Nokomis, Fla., on

May 23.

C HARLES “C HAD” PHILLIPS JR., BC 91, of Suwanee, Ga., on

May 14.

AMYN S. TEJA: BELOVED TECH PROFESSOR AMYN S. TEJA, OF ATLANTA, ON JUNE 28.

years. A prolific writer with over 200

Teja was a beloved professor and

scientific publications, he received nu-

mentor to students at Georgia Tech over

merous awards and recognitions during

four decades.

the course of his academic career. Teja

Born on the island of Zanzibar, he

also served and volunteered on sever-

grew up in Tanzania, where he attend-

al non-profit boards. He was fortunate

ed the Aga Khan Schools and went on

to travel the world over the course of his

to complete his PhD at London's Imperi-

career, teaching and speaking at con-

al College.

ferences and enjoying many longtime

He began his teaching career in the

international friendships.

United Kingdom, working at Loughbor-

Teja graduated 57 chemical engineer-

ough University for seven years before

ing PhD students, who remember him for

accepting a position at Georgia Tech.

his calm demeanor, unconditional friend-

Teja spent more than 40 years as a

ship and encouragement. A scholarship

professor at Georgia Tech, becoming

in his name was created by his former

an ardent Yellow Jackets fan over the

students in his honor.

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | FALL 2019

IN MEMORIAM

ELIZABETH ANN “BUFFY” THOMAS CAMPBELL: ENGINEER & BUILDER ELIZABETH ANN “BUFFY” THOMAS CAMPBELL, CE 99, OF INDIAN SPRINGS, ALA., ON APRIL 4.

in financial business

Campbell was a noted engineer-build-

planning and costing.

er who spent her career managing large

As engineering con-

construction projects for major build-

struction manager for

ers. She attended Southminster School

McDonough Bolyard

and Indian Springs School in Birming-

Peck Inc. of Fairfax,

ham, Ala. She graduated from Georgia

Va., she managed

Tech with a bachelor of science in civil

the Southeastern Con-

engineering and earned a master of sci-

str uction S t i m u l u s

ence in civil engineering from Stanford

Program for the U.S.

University.

government during

While at Tech, she was employed by

management for estimating, organization,

the great recession.

Brice Building Company and Winter

As a descendant

Construction in Atlanta. She was also

of one of Colonial

an Oxford University Honor Scholar in

America’s founding

Civil Engineering. She was President of

families, she was pre-

the Georgia Tech Chapter Society of

sented at the Potomac

Women Engineers, Society of Women

Debutante Ball in

in Construction, Executives of Note in

Washington, D.C.,

the Construction Industry and Georgia’s

and was Alabama

Top Thirty under Thirty. While with Har-

Honorary State Pres-

din Co., she managed the construction

ident and National

of the Georgia Tech Conference Center

First Vice President

and the Scheller College of Business as

of the Children of the

well as major projects at the Atlanta Bo-

American Revolution.

loving mother, aunt, daughter and sis-

tanical Gardens. She was also key in the

Campbell was a Girl Scout Gold

ter. She loved to sail with her husband

construction of the BellSouth Tower at

Award recipient and was selected to

Robert and friends, enjoyed music and

the Lindbergh MARTA Station and nu-

serve on the 1996 Atlanta Centennial

books of all kinds, and knitted special

merous other projects. Her strength was

Olympic staff. She was a dedicated and

things for loved ones.

L AURIE BLITC H REED, CE 98, of

Sharpsburg, Ga., on May 24. L ARRY ROBERT ULERY JR., IE 90, of Mt. Lebanon, Pa., on May 25.

2 0 0 0S

SAMEER DEV C HERVU, BME 13, of Marietta, Ga., on April 30. MACMILLIAN "REA" GRAINGER, CLS 19, of Atlanta,

on May 27.

FALL 2019 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

TREVOR LINDSAY, ECON 14, of

New York City, N.Y., on July 7. WILLIAM PALMER, IE 03, of Hen-

derson, Nev., on May 28, 2018. FELICIA LUSHUN TAYLOR, CLS 01, of Douglasville, Ga., on May 3.

LT. G E N . B E N J A M I N F. R E G I S T E R J R .

FRIENDS

HELEN M. ADERHOLD, of Atlanta,

on April 21. BOBBY WAYNE ALEWINE, of

Alto, Ga., on July 13. JOHN ALLIGOOD, of Macon, Ga.,

BENJAMIN F. REGISTER JR., IM 51, OF LEE COUNTY, ALA., ON AUG. 5. Register was born June 10, 1930, in Columbus, Ga. He earned a degree in industrial management from Georgia Tech, where he played basketball. Register was an engaged Tech alumnus who

on May 2.

was active for many years with the Co-

his tenure, he served in both the Kore-

lumbus, Ga., Alumni Network. Register

an War and the Vietnam War. He was

L AWRENCE DENNEY BLEDSOE,

also obtained a master’s degree in mili-

one of the last soldiers to come home

tary logistics from the Air Force Institute

from Korea, traveling with the prisoners

of Technology. Register proudly served

of war. He was also on board one of the

his country in the United States Army

last American helicopters to leave Viet-

for over 36 years, retiring in 1987 with

nam, and was instrumental in evacuating

the rank of lieutenant general. During

numerous orphans.

of Douglasville, Ga., on April 12. DR. PANDELI “LEE” DURBETA KI, of Sandy Springs, Ga., on March

27. ROBERT “BOB” LEONARD GLEASON , of Roswell, Ga., on

May 4. ANDREW JOHN GMEINER, of

Copperhill, Tenn., on May 14. FRANCES M. LONG GOSSAGE,

of Atlanta, on May 2. HENRY W. HASTINGS II, of New-

D O U G L A S M O N T G O M E RY G R I M M : B R OA D C A S T E R D O U G L AS M O N T G O M E R Y G R I M M , I M 6 3 , OF ATLANTA ON JUNE 20.

son and only child Bennett was born.

Grimm grew up in the Druid Hills

to Panama City to manage the television

neighborhood of Atlanta, which he

Grimm's career took the young family station, WMBB.

loved dearly throughout his life. He at-

In 1984, he parted ways with WMBB

tended Druid Hills High School, where

and joined Don McCoy, his longtime

GEORGE JOHN KATUL A , of Sa-

he met life-long friends and became a

business partner and friend, in the radio

vannah, Ga., on May 3.

blues music aficionado, staying up late

business. They formed US Broadcasting,

with his brother Richard listening to AM

acquired the Myrtle Beach station, WJYR

radio stations out of Ohio. He even re-

in what would become the start of a ra-

corded an interview with Georgia's own

dio empire. Over the next decade and

bluesman Blind Willie McTell.

half, they bought and sold several more

port Beach, Calif., on April 16.

C. JOHN M. MELISSINOS, of Los

Angeles, CA., on April 2. L AWRENCE JOHN MONTGOMERY JR., of Atlanta, on June 28. MARVINA WALLINGFORD NORTHCUTT, of Marietta, Ga., on

May 2. MARY “JANE” B. READ, of Poto-

mac, Md., on Feb. 27. GARY D. SMITH, of Sharpsburg,

Ga., on May 3.

Not long af ter, Alan Lomax, a

radio stations in Georgia, Alabama and

well-known blues archivist historian,

California, culminating in the sale of the

accepted a dinner invitation to the family

US Broadcasting conglomerate in 2004.

home at Grimm’s request. Grimm grad-

After retirement, Doug focused his

uated from Georgia Tech in 1963 and

attention on his golf game and joined

joined the U.S. Army, serving in the artil-

Druid Hills Golf Club, which he had

lery division at Fort Bliss in El Paso.

yearned to join since he was a teenag-

While serving at Fort Bliss, he went

er. He spent the next 15 years playing

on a blind date with his future wife, Jari

golf three times a week and developing

Bennett. The newlyweds briefly lived in

close-knit friendships. He traveled across

Dallas, with Doug working for Arbitron

the country to participate in golf tourna-

ratings. The call of family and Druid Hills

ments, and enjoyed traveling with his

brought them back to Atlanta, where his

extended family.

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TECH HISTORY

25 YEARS OF KEEPING TECH’S PAST ALIVE

THE INSTITUTE’S LIVING HISTORY PROGRAM CELEBRATES A QUARTER CENTURY OF COLLECTING, PRESERVING AND PRESENTING THE INSTITUTE’S STORIED PAST. BY MELISSA FRALICK

FOR A FORWARD-THINKING I N S T I T U T E that’s always seeking to “Create the Next,” preserving the past hasn’t always been on the top of the list. Over its 134-year lifespan, the Institute can claim scientific and technological advancements and incredible alumni who’ve changed the

FALL 2019 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

world. But it wasn’t until 25 years ago that someone stepped up to record first-hand accounts of these achievements in one place. The Living History Program, established in 1994, has been going strong for the last quarter century collecting, preserving and presenting the stories, history and traditions of Georgia Tech. It all started when a phone call that no one quite knew how to

handle ended up at the desk of Marilyn Somers, Hon 08, who at the time was serving as the Georgia Tech Alumni Association’s director of communications and public relations. A nursing home in Baltimore had reached out in search of a recording of the Ramblin’ Wreck fight song to play at the birthday celebration of a 100-year-old Tech alumnus. “I of course agreed and said that I would send him a little birthday present and a

SCOTT DINERMAN, STC 03

100

interns Janie Johnson and Steven Corrales

PHOTOGRAPH

Living History staff Marilyn Somers (front) and Scott Dinerman (right) with student

recording,” Somers says. From there, Somers could have easily crossed it off her to-do list and moved on. But she began thinking about this 100-year-old Yellow Jacket and the interesting stories and memories he must have from his time at the Institute so long ago. A fan of the informational kiosks at state parks, Somers thought that the Alumni Association may be able to implement something similar to share stories and interviews with alumni. When she pitched the idea, her boss at the time wasn’t initially sold. But a member of the Association’s Board of Trustees caught wind of it and liked the idea so much that he offered to donate recording equipment from his business to get the project going. Not knowing exactly where to start, Somers reached out to the National Park Service for guidance, and was connected with Dr. Suzanne Williams, an oral historian teaching at Reinhardt University for the summer. Williams thought Somers had a great idea, and agreed to come to Atlanta to help kick off the program. Williams introduced Somers to the intricacies and legal parameters of collecting oral history, and put her in touch with national oral history organizations. The program, established as the Georgia Tech Oral History Program, was quickly taking shape. Somers assembled a list of alumni who graduated before 1925, and sent out postcards asking them to share their stories. A handful of Georgia Tech students were hired to interview alumni, with Somers overseeing the program. Somers followed industry best practices to set up Tech’s oral history program, with one exception. The standard at the time was to capture

“ I LEARN SOMETHING NEW ABOUT GEORGIA TECH HISTORY WITH EVERY INTERVIEW THAT WE DO,” DINERMAN SAYS. stories by audio recorder. “The one thing I deviated from was that I didn’t think it should only be audio,” Somers says. With video cameras becoming lighter and more portable by the mid 1990s, “I decided to do video, because what could the harm be?” Several interviews in, it became clear that using multiple students as interviewers provided inconsistent results, so Somers began conducting the interviews herself. She’s done more than 1,150 since. For several years, Somers split her time between interviews for the program—which was later renamed Georgia Tech Living History—and her public relations role at the Alumni Association. But by 1999, the program had grown and Somers transitioned into the role of Living History director full-time. In 2005, Scott Dinerman, STC 03,

was hired to capture the stories of his fellow Ramblin’ Wrecks as the Living History program's video producer and editor. He’s been an integral part of the program ever since, capturing more than 600 interviews, editing the program’s fascinating documentaries, and producing other multimedia projects. Though students no longer conduct interviews, they are still an integral part of the Living History team. Each year, a handful of students work for the program transcribing and indexing video interviews. Thanks to their hard work, each of the Living History interviews can be searched by keyword and are available with a written transcript and timeline. This exhaustive effort is what makes Living History’s body of work such a treasure. “What we’re trying to do is record as many interviews as we can and get those in a word-searchable database so that researchers can find first-person accounts of just about any subject they can think of,” Dinerman says. Today, the Living History team records an average of one interview a week, for a total of 40-50 a year. They travel to their subjects, and Dinerman has compact recording equipment that fits onto a hand truck

Handling vintage documents and materials often requires wearing protective gloves.

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | FALL 2019

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TECH HISTORY

Marilyn Somers (right) interviews Francis B. “Duke” Mewborn, EE 56, in 2004.

for transportation.“We prefer to go to their homes so they are more comfortable,” he says. Somers’s Living History interviews are expansive. They cover their subjects’ entire lives—before, during and after their time at Georgia Tech—to give a complete picture. This provides details that, while not Tech-specific, are fascinating in their own right.

“Some of our tales told as secondary stories are just priceless,” Somers says. After the interview, Dinerman makes DVD and MP4 copies of the tapes and then students begin the process of transcribing and indexing the stories to preserve them in the vaults of Georgia Tech history. “I learn something new about Georgia Tech history with every interview that we do. We interview people who’ve done amazing and interesting things,” Dinerman says. In addition to collecting alumni stories, Living History also creates an annual 50th Class Reunion video and produces documentaries about Tech history and traditions. These 50th Class Reunion vidoes go all the

way back to the class of 1944. Dinerman says these the videos are unique to each class, featuring class photos and snapshots of campus, stories from class members, and popular music and culture—a time capsule for each year. “If you were to watch them consecutively, you would see a slow progression of campus over time,” he says. They’ve also created dozens of documentary videos about topics ranging from the history of the Ramblin’ Wreck to Tech’s most famous animals and references to Georgia Tech in movies. The early history of Georgia Tech soon became Somers’s passion, and she has conducted extensive research to add to what we know about the

For her work in launching and sustaining Georgia Tech’s Living History program, Somers was awarded honorary alumna status from the Alumni Association in 2008.

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Institute’s formative years.“I do love the history of Georgia Tech and enjoy finding more and more about it,” she says. The mission of Living History has expanded over the years as Somers was asked to give presentations. She's a natural storyteller and began regularly presenting the history and traditions

of Georgia Tech to groups both on and off campus. She often fields obscure questions from people around campus as well as alumni and the media. If she doesn’t know the answer, she’ll do a deep dive into the records to try and find an answer. Her ability to find just about anything has garnered her a reputation

LIVING HISTORY HIGHLIGHT INTERVIEWS THE LIVING HISTORY PROGRAM’S LIST OF INTERVIEWEES IS IMPRESSIVE, FEATURING ATHLETES, SCIENTISTS, PROFESSORS, CAPTAINS OF INDUSTRY AND EVEN A FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT. WITH SO MANY INTERESTING INTERVIEWS OVER 25 YEARS, PICKING FAVORITES IS NEAR IMPOSSIBLE.

“IT’S LIKE N AMING YOUR FAVORITE CHILD,” SOMERS SAYS. “I LOVE EACH INTERVIEW AND I DON’T WANT TO CHOOSE.” HOWEVER, BELOW ARE A FEW INTERVIEWS THAT WERE PARTICUL ARLY MEMORABLE FOR SOMERS:

LULU SMITH WESTSCOTT A N D QUEENIE SIMS: DAUGHTERS OF H.L. SMITH, GEORGIA TECH’S FIRST GRADUATE “I think it’s amazing that we have personal anecdotes and descriptions of the first man who graduated from Georgia Tech in 1890. I’m very pleased to have saved those stories,” Somers says.

GEORGE P. BURDELL: N E E D S

NO INTRODUCTION

Somers knew that Living History’s 1,000th interview needed to be reserved for a very special alumnus. Though his face was obscured, she says it was great fun to sit down with the legend himself. “When one considers who is the most famous alumnus, hands down the vote goes to George P. Burdell,” Somers says.

TEDDY ROOSEVELT: (A VERY CONVINCING IMPERSONATOR) President Teddy Roosevelt visited Georgia Tech in 1905. To mark the anniversary 100 years later, a skilled Roosevelt impersonator recreated the event on campus. Somers enjoyed interviewing “Roosevelt” and discussing his connections to Georgia Tech, including his relationship with famed football coach John Heisman.

as the keeper of Georgia Tech’s history. Somers says one of the most meaningful aspects of leading the Living History Program has been keeping up with the many student interns who have contributed to its success over the years. She puts together an annual newsletter that shares updates and photos from 47 of her former students. “I’m very proud of the fact that I’ve kept up with so many of the former interns,” Somers says. “I’m so touched and happy to say that’s a part of what we do. It’s a labor of love.” Somers also keeps in touch with all of her living interview subjects and their families. Her correspondence list is extensive, to say the least: She sends close to 900 birthday cards every year. Many of these birthday card recipients are elderly and don’t have many living friends or family members. “I think it’s so important to the Institute that alumni know that they’re important, so they feel more closely attached to Georgia Tech,” Somers says. “I think that’s part of our mission, at both the Alumni Association and the Institute.” Still working in her 80s, it hasn’t always been easy for her to keep going. But Somers is committed to continuing the Living History Program and doing the work she loves for as long as she can. “History is a hard sell. It’s been a hard, hard sell at Georgia Tech,” Somers says. “But we are a remarkable Institution with remarkable graduates. And my dream is to see the Living History Program become a permanent part of the Institute so that 50 years from now, researchers and families can continue to see and hear the stories of those Ramblin' Wrecks who make the history of the Institute.” GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | FALL 2019

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TECH HISTORY

THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF MR. GEORGIA TECH

THE NEWLY CATALOGUED PAPERS OF L.W. “CHIP” ROBERT DOCUMENT THE IMPACT HE HAD ON CAMPUS—AND AROUND THE WORLD.

FALL 2019 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

helped establish some of the Institute’s long-standing traditions. He served as the captain of the baseball team, track team and football team under legendary coach John Heisman and earned 15 varsity letters during his college career. After graduation, Robert established a highly successful engineering firm in Atlanta called Robert and Company. On a business trip to New York, Robert reached out to one of his heroes, Gen. Leonard Wood, who was the Army’s Chief of Staff. Wood agreed to meet Robert after learning that he was a fellow Georgia Tech football player. The two hit it off, and Wood asked Robert to become his civilian aide for the military construction program during WWI. This was the first in a long line of major projects that Robert and Company would complete for U.S. Armed Forces. Through this connection, Robert was also able to ensure that Georgia Tech was one of the first six universities selected by the United States to establish ROTC programs. He may have graduated, but Robert

GEORGIA TECH AND EMORY UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES

104

floor of the Woodruff Library and open to the public. The materials, the photographs and the records will all provide a wonderful experience for interested.” Susan Robert, who is married to Chip Robert’s grandson, is working to ensure that his legacy lives on. After going through his massive collection of personal and professional records and correspondence, she was so impressed by what she found that she wrote a book chronicling his life story. She is hopeful that through these efforts, more people will learn about Chip Robert, particularly at the school he loved so much.“He is not in any history book,” Susan Robert says. “And that’s another thing that makes this collection so exciting.” Chip Robert rambled in to Atlanta in 1903 on a train bound for Cornell University. He made a detour to visit a friend at Georgia Tech and was so impressed by what he saw that he decided to stay and enroll at the Institute. As a student, Robert was a gifted athlete and a natural leader who

PHOTOGRAPHS

L.W. “CHIP” ROBERT JR, CE 1908, EE 1909, may be the most impressive Georgia Tech alumnus you’ve never heard of. Remembered fondly as “Mr. Georgia Tech,” Robert’s countless contributions to his beloved alma mater are still evident today. Equally impressive are the marks he left upon the city of Atlanta, the nation and the world at large as a cabinet member and trusted adviser to two U.S. presidents. Robert’s entire collection of papers has been catalogued at Emory University, where it will be available to the public beginning with an eight-week exhibition that opened on Sept. 19. “To officially open the collection, we are putting together an exhibition that details the impact that his career had,” says Jennifer King, director of the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library at Emory University. “It will be in the Rose Library on the 10th

BY MELISSA FRALICK

never truly left Georgia Tech. He was an active alumnus who served on the school’s Board of Trustees and Athletic Board for decades and gave his time and money whenever needed. He also was part of a group that created the co-op program to help make a Tech education more affordable by way of a structure that allowed students to work in their field while attending school—a program still popular at Georgia Tech today. In 1921, Robert was named the national chairman for Tech’s first capital campaign. Thanks to his efforts personally calling and writing letters to alumni, the campaign exceeded its fundraising goal. In addition to his devotion to Tech, Robert also held a lifelong passion for politics. Though he never ran for office, he worked for decades behind the scenes and was extremely influential in the Democratic Party. He attended his first Democratic Convention in 1924, and was a delegate at each convention after until his death in 1976. Robert was an active fundraiser and campaigner for Franklin Delano Roosevelt during his 1932 presidential bid. After Roosevelt’s election, he was asked to be part of Roosevelt’s administration as assistant secretary of the treasury. One of his major tasks was to implement Roosevelt’s New Deal and help the nation recover from the ravages of the Great Depression. In 1936, Robert left Washington, D.C., to return to Atlanta and his business at Robert and Company. But he didn’t totally get away from politics—that year, Robert was elected to serve as the secretary of the Democratic National Committee. In the early 1940s, Robert stepped in to help the nation prepare for battle in the lead-up to America’s official entry into WWII. Because of its long history

of successful military building projects, Robert and Company was selected to build the massive Naval Air Training Center in Corpus Christi, Texas, as well as the Bell Bomber Plant in Marietta, Ga. After WWII, the United States approved an initiative known as the Marshall Plan to help Europe rebuild. Chip Robert was also a close friend and adviser to President Harry Truman, who tapped him to help implement the post-war reconstruction effort in Europe. He was well-suited for the task: Robert was extremely well-traveled and had extensive knowledge of building and engineering that would be useful in assessing what needed to be done in war-torn areas. This special combination of skills led him to become an envoy and special delegate to the president. He purchased the first around-the-world ticket offered by Pan American for this inaugural journey in 1947. He went on to fly around the world 17 times, and was likely one of the most widely traveled people of his time. In the 1950s, Robert took his passion for air travel and worked with Atlanta Mayor Bill Hartsfield to bring his vision of an international airport to Atlanta. He was ultimately successful, and Robert and Company drew the plans for what would become the world’s busiest airport. All the while, Robert stayed involved at Georgia Tech. He was generous in quiet ways—covering tuition for students in need—as well as more public ones, such as a $75,000 gift that was the largest unrestricted donation in the school’s history in 1963. “No matter where he was, in politics, in industry, accomplishing all the things he did, he had Tech in his front pocket the whole time. He loved that school,” says Susan Robert.

THE ORIGINAL BIG MAN ON CAMPUS

CHIP ROBERT’S INFLUENCE STILL RESONATES AT GEORGIA TECH, M O R E T H A N 10 0 Y E A R S S I N C E HE GRADUATED. HERE’S A LIST OF SOME OF HIS INCREDIBLE ACCOMPLISHMENTS ON CAMPUS:

► Helped publish the first Blueprint yearbook

► Was a founding member of ANAK, Tech’s secret honor society

► Served as captain of the football, baseball and track teams

► Created the co-op program to make a Tech education more accessible

► Selected to be the national chairman of Georgia Tech’s first capital campaign in 1921

► Let at his firm, Robert and Company, the design of Georgia Tech’s U-shaped football stadium in 1924 ► Played an instrumental role in recruiting Bobby Dodd as head football coach at Georgia Tech ► Was awarded Georgia Tech’s first Alumni Service Award in 1934

► Is the namesake of the L.W. Chip Robert Jr. Alumni House on North Ave.

WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT CHIP ROBERT? Visit the special exhibi-

tion of the Chip Robert collection at Emory University. Or you can read The Man Who Loved Georgia Tech, by Susan S. Robert.

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | FALL 2019

105

BACK PAGE

IN ELITE COMPANY

TECH GOLFER ANDY OGLETREE WON THE PRESTIGIOUS 2019 U.S. AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP, JOINING FELLOW YELLOW JACKET WINNERS BOBBY JONES AND MATT KUCHAR.

R A L L Y I N G from an early four-hole deficit and a twohole difference after the first 18 holes, Georgia Tech senior Andy Ogletree won the 119th U.S. Amateur Championship with a 2 and 1 victory over Vanderbilt senior John Augenstein at the Pinehurst Resort in North Carolina. Top amateur players—not just collegiate golfers—from around the world annually compete in this prestigious tournament. Ogletree, ranked No. 120 in the World Amateur Golf R ankings at the time, became the third Yellow Jacket to ever win the U.S. Amateur. He joined none other than Bobby Jones, ME 22, who won five of them (1924, 1925, 1927, 1928 and 1930), and Matt Kuchar, Mgt 00, who won following his freshman year at Georgia Tech in 1997 (and following Tiger Woods, who won three U.S. Amateur championships in a row). The victory grants Ogletree a number of entries into several major golf events, including the 2019 Walker Cup, the 2020 U.S. Open Championship at Winged Foot, the 2020 Open Championship and a likely invitation to the 2020 Masters tournament. “To be honest, I didn’t play that bad (in the morning),” Ogletree said after 106

FALL 2019 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

BY MIKE STAMUS

the match. “John just got off to a great start. He’s a great player. I knew it was going to be a tough match, and it’s a long day. Thirty-six holes is a lot of golf, and you can’t really beat yourself up over the first six. I really did a good job of staying in it, and I just knew if I kept hitting fairways and greens and keeping myself in position, it would work out.” He said of the win that put his name on the Havemeyer Trophy, alongside that of Jones, Kuchar and many golfing

greats, “I think it’s going to take a while to sink in.” Tech’s top-ranked player at the end of the spring college season (No. 19), Ogletree had qualified for the U.S. Amateur for the fourth time in five years, and last advanced to match play in 2017. He was a second-team All-American and an All-Atlantic Coast Conference choice this spring after posting four top-10 finishes, including a runner-up showing at the ACC Championship.

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