Kenny Thorne, IE 89, and Bryan Shelton, IE 90. (photo: Josh Meister)

For three-plus decades, Tech’s tennis coaches have been inseparable—on the court and off

Over the past 12 years, Kenny Thorne, IE 89, and Bryan Shelton, IE 90, have coached Tech’s men’s and women’s tennis teams, respectively. They have built a tennis program into one of the best in the nation. The teams have claimed multiple ACC championships, and in 2007 Shelton led the women’s squad to an NCAA championship. Both coaches have been recognized as ITA coach of the year. But their bond stretches far beyond their coaching days.

It goes back farther than their time playing on the pro tour together, notching wins against the likes of Andre Agassi and Todd Martin. It goes back farther even than the duo’s four years together as Tech students, when both were All-American tennis players. It goes back to when they were both teenagers, to a tennis camp in Huntsville, Ala. It was there that a friendship formed and two lives unknowingly moved onto the same track.

Thorne and Shelton recently spoke with the Alumni Magazine about their friendship and work at Tech.

Thorne: We go way back, to the juniors when I was just turning 15. I lived in Florence, Ala., which was just more than an hour away from Huntsville, where Brian lived. He was taking lessons from this coach there who was very good. The coach invited me to come live with him. That’s where we first met.
Shelton: I recall I had seen him at a sectional tournament when we were younger and he was living in Hot Springs, Ark. He was playing doubles with this guy named Brad Everly. Was it Everly?
Thorne: Yeah, Everly. Bryan’s memory’s better than mine still.
Shelton: They were one of the best teams in the Southeast. So when he moved to Alabama, I vividly remember thinking, “All right, this is another guy who’s going to push me, and we’re going to push each other. It’s going to be a good thing.”
Thorne: You want to be the best, even at that age. Fortunately we had a coach that—it was more about surviving him, so we bonded. There was a rivalry. He wanted to beat me and I wanted to beat him. But we wanted to beat everybody else, too.

What was the worst thing the coach did?

Thorne: [Laughs.] That’s not legal to say.
Shelton: He was a perfectionist. He expected the most out of everybody every single day. If he came in that door and you were sitting down and weren’t doing something constructive, he would chew you out. He wasn’t shy about using whatever words to get the message across. He didn’t like mistakes. He didn’t like to tell you the same thing twice. It was a military compound.
Thorne: The tennis court was a library, he said. You were constantly studying and constantly working. Coach Bill Tym is his name. For two years, it was tennis and sleep. And not much sleep.
Shelton: It was sink or swim. You’re either going to survive and get tougher or you’re going to get out. We saw a lot of kids come into the program and fall out.

Do you keep in touch with Coach Tym?

Shelton: I do. He’s had a profound effect on our lives—somebody who’s kind of a father figure.
Thorne: His passion for tennis has stayed the same, and that’s something that coaches need. It’s something he instilled in us, a love for trying to understand the game—the frustrating parts, the exciting parts.

At that point, between you two, who was the better player?

Thorne: [Bryan] was.
Shelton: I remember playing a tournament in Huntsville, and we were playing in the 16-and-under division and 18 and under. We made the finals of the 16s and the 18s. In the morning we played the finals of the 16s and in the afternoon we came back and played the finals in the 18s. I won one and he won one.
Thorne: Have you seen the movie Brian’s Song? Brian Piccolo was the guy always trying to catch up to Gale Sayers. And I felt like Brian Piccolo. I would go out, early in the morning, and see him out there, already working on his serve. And I’d think, “OK, I need to get out there.”

Did you decide to come to Tech together?

Thorne: I moved when I was 16 up to Richmond, Va., for my junior, senior years. Bryan was still in Huntsville. We started to take recruiting trips together.
Shelton: Georgia Tech came up really late. I was contacted by the coach at the time, Gery Groslimond, and he went after both of us.
Thorne: I was looking to get into some type of engineering. Academically and tennis-wise [Tech] seemed like one of the better fits.
Shelton: The team at the time here was really weak. But we felt like great things could happen. Kenny and I, and there was Andre Simm from Miami—the three of us decided to come together. We thought we had a shot at not just developing as players but building something from the ground up.

When you came, was that still in the days of “Look to your right, look to your left”?

Thorne: That was our orientation speech, and we were sitting right next to each other. [We wondered,] “Which one of us isn’t still going to be here?” That first semester, the professors just tested you to see if they could break you down. We could’ve had better GPAs, but we worked through it.
Shelton: I remember our first class was calculus.
Thorne: Are you going to mention his name? Don’t do it.
Shelton: Oh, man, professor [Bill] Ames. He was head of the math department. We were in Calc One. We walked in that class for the first time, and after five minutes, we looked at each other and said, “We’re in the wrong class.” We walked out of the classroom.
Thorne: We left.
Shelton: We went to see our academic adviser.
Thorne: We definitely weren’t in the right class.
Shelton: You know how that ended. “Get right back in there, because that’s your class, and you’d better figure it out.” A couple of weeks later, we went in to talk to [professor Ames] about missing an exam and see when we could make it up. He gave us a lecture like something Bill Tym would say. He had to make up an exam for a couple of little freshmen? We just crawled out of his office.

When did you first see signs that you were going to have success here?

Thorne: I saw it in Bryan right away. His first year he came in and won the ACC tournament, which is extremely difficult to win [even] as a senior. His leadership on that team showed us, OK, it’s a team that’s going to be extremely dangerous.
Shelton: When you have a number one player who’s winning, it brings everyone up. You say, “I can do it too.”

Were there challenges for you in tennis?

Thorne: I had numerous injuries. We were trying to figure out which match I was going to play or if it would be better for me to sit out and get healthy.
Shelton: My freshman year I had a lot of success. Well, my sophomore year and my junior year I didn’t have any success on the court. I lost my confidence. You feel like you’re on top of the world, and the next year you go to the cafeteria and you’re sitting by yourself. I’d come out early, I’d stay late. Fortunately, some of that paid off in my final year where I got back on track. I remember Kenny being hurt through a lot. But the most amazing thing was that he could miss practice for three weeks, and Coach would just put him out there even when he wasn’t 100 percent, and he’d go out and beat some of the best players in the country. To me, it said a lot about who he was as a person and as a player.

How did you get out of that hole?

Shelton: Through that time, God was just showing me that I couldn’t do it on my own, that I don’t deserve anything. But if you stick with something and you work hard, you will get the rewards. Looking back, I wouldn’t trade it. I love the fact that I struggled for two years. I tell my players, “It’s so cool to get to the good stuff after the struggle.”
Thorne: No one who’s had success hasn’t struggled. Look at what Bryan did, and it’s a testament. He still came out and worked every day for two years.

What was your best moment as players at Tech?

Shelton: I remember us beating Georgia in Athens our senior year.
Thorne: That’s what I was thinking. Absolutely.
Shelton: It had been 18 years since Georgia Tech had beaten Georgia.
Thorne: We both went on to the pro tour and won a lot of matches, but those times when you win as a team are just phenomenal. Instead of just you jumping around and maybe your mom and dad at home jumping around when you’re on the tour, it’s the whole team. To have that in tennis is not too common. The only chance you get is here in the college atmosphere.
Shelton: When you’re practicing together, you’re conditioning together, you’re going to classes together, traveling together, doing everything together, now you’re a team. That’s the great part of college tennis. Now the team is more important than you.

Did you stay close after graduating?

Shelton: Kenny got married shortly after graduation. He and his wife, Bridget, were living here in Atlanta. I was living in a condo nearby as well. We still played doubles together, trained together, hung out together. There weren’t too many gaps when we weren’t side by side, all these years. I’m 45. I’m a little older than he is.
Thorne: A lot older.
Shelton: I’ve got him by a month. Thirty-one of those years we’ve been pretty close. He stopped playing six months before I did. There was a little gap where he came back to work here and I was coaching for the USTA. And then he talked to me about coming in and interviewing for this position. We’ve been side by side ever since.

How did you both end up back at Tech?

Thorne: I came off the tour in 1997 and took an assistant coaching position. I was going to use my industrial engineering degree, and I’d started interviewing in that. The head coaching position came open right then, and until that happened, I had not even considered it. As soon as it did, it was like I opened my eyes. I could help these guys to do better than I did. And then it was one year later, they approached me and said, “The women’s coaching position is open, and do you have any suggestions?” I said, “Well, I’ve got one. And if you can make it happen, you’re going to have the best coach in all of women’s tennis by far.”
Shelton: I was looking at going into education. Kenny contacted me, and it had never been a thought that I’d be a collegiate tennis coach. I said, “What’s it going to hurt?” We met at the OK Cafe. Kenny was there and our athletic director at the time, Dave Braine. We sat and he talked about what he wanted to do to turn it into a top 20 program. They were super supportive of doing the things they needed to do to get the program to a higher level. So I accepted the offer. By the end of my first year, we lost our last match out at UCLA in the regional, and I told the team, “Now I know. This is exactly where I’m supposed to be.”
Thorne: I remember 2007, sitting in the stands, watching Bryan win the national title. It’s probably a little like him watching me be injured and come back and win and thinking, “Man, I wish I could do that.” I jumped down from the stands and gave him a hug. Just the sheer thrill of what had just happened was overwhelming. We both want another title. We want a title every year. At the same time, we want to make an impact on people. When we leave here, we want to have had the most positive impact on the players that came through here that we possibly can. That means not just taking care of tennis, but mentoring them as people. We watch them 10 years down the road. Are they good husbands? Are they good wives? Are they good parents to their kids?
Shelton: We’ve had the opportunity, because we’re so close, to feed off each other. I’ve often said that some of Kenny’s best coaching years, maybe results-wise, haven’t been his best years. But coaching-wise, I know it’s his best year ever. People get recognition when they’re winning. But 2007 for us was the culmination of the years leading up to 2007. I was with the team in the championship match and I was doing no coaching.
Thorne: That’s a great statement.
Shelton: I didn’t say much before the match started. I said nothing between the doubles matches and the singles matches. But as he was saying, there’s a consistency of commitment. When I come in at 6:30 in the morning, he’s down there hammering away. I’ve seen that for 12 years, but most people don’t get to see it. So this last year, he’s national coach of the year, and I’m like, “Yes! I know he is! I see it every day!” It’s like when he was seeing me at 16, out there hitting my serves. When I see him out there with his team, I’m like, “All right, I’ve got to get ready for practice!” That’s our lives together.
Thorne: We’ve gone through tough times at different times. We’ve been able to lift each other up. We absolutely know we have each other’s backs.

When was the last time you played each other?

Thorne: With his bum shoulder and my bum everything, not too much. When was the last time we did?
Shelton: I think we might have done that and I threw my back out.
Thorne: [Laughs.] You threw your back out.
Shelton: I was reaching back to put a little something on my serve, and next thing you know, I’m out.
Thorne: We still know how to do it, but our bodies aren’t quite letting us do it.

Colleen Johnson. (photo: Gately Williams)

In June 1951, Charles E. Johnson earned his bachelor’s degree in industrial management from Georgia Tech. It was a proud moment for 
the young man from Charleston, S.C., but 
he wasn’t the only member of his family to be honored that day. His wife, Colleen, though not a student, was also awarded a Tech degree: 
“mistress of patience in husband engineering.”

“It was quite a nice thing to do,” Colleen Johnson recalls, admiring the document, now framed on the wall of her and Charles’ kitchen in James Island,
 S.C. “I felt very proud to receive it.”

Tech began awarding the honorary “mistress of patience” degree around 1946 to recognize the efforts of women who provided support—financial, academic, emotional—to their enrolled husbands. For a time, it was one of very few degrees women could obtain from the Institute: Although female students had first been admitted to the Evening School of Commerce in the late 1910s, women weren’t allowed to officially enroll at the Institute until 1952, and some programs held out on matriculating female students until 1968.

According to Marilyn Somers, Director of the Alumni Association’s Living History program, male students could apply through the dean of students’ office to see that their wives received the mistress of patience degree. Incomplete records were kept as to how many were given and to whom, though it’s known that Blake R. Van Leer was the first president to confer the honors. “President Harrison apparently signed some, too,” Somers says, “but the demand for them faded and they stopped being available.”

From afar, the mistress of patience degree resembles a normal Tech diploma, but up close, key differences are clear. The bottom left-hand corner bears not the Institute’s official seal but the symbol of two rolling pins crossed over an early (very pre-Buzz) rendering of a yellow jacket.

And in lieu of the standard copy, a mistress of patience diploma declares that its recipient has “successfully persevered for many months despite the necessity of encouraging and supporting a husband, the endless unintelligible
conversations concerning formulae and point averages, the excuses, the blame placed on the imaginary injustice
of professors, and the long hours of burning midnight oil, and has at last
accomplished the graduation of aforesaid husband.”

In a way, Colleen Johnson entered into her degree program before
her husband began his. The day after she and Charles arrived in Atlanta, 
she picked up a copy of the Atlanta Journal and promptly found a
secretarial job.

“I was able to get a little bonus right at first and so we used that and lived in the officers quarters of the Naval air station,” she remembers. “I’d come home, get out of the car, and he’d jump in the car and go down to his night studies at Georgia Tech, and that was our routine.”

During that first summer, Colleen cooked her and Charles’ meals on a one-burner hot plate in their one-bedroom apartment, where they shared a dormitory bathroom with other families on the airbase. Drawing on her secretarial experience with the U.S. Army ground forces (she’d previously worked on a weaponry project at Ft. Bragg that was so top-secret she had to remove her typewriter ribbon and stash supplies in a vault every night), she worked for the Atlanta Journal for a time, then for Coca-Cola.

“It was tight—we just had to do what we had to do,” Johnson says. “We would go to Piedmont Park and I would coach him in all of the things he needed to learn, like chemical equations, all kinds of math and English questions. I’d go over the studies with him and he remembered them by rote after two or three months of just drilling.”

It wasn’t all work, though. Charles joined Alpha Tau Omega, which “took care of the social activities.” During the couple’s first year in Atlanta, Colleen won the Blueprint’s annual “beauties of Tech” contest, that year judged by Li’l Abner creator Al Capp, and appeared in the yearbook. And she found some
time to take classes herself, enrolling
in music and art courses at Emory University.

After Charles’ graduation, the couple moved to Florida, where he was stationed at Tyndall Air Force Base. Johnson spent the next few years raising children and doing volunteer work. And though she took a few more art and music classes, she never earned a “real” college diploma.

Still, she’s as proud of her mistress of patience degree as any official Yellow Jacket. “The Tech experience helped me tremendously,” she says. “It gave me a place where I fit in, where I could sit in and feel part of something. It enabled me to be more of the strong individual that I’ve become.”

Photo by Josh Meister

When the orbiter Atlantis touched down at the Kennedy Space Center early on the morning of July 21, 2011, it signaled the end of the 30-year run of NASA’s space shuttle program. One of the four astronauts who will go down in history as a member of the final shuttle crew was Sandra Magnus, PhD CerE 96. Magnus, one of 14 Tech alumni to serve as a NASA astronaut, had been on two previous shuttle missions and spent four and a half months aboard the International Space Station in 2008 and 2009. Last fall, during a campus visit to speak to the Student Alumni Association, Magnus sat with the Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine and described the experience aboard the final shuttle mission.

August 2010—Magnus is working at NASA  headquarters in Washington, D.C.

I got a call about the end of August, when chief of the office Peggy Whitson asked me if I wanted to be considered for the last shuttle flight, and I was very surprised. She told me that she was curious if I was interested in a short-term mission or wanted to stay in the long duration line. My answer to her was, “Use me where you need to use me.” She called me back about two and a half weeks later and said she’d assigned me to the STS-135 mission.

We were not sure if the mission was going to be executed or not. We were the rescue mission for the shuttle in front of us. Every mission after Columbia, you served as the rescue team for the shuttle in front of you. We were going to be training for the rescue mission, so there was a lot of hope we would be added to the manifest as a normal flight in order to do this logistics delivery.

I think we all started to get comfortable in the February to March time frame that we really were going to go and this was going to be a mission. We had to approach it as if it was 100 percent going to be a mission. You had to learn the things you had to learn: “This mission is going, and I need to learn this now.”

I’ve been an astronaut for 15 years, and I’ve been on three missions. So five years of that time was taken up by training. It’s the hardest thing. Sometimes you forget you’re doing it because it’s fun.

We were a four-person crew. [The other crew members were commander Chris Ferguson, pilot Doug Hurley and mission specialist Rex Walheim.] A shuttle crew normally consists of six or seven, especially for these very busy station flights. So we had to change how we train. Normally you can split the crew up into a small series of specialists, and each person becomes an expert in that one area with maybe one person backing you up. It reminded me of training for the space station with just four of us, because you had to be a jack-of-all-trades. We had a lot more to absorb. We had extra space station material to absorb because the rescue scenario involved us staying on the space station for up to a year, coming home one by one on a [Russian] Soyuz craft. And we had a shorter time to do it.

The other thing that was quite difficult was saying goodbye to all these people that you’ve worked with for decades. People who just are outstanding, wonderful, dedicated, passionate space employees. Having to say goodbye to them was hard.

We were approaching the end of the shuttle mission whether we flew or not. We were the last crew to do a lot of things. That came up frequently: “This is the last time we’re going to use this simulator. This is the last time we’re going to be in this building.” In addition to that, we had people who were getting laid off as we were going through these milestones—these people were no longer needed.

For example, the crew interface and equipment test in Florida—we visit with the vehicle and the processing facility and we get an introduction to the equipment we’re going to be working with inside the orbiter, and all of the Florida team supports that. The day after we were finished, a couple hundred of them got laid off.

The media attention really started after the 134 mission launched. It was like a huge set of binoculars found us. We did some interaction with the media that’s not typically done. They came and followed us through our training. There was a lot of difference in the last few months, in April and May.

July 8, 2011—STS-135 is scheduled for an 11:26 a.m. launch from Kennedy Space Center.

We actually woke up about two hours later than we would have normally, because we were extending our on-orbit awake time for two hours in order to complete all of the tasks that needed to be completed on flight day one. Normally you have a larger crew and more hands to get these things done. With four people, we were going to need more time.

We woke up that morning and really hit the ground running. We ate breakfast, we put our suits on and we headed out to the launch pad.

We are allowed to choose what we have for the meal before we put our suits on and launch. I like having some kind of salad, because I always miss crunchy and fresh things when I’m on orbit. And a toasted cheese sandwich. And a chocolate shake, because I miss ice cream and dairy products as well. And sometimes I’ll have French fries, just because they’re tasty and a treat before we launch.

The space suits are just bulky. It’s like putting on 17 layers to go out in the snow. It’s awkward. It’s not uncomfortable, but you don’t want to wear it to run a race.

The weather was questionable. We weren’t even sure if we were going to make it, but you have to go try. Lo and behold, it cleared up and we were able to launch.

July 8, 2011—At T-31 seconds, the launch sequence freezes.

The vent hood that sits on top of the orange tank moves away shortly before launch. And I guess the micro-switch that indicates to the control center that that arm had swung away successfully had failed. And so they stopped the count to verify that it indeed had cleared the top of the tank. That was a surprise.

What it does is it throws you off of your stride, off of your rhythm. There’s a certain rhythm with coming out of T-nine and getting through the launch. When you have something happen that’s unexpected like that, it completely throws you off of your rhythm. We were all surprised. We were very taken aback. Of course, we didn’t know any more than people listening to the loops at Saturn V Building at Banana Creek did. We were waiting to see if they were going to resolve it and we were going to go. As Rex likes to put it, they started the countdown at 31 seconds and it’s like, 3, 2, 1, and bam, you’re off. You almost don’t have enough time to take it all in, because it goes so fast. The vehicle is moving so fast it feels like time is compressed.

NASA Photo

The main engines light six seconds before the launch so the engines can be fully checked out. You feel the stack sway a little bit. Then six seconds later the solid-rocket boosters light and you jump off the pad. You get pressed back in your seat. There’s a lot of noise, a lot of vibration. Everything’s shaking. There’s a big roaring. You’re trying to watch the computers. It’s pretty violent like that for the first six minutes, and then the solid-rocket boosters are spent and detach with a loud bang and a brief flash of light as the pyrotechnics separate them. And then things calm down quite a bit.

The main engines provide about 1 million of the 7 million pounds of thrust. They’re fairly smooth. Things are pretty quiet for a little while. You can watch the horizon drop away, if you’ve got a day launch. You’re monitoring the systems, you’re monitoring the engines. There’s about a minute before the engines cut off that you feel three G’s through your chest. And then the main engines cut off and you’re floating in your seat. It’s an exciting ride. It’s a little bit different every time I’ve done it, but always exciting.

As soon as the main engines shut off, you are in microgravity. You are floating in your seat, and everything starts to float away if you hadn’t gotten it tied down ahead of time. Then you go into the mode of, “OK, I’m in zero G, I need to keep track of my stuff better. I have to move slowly.” It’s a different world now, so put on your zero G hat.

The thing that catches everybody by surprise, the thing you can’t train for, and the thing you’re constantly warned about as a rookie is that, when you get up there, you have to have a plan. You’re going to take your gloves off—where are you going to put them? You can’t just set them down. You have to put them in a bag, or under your chair. You can’t disconnect your five-point harness. Leave at least one band around your leg so you don’t just float up out of the seat. When you take your helmet off, you’ve got to get it in the bag. The recommended way to take your helmet off is to put the bag on your head, then disconnect your helmet and take it off as a unit. You’ve got to get out of your seat, and your parachute is going to want to float away as soon as you get up and disconnect from it. You’re in this bulky suit, so your footprint is rather large. The first time you get to space it’s a little overwhelming if you don’t have a clear idea of what you’re going to do with your stuff. You develop a step-by-step plan. “Take gloves off, put them under leg. Put the crew notebook on the Velcro on the console on the right side of my seat. Turn off the cooling unit. Disconnect the cooling unit.” These are the first 20 actions I’m going to take in space.

By the time you get up there, you’re just overwhelmed, because your brain’s busy processing the bizarre environment. You have work to do. You can’t just sit and look around with wonder.

July 10, 2011—At 11:07 a.m. the orbiter Atlantis docks to the International Space Station.

The commander of the very first space station crew was a Navy SEAL, Bill Shepherd. He instituted for American visiting vehicles that, when the shuttle arrives, we have a ship’s bell on board. Following the Navy tradition of ringing aboard a crew, when the shuttle docks and when it undocks, the commander of the space station rings the bell and announces, “Atlantis arriving,” or, “Atlantis departing.” And then there’s a handover ceremony for the station guys when they change command. And then we have a very small arrival or departure ceremony with the crews, but there’s nothing really institutional about it.

As soon as we docked and opened the hatch it felt like I was home. It was like I’d never left, it was the same place but bigger. It really did feel like a homecoming.

I would’ve been the third one down [to Earth, if the shuttle had been unusable], so I would’ve stayed for nine months. I basically ran out of radiation tolerance, according to their calculations, so they weren’t going to let me stay longer than that. We’re basically considered radiation workers under the OSHA standards. And then NASA takes those standards and tightens them up a little more. There’s a certain amount of radiation you can be exposed to in a year and in your lifetime. I had four and a half months a couple of years ago and I’m a female, fairly young, so that was kind of a hit against me. As you get older, you’re allowed a higher dose of radiation because it’s a statistics game, and the probability you’re going to die from something other than radiation increases as you age.

The day-to-day life on this latest mission was nothing like that on any of my previous missions. We were so incredibly busy. It was frantic. Sometimes we didn’t bother eating. Just change clothes, go to the bathroom and immediately get started working, because we had so much to do. We were afraid of not getting it done.

We were transferring 10,000 pounds of equipment from the MPLM [multi-purpose logistics module] to the station and then we were transferring 6,000 pounds of equipment from the station to the MPLM. And some of that equipment still had to be located by the time we arrived. Usually it’s packed up in a bundle and ready to move. But the station crew didn’t have enough time. I was worried about having enough time to find things. On station, that can be very challenging.

It was like 3-D Tetris. That’s exactly what it was. In training, I had some great logistics people who set up the plan. “How do you approach this in three dimensions? How do you break it down and do it so it’s most efficient?” We had a great plan going in. We had to alter it a little bit, but not much. If you don’t have a good plan, you’re doomed.

Doug Hurley and I did the robotics in support of the space walks. When there’s a space walk, if you’re in any way involved, you’re 100 percent paying attention. You’re making sure you’re doing everything you can to support them. If you aren’t involved, you’re listening to the communications to make sure everything’s going OK in case you’re needed. You’re always aware during a space walk. That’s the major task for that day.

The payload doors [on top of the shuttle] opened, and I looked out at our atmosphere and said, “Oh my gosh, it’s so thin!” It looks like this teeny, tiny eggshell. It just makes you realize how fragile our existence is.

You usually have a couple of hours to wind down at night, have dinner, and we were working right up to the point that we should’ve started sleeping most of the time. We did manage to have three nights that we had dinner with the station crew in the three different galley locations.

Living in space, on the station, you’re on a rotating menu. You see the same thing over and over and over again. The food in itself is actually really good. It’s a little higher in salt content than I would normally have. They need to do that, they claim. You get a decent variety, but you miss crunchy, and you miss fresh. And I miss melted cheese. I always look forward to a piece of pizza when I get home.

Every now and then you’ll get a cargo vehicle with a load of apples and oranges, onions and garlic. Crunching into an apple is very rewarding when they show up. And the oranges, they have that nice citrusy smell—that’s very nice.

I always liked the red beans and rice. The Japanese had a mackerel and miso sauce that tasted like fresh fish. It was awesome. I liked the cherry, blueberry cobbler. I liked the creamed spinach. Shrimp cocktail is good. A lot of the veggie dishes are good. The Russians’ mashed potatoes and mushrooms are very good. They have this thing called tvorog, with nuts, which is kind of like a cross between a cottage cheese and a cream cheese. If you mix strawberries with it, it tastes like strawberry cheesecake. That was always a treat.

We had a half a day off somewhere in there; flight day seven, I think. But the station guys were still working on some things. So we didn’t all have time off at the same times. We’d find moments here and there to chat.

What I did a few nights, because I wanted to be on station and to relax and to enjoy it, I basically blew my sleep out of the water. I just stayed up late for a couple of hours, spent some time in the cupola or chatted with Mike Fossum [a member of the space station crew], who’s also a late night person. We find moments. What you do is you spend time in the window and chat as the earth goes by below you. That’s really one of the most companionable things you can do up there.

The cupola is a spectacular place to view the world, because you get a 360-degree view. That was a completely different experience than looking out of a porthole. The southern lights were particularly strong. We were down near Antarctica, the dark side of the planet, and so we had some spectacular views of the southern lights.

We’re not up there talking philosophically. At the end of the workday, you’re just chatting with your colleagues, like anywhere else. I will recall one moment, I was in the cupola, looking out the window, and Mike, who’s very much into photography, came by. He was telling me to look this way, look that way. I said, “Mike, what are you doing?” He said, “I’m trying to capture a memory.” I thought, “OK. That’s OK with me.”

The last time I was there I treated it like it was the last time I’d be there. And this time I treated it like it was the last time I was going to go there. It’s not likely I’ll go again. That’s why I wanted to stay up late, just to make sure I had time at the window watching the world go by. I’m much more familiar with the planet and the regions, and it’s fun to look at it with a lot of familiarity.

We’ve had women in the [Astronaut] Office since 1978. They represent 20 percent of the office. Which, if you look broadly at science and engineering, it mirrors pretty closely. It’s certainly as male-dominated as engineering.

It doesn’t matter if you’re male or female. It matters that people can count on you. You’re expected to contribute, pull your weight, react certain ways in an emergency. People’s lives depend on you. And you’ve trained with these people forever. They’re like your brothers. I feel like you know their sense of humor; you know their family really well. It’s like acquiring new family members.

Having said that, having a female on the crew is no doubt a civilizing influence. I don’t know what happens in a men’s locker room, but I’m sure if a female walked in it would be civilizing.

July 19, 2011—At 1:28 a.m., Atlantis undocks from the International Space Station.

I didn’t want to leave, but they made me.

The night before we came in, before we landed, we had everything complete. And we had some quiet time. And so the four of us were on the flight deck, and we were contemplating that this was the last mission, this was the last night. It really hit us: “This is the last time a shuttle is going to be in orbit. Wow.” We just shared the moment, enjoyed the view.

The landings are pretty benign. You’re having to deal with gravity, and that can be challenging. What I usually do as we reenter is move my head around, side-to-side, nodding. I’m trying to get my vestibular system ready to deal with gravity when I stand up. You’re not vibrating a lot. There’s not a lot
of noise.

July 21, 2011—At 5:57 a.m., Atlantis touches down at the Kennedy Space Center.

I knew I had medical tests in front of me. I knew I had my family down there. You just sit there and it’s like, “Wow, I just got back from space.” It doesn’t seem real. Even thought you just got back. It’s that strange. It seems like a completely different life, and it fades into this dreamlike state. You ask yourself, “Was I just there?”

Those kinds of thoughts are traipsing across as I’m nodding my head, because I’m going to have to stand up and go down that ladder in a minute. And I don’t want to fall on anybody.

There are people at the bottom of the ladder watching carefully. It’s not a big ladder, five or six rungs. But you’re feeling very heavy. You’ve got this bulky space suit on, and you just got back from being in space for 13 days. So you’re just very careful going down.

You take a shower as soon as you can. Because the whole concept of hot water falling on your head is a beautiful thing. Gravity has some benefits, and that’s one big one. Don’t take it for granted.

When we’re not training for a space mission, we have technical jobs. I’m going to help write some procedures for ISS for people who are going to do training. After that, I don’t know what I’m going to do. Well, I’m taking a vacation. I’m going to Peru. I’ve never been to South America.

We were the last four. That’s going to mean something to somebody in a book somewhere. But to me personally, it’s too close. I recognize it was the last shuttle flight. I’m still wrapping up the mission. What that’s going to mean in the long term? I haven’t put much thought into that.

Do I dream about space? No. The times that I think about being in space are when I’m doing these public talks and show the videos of being in space. It’s such a strange experience that when you’re walking around here in this horrible gravity well that we live in, it’s hard to relate that you were floating for months and months. They’re completely separate existences, and they don’t easily merge together.

On April 12, 1981, the first space shuttle mission took flight. Carrying John Young, AE 52, as half of its two-man crew, the Columbia mission, dubbed STS-1, completed more than three-dozen Earth orbits and inaugurated a new era at NASA.

Thirty years later, the shuttle Atlantis—carrying another Tech astronaut, Sandra Magnus, Phd CerE 96—completed STS-135, its final mission.

Now, the remaining shuttles are on their way to museums and human space travel faces an uncertain future. But Robert Braun, former NASA chief technologist and the David and Andrew Lewis Professor in Space Technology at Georgia Tech, is undeterred.

“The space shuttle was a workhorse—it was the centerpiece of human space exploration for the last 30 years,” he says. “But retiring the space shuttle doesn’t mean that we’re retiring human spaceflight. It’s quite the opposite.”

For now, the United States must buy seats on Russian spacecraft to get American astronauts to and from the International Space Station. Meanwhile, NASA is nurturing the American private space industry, hoping those companies can build space-worthy vehicles capable of taking over for the shuttles in low Earth orbit. And the space administration is trying to dream big once more, setting its sights on sending explorers to places humans have never been—presuming there’s money to pay for it.

“There are all kinds of opportunities waiting in the wings,” astronaut Magnus says. “We will eventually get out of low Earth orbit and go somewhere. We might not do it with the easiest route, because we’re human beings and we don’t always do things the easy way, but we will do it. I have no doubt.”

HEAVY LIFTING

Rewind to 2004. With the space shuttle program set for retirement at the end of the decade, President George W. Bush called upon NASA to envision a future for Americans in space beyond the ISS. The result was a set of rockets and spacecraft called the Constellation Program. But NASA’s next big thing barely got off the launch pad. Six years into the program, Constellation’s components lagged behind schedule and remained underfunded, so President Obama axed it as part of his overhaul of the U.S. space program.

But NASA hopes this was more of a pause than a full stop. In an April 2010 speech, Obama called on the space agency to develop a new way to send humans not only bang-zoom to the moon, but to an asteroid in the 2020s or even to Mars after that. NASA’s response was the Space Launch System, a rocket system that will be able to lift 70 metric tons of payload upon its first flight (scheduled for 2017) and eventually as much as  the 130 metric tons necessary to fly humans beyond the Earth’s orbit, says Roy Malone, EE 80, who heads the new Shuttle-Ares Transition Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

The Space Launch System’s crew-carrying vehicle is the same Orion spacecraft designed during the Constellation days. But instead of a winged lifting body like the shuttle, the Orion (now known by the decidedly less sexy name Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle) is a capsule like those the Apollo astronauts flew in, with a heat shield on its round bottom built to resist the scalding temperatures of Earth-orbit reentry. For now, the main engines firing during the core stage of an SLS launch will be leftover space shuttle engines—there are 15 remainders to use before SLS will bid on any new engines. And the upper-stage engine, called the J-2X, is a revitalized version of the classic J-2 that was a component in the Apollo-era Saturn V rocket.

SLS flights are still a long way off, though: The only mission scheduled beyond the 2017 first flight is one tentatively set for 2021.

“NASA’s got aerospace, airlines, science, robotic missions. There’s a huge portfolio of things we have to do within a set budget,” Malone says. “[And] we have budget uncertainty.”

But if the agency succeeds and astronauts do head for an asteroid in the next decade and a half, it will be because NASA overhauled its entire way of doing business.

HANDING OVER THE KEYS

Getting up and down to space has been the province of governments for as long as space flight has existed,” Braun says. “[But now] NASA is turning over access … to low earth orbit to American industry.”

In December 2010, SpaceX, founded by billionaire Elon Musk (formerly of PayPal and now of Tesla Motors) became the first company to successfully orbit and recover a spacecraft when its Dragon capsule completed two trips around the Earth, and they’ve since signed a deal with other private companies to launch satellites into orbit. Other private space companies, including Blue Origin and Sierra Nevada, are also building ships to carry astronauts and serve the growing market in space. Some, like billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic, are even venturing into space tourism.

If the private spaceflight sector takes off, then NASA won’t need to worry about operating and servicing a shuttle between the surface and the space station, and their engineers can turn their imaginations toward Mars.

The challenge for NASA now is to play nice with others. Private contractors have always built the ships that carried American astronauts, but NASA owned those ships and oversaw their construction and maintenance with legendary amounts of paperwork. By giving the burgeoning private space industry a boost, Braun says, NASA hopes to be just one client of many that pay to use private spacecraft.

Art by: Sean McNaughton, National Geographic Staff, www.nationalgeographic.com, Samuel Velasco, 5W Infographics, www.5wgraphics.com Image by: books.nationalgeographic.com/map/map-day/index

HOW TO VISIT MARS

Braun is a self-proclaimed “Mars guy.” He’s worked on a series of NASA’s robotic missions to the red planet, and he described being NASA chief technologist as the best job at the agency: dreaming about the future and putting the technology in place to make it happen. But he knows the daunting challenges NASA and everyone else faces in sending humans to our closest planetary neighbor—and, more importantly, bringing them back.

“You need a big launch vehicle and a crew capsule to keep them safe, but you need a lot of other things as well,” Braun says. “You need in-space propulsion so that you can maneuver around in space. Radiation protection. You need to improve the life-support systems that we’re using. You need new ways to slow down when you get to these destinations. If you take a look at a human-to-Mars mission, it makes what we’re doing robotically with Mars pale in comparison.”

One major challenge complicating plans for a Mars mission is the development of sufficient electronic systems. In flight, spacecraft bound for Mars will encounter extreme temperatures and damaging amounts of radiation that wreak havoc on traditional silicon-based electronics. At low temperatures, semiconductors’ resistivity can change and alter their performance; at high temperatures other woes crop up. Charged radioactive particles in space introduce unwanted currents into the system and degrade interfaces.

“It could be something that’s fairly benign [or] something that’s catastrophic for the system,” says Georgia Tech professor of electrical and computer engineering John Cressler, Phys 84.

To protect the electronic systems on spacecraft, NASA engineers currently package all the main electrical components inside a “warm electronics box.” It’s basically a simple oven, Cressler says, that keeps the electronic systems just warm enough to operate. But he recognizes that it’s an inelegant solution: Heating the box burns extra energy, and having to cram all of the electronics in one space restricts how engineers can design a spacecraft.

These “ovens” typically come encased in heavy shielding to protect them from radiation, and the heavier a spacecraft is, the more energy it takes to launch it. For 15 years, Cressler has been pioneering a different kind of electronics for space, a variety based on silicon-germanium alloys. The alloys are more resistant to temperature extremes and radiation than ordinary silicon, potentially rendering future spacecraft lighter and more energy efficient.

Cressler’s research reveals the huge scope of the challenges facing an interplanetary future: His systems are 15 years in the making but address just one of the litany of technological problems of sending humans to Mars. To supply a manned mission to Mars, Braun says, NASA would need to send something the size of a two-story house that could land autonomously and become a base camp for the human crew, complete with supplies.

And then there’s the matter of getting the astronauts home.

“We know how to do a rocket—that’s not the hard part,” Braun says. “The hard part is, how do you package that rocket inside the lander that has to take it there, and how do you set up that rocket with just the right precision in a rock field?”

NASA explorers recently took the next step. The latest rover, formally titled the Mars Science Laboratory and nicknamed “Curiosity,” launched on Nov. 26. It’s about the size of a Mini Cooper—a few steps up from the famous Spirit and Opportunity rovers, which were not much bigger than RC cars.

But the mission that really excites Braun is a series called Mars Sample Return, NASA’s first attempt to bring samples from Mars back to Earth, planned for the 2020s. The mission represents a potential turning point, Braun says. Not only will it basically function as a dry-run for putting humans on the planet, but the samples returned could provide decades worth of scientific breakthroughs. (After all, researchers are still discovering things from the lunar samples Apollo astronauts brought back to Earth in the late 1960s and early 1970s.)

From the standpoint of human space flight, the missions could be even more important: If they succeed, NASA will have proven that a mission to Mars and a safe return home are indeed possible.

THE END OF NASA’S BIG MACHINES?

The SLS timeline presumes that NASA—the agency of the Apollo missions and 30 years of the space shuttle program—will also be the agency to blast big rockets into space, building a heavy-lift rocket while private companies take over orbital shuttling. But not everyone shares this vision.

Vigor Yang, chair of the School of Aerospace Engineering at Tech, isn’t sure this is the best bet, mostly thanks to NASA’s policy of reusing engine technology from the shuttle and even Apollo eras.

“That technology was established at least 40 years ago,” Yang says. “Using old technology will not save us money. Never mind that we won’t attract fresh blood into this business. … It’s a safe plan, but it’s not very exciting, technology-wise.”

The big problem is money. Back in 1965, back in NASA’s Apollo heyday, it received about $5.2 billion (more than $30 billion in 2007 dollars).Today NASA receives about half as much in equivalent dollars; meanwhile, the cost of a space launch has increased substantially in the last decade.

“That business model is unsustainable,” Yang says. “To reduce the cost, the easiest way is to increase the number of flights.”

That’s what Stephen Fleming, Phys 83, is counting on. Fleming is vice provost of the Enterprise Innovation Institute, the arm of Tech that helps to commercialize ideas developed on campus. He’s also on the board of the space company XCOR, which he calls “the biggest of the little guys” in the private spaceflight sector. XCOR is developing a business to fly to suborbital and eventually orbital space, carrying tourists and doing long-duration weightlessness experiments, helping the military conduct surveillance, launching mini-satellites into orbit and taking scientific measurements.

“What all of these [private efforts] have in common is that they are elastic markets if you can provide very, very quick access to space: You roll it out, you refuel, you press the button and you go,” Fleming says.

That’s in part why he argues that the future of big launch vehicles belongs to the private sector—not to NASA. Whether or not NASA follows through on building SLS, Fleming says, it’s just too expensive, especially during a recession.

“I think NASA will build the payloads for huge interplanetary projects—I don’t think they’ll build the boosters,” he says. “I think the torch for that is passing. Some people have embraced that. Some people are still not admitting it yet.”

John Olds, formerly an aerospace engineering professor at Tech and currently CEO of Atlanta-based SpaceWorks, agrees. SpaceWorks models the feasibility and economics of future space technologies so clients like NASA know where to put their money, and Olds sees the SLS as the last big government-built launch vehicle.

Right now, he says, the United States is split between boosting private space and planning new big NASA rockets in case the private sector doesn’t work out. In time, he says, commercial enterprise will take over. While that’s inevitable, it also presents a risk.

Private companies may supplant NASA as America’s rocket-builders, Olds says, but industry can’t replace the government’s ability to invest huge sums in technological development. “If private industry is left to do its own investment,” he says, “there are some breakthrough technologies that will be too expensive, too risky for a private company interested in the bottom line.”

THE ROBOTS WILL LEAD THEM

Whether we go to Mars or beyond, and whether NASA or a private company takes us there,Braun says the first explorers will be not humans but robots. Once Mars Sample Return is done, or even before, the next goal may be robotic missions to the moons of the outer solar system, like Saturn’s Titan and Enceladus or Jupiter’s Europa.

“We know that there’s water at Enceladus,” Braun says. “We know that there’s methane and other life constituents at Titan. We know about Europa being an ice-encrusted world that we believe has an ocean beneath it.”

Those missions could lead to the technology breakthroughs needed for manned exploration. Cressler hopes to test silicon-germanium electronics on such a mission to prove their readiness.

Machines will lead the way, but regardless of recessions and setbacks, Braun has no doubt that flesh-and-blood explorers will follow—especially as the continued discovery of Earth-like planets continues to focus our collective imagination on the last great “out there.”

“There’s something about being there that is hard to quantify,” Braun says. “There’s something about people exploring [space] that captures the spirit of a society. I think this country has always been about exploration. There’s something about who we are that makes us want to explore.”

1940s

Richard Collier, AE 48, competed in the Huntsman World Senior Games in St. George, Utah, in October. He returned home to Englewood, Fla., with a bronze medal in singles tennis and a silver medal in doubles. Collier lettered for four years in tennis at Tech, which he attended through the V-12 program from 1943 through 1945,
returning in 1946 on a basketball scholarship.

1950s

William H. Winn, ChE 57, was honored in November on National Philanthropy Day in Denver, Colo., as Out-
standing Volunteer Fundraiser of the year for his work with Friends of the Haven. He founded and currently serves as president of the organization, which supports a Fort Logan, Colo.-area early childhood education center for children of women with substance abuse and mental health disorders.

1960s

Robert Snuggs, Phys 64, MS Phys 66, PhD Phys 70, was recently honored by the Naval Submarine League with their Distinguished Civilian Award. Throughout his career, Snuggs
has pioneered the use of digital
technology in combat systems and underwater sensors, leading the development of the first submarine digital sonar systems, among other accomplishments.

1970s

Bob Curry, AE 79, was recently selected as chief scientist at the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center in Edwards, Calif. In this position, he will perform strategic analysis and assist the center’s senior management with the development of strategic plans for the center’s missions.

Dwighd Delgado, IE 77, has been named operations manager of
PremaTech Advanced Ceramics in Worcester, Mass. He will lead
the company’s production and new product and service development activities.

Guy Gober, IE 75, retired from the U.S. Army National Guard in August. His military career began in 1969 when he joined the First Army Signal Corps as a private. He was honorably discharged as a corporal in 1971, then re-enlisted as a captain in 1987 after pursuing undergraduate studies at Georgia Tech and UGA and receiving his medical degree from the Medical College of Georgia. He served as a medical officer and was mobilized five times during conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. His career decorations include the Iraq Campaign Medal with two campaign stars and the Army Commendation Medal, among many others. He owns and operates Tiger Urology in Rabun County, Ga.

Dana M. Hicks, IE 79, joined Huber Technology as president and CEO in April 2011. Huber is an industry-leading manufacturer of stainless steel machines and systems for processing municipal waste and industrial process water. Hicks lives in Huntersville, N.C.

Douglas R. Hooker, ME 78, MS PubPol 85, has been named Atlanta Regional Commission executive director by the ARC’s search committee by a unanimous decision. He is currently vice president and southern states director for Atkins, a position he has held since 2004. He previously served as executive director of the Georgia State Road & Tollway Authority, and before that he served as commissioner of public works for the City of Atlanta, including during the 1996 Olympics.

Daniel Kelley, Arch 75, lead design partner at MGA Partners Architects, announced the launch of the firm’s new album, To Be Continued, in celebration of its 20th year.

Kenneth Miller, ME 79, is serving as an ASME congressional fellow in the office of U.S. Senator John D. Rockefeller. Miller is a professor of engineering at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota and has 32 years of experience in engineering. For his yearlong fellowship, he will contribute his expertise on technical initiatives under consideration in public policy discourse.

Stefan V. “Steve” Stein, EE 77, was named in Best Lawyers’ 2012 Lawyers of the Year list. He is an attorney with GrayRobinson, P.A., of Orlando, Fla.

Gwynedd A. “Gwen” Thomas, Text 74, MS Text 87, founded Lightstrength Engineering Services in Sheridan, Wy. It provides consulting and design services for protective materials with an emphasis on police and military threat protection by means of high performance fiber and polymer materials. She plans to relocate to Sheridan to manage Lightstrength full time after her retirement from Auburn University, where she has served for 17 years as associate professor of polymer and fiber engineering.

Lowell A. Williamson, IM 70, reports that his granddaughter, Savannah Milner, made him very proud
when she chose Georgia Tech as the subject of a research project assigned by her third-grade teacher. Williamson notes that Savannah has attended two ACC Championship games with him, and hopes she one day will follow in his footsteps at Tech.

1980s

Jian Li, MS AE 88, PhD AE 92, has been recognized with the prestigious Boeing Special Invention Award by the Boeing Company for his outstanding contributions.

Jim Winer, Arch 82, M Arch 86, dissolved his Atlanta-based Menefee & Winer Architects firm after 20 years. He has started a new firm, MAKE Architecture Planning Design, also located in Atlanta.

1990s

Jany Brown, Mgt 97, was featured in the Nov. 2 issue of Dunwoody, Ga.’s Dunwoody Crier for her work organizing Chili for the Children, an annual chili cook-off and silent auction benefitting the Literacy Volunteers of Atlanta and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. Prior to the Nov. 14 cook-off, the annual event had raised more than $50,000 since its inception in 2005.

Errika Mallett, IE 96, graduated as a member of the 10th anniversary class of the Diversity Leadership Academy, a program of the American Institute for Managing Diversity. She currently serves as president of the Georgia Tech Black Alumni Organization.

Phillip Russell, Mgt 91, MS Econ 92, an attorney with Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart, P.C. in Tampa, Fla., recently testified before the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce in support of the Workforce Democracy and Fairness Act.

Dave Whitten, EE 90, has been promoted to senior vice president, strategy and marketing, at NORDAM, based in Tulsa, Okla. In his new position, he will identify, evaluate and pursue new deals and acquisitions. Whitten has led global marketing for NORDAM since 2005.

2000s

Charles West, CS 01, MBA 05, has been appointed by New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu to lead the city’s new innovation delivery team, aimed at developing strategies to handle major urban challenges. West’s team will investigate and implement solutions to reduce the city’s murder rates and improve the speed of key city services. A New Orleans native, West has managed service and innovation for the city; as a consultant, he has worked with the State of Minnesota and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, among other clients.

2010s

Sherri Ramson, IE 11, and Eric Ramson, IE 11, a brother and sister from South Florida, recently graduated from Tech’s H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, each returning for their undergraduate degrees after more than 10 years in the workforce. Since graduation, Sherri has taken a position as a consultant with Clarkston Consulting, and Eric works as a software implementation consultant at Power Plan Consultants.

Births & Weddings

Sandip Patel, MS ICS 88, married Asha Dhamsaniya on Dec. 9.

Matthew Oatts, IE 10, and Sarah Marriner, Bio 10, were married on April 30 in Atlanta and left their reception in the Ramblin’ Wreck. Matthew reports, “This memorable experience was made possible by a gift from my grandfather, John ‘Bucky’ Oatts, EE 52, who even skipped out on part of our reception for a ride of his own!”

David Bottoms, Mgt 01, and his wife, Brittney, are pleased to announce the birth of Andrew “Drew” Thomas Bottoms, on Oct. 27.

Whitney Hopkins Appenfelder, IE 00, and Doug Appenfelder, EE 01, announce the birth of a son, Garrett Douglas, on Aug. 19. Garrett joins his sister Kayley, 3, at the family’s home in Cumming, Ga. Whitney is the hardware forecast manager for the hospitality and specialty retail team of NCR (formerly Radiant Systems) and Doug is a system performance engineer with Verizon Wireless.

Molly Freeman, MS HS 07, and her husband, Ben Lawder, Mgt 04, welcomed a daughter, Anna Kate Lawder-Freeman, into the world on Sept. 24. Molly works as a data manager for Humana and Ben leads competitive intelligence for ADP. The family resides in Dunwoody, Ga.

Jeffrey Sauls, IE 95, and Iris Chang Sauls, IE 95, MS IE 97, celebrated the birth of their first child, Thomas Allen, on Sept. 6. The family resides in midtown Atlanta.

Matthew Kramer, CS 94, and his wife, Katrina, are proud to announce the birth of their second daughter, Fiona Park Kramer, on Sept. 22.

Chad Tarter, ChE 98, and Jennifer Devens Tarter, IE 99, welcomed twin daughters Kate Aubrey and Brooke Finley on Sept. 5. They join big brother Cole, 5, at home in Nashville.

Eileen Hitcho, IE 01, MS HS 02, and her husband, Shawn Symonds, announce the birth of son Jake Allan on Aug. 28. Jake joins his 1-year-old brother, Dean Michael, at the family’s home in Charlotte, N.C. Hitcho is an emergency medicine physician with EMP.

Alicia Hodler Hurley, CE 99, and Adam Hurley, CE 00, welcomed son Troy Steven on Oct. 1. Troy joins big sister Bridget at the family’s home in Marietta, Ga. Alicia is a stay-at-home mom and Adam is a regional manager for Berkel & Company.

A professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Mr. Wills taught more than 2,880 students in 83 classes during his time on the Tech faculty. His wife, Linda Wills, whom he met while working on his doctorate in electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is also a professor at Tech, and together they collaborated on a number of research projects focused on surveillance technology, co-leading the Mobile Vision Embedded Systems (MOVES) research group.

Mr. Wills was a Yellow Jacket himself, graduating in 1983 with an undergraduate degree in physics before returning to teach in 1991.

Mr. Wills served on a number of boards at the Institution level, including the Joint College of Computing/College of Engineering committees, which formed the Computational Science and Engineering Program and the Software Engineering certificate. In 2009, Mr. Wills’ students honored him with the Richard M. Bass/Eta Kappa Nu Outstanding Teacher Award, one of the highest accolades a Tech professor can attain.

Beebe spent the last two decades of his professional career as an educator, most recently joining the faculty of Georgia Tech, his alma mater, as the Ledbetter Professor of the Practice of Real Estate Development in 2009.

Robert H. “Bob” Ledbetter Sr., the professorship’s namesake, told the Atlanta-Journal Constitution in November, “We wanted someone that would teach students about the business of real estate development, and Skip did that beautifully.”

Mr. Beebe’s AJC obituary noted, “He often said he considered the students his teachers and that he learned more in two years [at Tech] than in his entire real estate career.”

Prior to returning to Tech, Mr. Beebe worked in banking and then fostered a 35-year career in the real estate industry. He was an active member in Atlanta’s business community, serving as trustee of the Leadership Atlanta program, among other positions. He worked with CBRE Group, Inc., from 1994 until 2007, when he retired as chief learning officer. He then formed Beebe Interests, through which he continued to mentor a number of his CBRE colleagues. He also served as senior vice president of Cousins Properties, president of Mobil Land Development Corporation, and president of Wilma Southeast.

In lieu of flowers, Mr. Beebe’s family requests that gifts be made to the Georgia Tech Foundation, 760 Spring Street, N.W., Suite 400, Atlanta, GA.

In 1948, Mr. Moeller distinguished himself again, graduating magna cum laude from Tech with both a bachelor of science degree in civil engineering and a master’s degree in environmental engineering under his belt. He then joined the U.S. Public Health Service as a commissioned officer, which led him to being stationed across United States, at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and the service’s headquarters in Washington, D.C.

The Health Service sponsored Mr. Moeller’s return to academia, his 1957 PhD in nuclear engineering from North Carolina State University. Soon after, he launched into the professional study of radiation, which would define his life’s work. He first taught radiation protection courses at the Public Health Service’s Radiological Health Training Center in Cincinnati in 1959, then became a certified health physicist and a certified environmental engineer; by 1961 he was the officer in charge at the Northeastern Radiological Health Laboratory in Winchester, Mass. There, Mr. Moeller’s staff studied the radioactive fallout from weapons testing and the effects of radiation on children’s thyroids.

After retiring from the Public Health Service in 1966, he began his 26-year tenure at the Harvard University School of Public Health in Boston. There, among other accomplishments, he wrote a textbook, Environmental Health, which entered its fourth edition in 2011 and is used in public health graduate programs nationwide. After his retirement in the early 90s, he was granted the honor of professor emeritus.

Mr. Moeller was active in a number of organizations striving to protect the health and safety of the American public and its environment against the threats of ionizing radiation. He became president of the Health Physics Society and chaired a number of committees for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, National Council of Radiological Protection and Measurements, International Commission of Radiological Protection, National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Environmental Engineers, among others. He received numerous professional awards, including the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Meritorious Achievement Award and a 1999 induction into the Georgia Institute of Technology Engineering Hall of Fame.

The legacy of Mr. Moeller’s work lives on, notably in the mission of the environmental consulting company founded in 1993 by his son Matt, which bears his name: Dade Moeller & Associates. Today, the company’s nine offices across the United States employ more certified health physicians than any other company in America.

1930s

Royce Lee Brandon, IM 39, of Lilburn, Ga., on Oct. 28. He was retired from Georgia Tech. He served as a major in the U.S. Air Force, including service in World War II.

Archibald Reese Hooks, CE 39, of Atlanta, on Oct. 20. He worked as district manager of Chase Brass and Copper Company from 1939 to 1977, except for his five years of military service. He served in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as a lieutenant colonel in North Africa and Italy during World War II.

1940s

William Lisman Baker Jr., ME 43, of Atlanta, on Sept. 30. He was a member of Kappa Alpha and the Georgia Tech Glee Club. He served in the U.S. Army during World War II. He worked as a consulting mechanical engineer for 40 years, 25 years at his own firm. He retired from the Georgia Board of Regents in 1993.

John Howard Best, AE 47, of Dallas, on Nov. 5. He graduated from Tech during World War II as a participant in the U.S. Navy V-12 program. He worked for 40 years as an engineer with Chance Vought Aircraft of Dallas, retiring as department director.

Roy Carlton Brand, ME 49, of Statham, Ga., on Sept. 25. He served as a first lieutenant and bombardier in the U.S. Air Force in World War II. He was awarded the European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal with four Bronze Stars for the Rome-Arno, Southern France, Balkans and Germany campaigns. He also was awarded the Air Medal with three oak leaf clusters. He worked for IBM for 36 years, retiring as service engineer in 1984.

Albert Oren Daniels, IM 48, of Hixson, Tenn., on Oct. 16. He served in the U.S. Navy on active duty and in the reserves for 28 years, including during World War II and the Korean War; he retired as captain. He worked for the Tennessee Valley Authority for more than 33 years as director of power marketing, and worked for 10 years as senior utility consultant with Allen and Hoshall Engineers.

Logan Douglas “Doug” Davis Jr., ME 42, of Dunedin, Fla., on Oct. 24. He served as a major in the U.S. Army during World War II in North Africa and Europe. He and his brother-in-law purchased H. L. McCurdy Lumber Company in 1947, renaming it Davis-Beatty. In 1968, the company became Davis Concrete, Inc. He continued to operate the business with his son and grandson until his death.

Merle R. Donaldson, EE 46, of St. Petersburg, Fla., on Nov. 11. He served in the U.S. Navy during World War II and later in the Naval Reserves, attaining the rank of ensign, USNR, before his honorable discharge. He attended Tech as a member of the Navy V-12 program. Among the positions served during his long career, he worked at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, taught as an assistant professor at Georgia Tech and joined the charter faculty for the new College of Electrical Engineering at the University of South Florida, where he was later honored as professor emeritus.

William M. “Bill” Hamilton, IM 47, of Westlake, Ohio, on Aug. 26. He served in the U.S. Navy during World War II and the Korean War aboard the USS Franklin D. Roosevelt and the USS Steinaker. He worked for 35 years at Cleveland, Ohio-based Premier Industrial Corporation, retiring as president.

Frederick “Fred” Martin Hammill, ME 47, of Athens, Ga., on Nov. 7. He served as a first lieutenant in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II and worked at DuPont for 36 years until his retirement.

James Walter Heatwole, ChE 40, of Daleville, Va., on Oct. 21. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army from the Georgia Tech ROTC unit in 1940. He served in World War II in Northern Ireland, England, North Africa and Italy, and later served as an ROTC instructor at the University of Minnesota and on the Army General Staff in Washington, D.C., with additional duty in Korea and Germany. Among other honors, he received the Legion of Merit and the Bronze Star. He retired in 1972 as a colonel, then served as town manager of Narrows, Va., for 10 years.

Charles F. Kinner, Cls 47, of Destin, Fla., on Feb. 8, 2011.

R. Conway “Connie” LeCraw, Phys 49, of Hilton Head, S.C., on Nov. 15. He was the son of a former Atlanta mayor and became one of the youngest-ever Eagle Scouts at age 14. He served in the Pacific theatre of World War II as a corporal in the Signal Corps. From 1955 until his retirement in 1986 he was a renowned physicist at Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, N.J., where he was granted 35 U.S. patents. His most significant discovery was of magnetic bubble devices, which revolutionized the storage of information for military technology. Among others, he is survived by his brothers Veazey, ChE 49; Julian, IM 52; and Rupert, ME 56.

Melvin H. Mooney Jr., EE 49, of Sandy Springs, Ga., on Nov. 7. He served as a staff sergeant in the South Pacific during World War II. He worked for 37 years at Southern Bell/BellSouth and was a past president of the Dogwood Chapter of the Telephone Pioneers. He was recognized for his 25 years of volunteer service with the AARP’s Tax Aide program.

William D. Munroe Sr., ME 43, of Quincy, Fla., on Oct. 25. He served in the U.S. Army Air Corps and Army Corps of Engineers, including service in the South Pacific. Later, he purchased the Quincy Feed Mill in Quincy, Fla., and designed feed processing plants and equipment. He designed a solar-powered air-conditioner for the Department of Agriculture for use in poultry houses. Later, he purchased a share of K-C Manufacturing Co., where he manufactured go-karts, mini-bikes and RV vehicles for 20 years. He participated in a number of NASA experiments, including the Mars Viking project. He is survived by, among others, son William D. Munroe Jr., IM 74, and grandson Michael E. Munroe, IE 07.

Bruns McKie Myers Jr., IE 49, of Madison, Miss., on Oct. 5. He served in the U.S. Army Air Corps and was honorably discharged as a second lieutenant. At Tech, he was a member of Kappa Alpha. In 1963, he founded a mechanical contracting business, which he ran until his retirement. He raised thoroughbred horses for 40 years and served as president of the Mississippi Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association for many years.

Graeme Dickerman Plant Jr., ME 48, of Napa, Calif., on Nov. 10. His time at Tech was interrupted by service with the U.S. Army in the European and Pacific theatres of World War II. He began his career in engineering management with Worthington Machinery and worked at Basalt Rock Co. and Kaiser Steel. He was active in the Napa community, serving as chairman of the endowment committee of the Queen of the Valley Hospital and on the board of the Napa Valley Symphony.

Samuel David See, EE 41, of Spokane, Wash., on Oct. 15. He served in the U.S. Navy as first lieutenant and studied naval architecture and marine engineering at MIT. During World War II, he worked for the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and the Supervisor of Ship Building Office in Tacoma. After the war, he was an engineer at Standard Oil Company, where he spent the rest of his career. There, he assisted with the design and construction of the first jet fueling system at SeaTac Airport in 1948.

Julian E. Sides Jr., NS 46, of Tunica, Miss., on Sept. 25. He was a Naval officer in World War II. Among others, he is survived by his grandson, Jonathan “Scott” Monteith, CmpE 05, MBA 11.

Alan G. “Gart” Symons, ME 48, of Perdido Beach, Ala., on Sept. 23. He served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps in the Pacific theatre. He was a mechanical engineer, retiring from Layne Central Co. in Pensacola, Fla., as district manager in 1987.

Steven A. Varga, ME 47, of Silver Spring, Md., on Sept. 8. He served in the Army Air Forces during World War II. At Tech, he was a member of the gymnastics team and was inducted into the Tech Athletics Hall of Fame. He worked as a mechanical engineer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Aerojet General and the Atomic Energy Commission, which became the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, from which he retired in the 1990s. Survivors include daughter Lesley Whitaker, EE 81.

Robert Bryans Watkins Sr., TE 48, MS Text 62, of Woodstock, Ga., on Sept. 22. He served in the Navy during World War II. He taught at Southern Polytechnic State University and worked in sales, then worked at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution for 20 years. Among others, he is survived by his daughter Barbara Beavers,
IE 87.

Dan Wilson, IM 48, of Montgomery, Ala., on Sept. 6. At Tech, he was a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon. He served in World War II in the Southern Philippines campaign, Japan and the Berlin Crisis, and was a graduate of the Infantry OCS, Quartermaster School, Advanced Career Course and the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. He received numerous military awards, including the
Legion of Merit and the Army Commendation Medal, and retired from the military as a colonel. He owned and operated the Goodform Shop
until 1973, and he later retired from the State of Alabama Banking Department.

1950s

Neel Burnett Ackerman, CE 54, of Harrisonburg, Va., on Oct. 12. He served in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War. He most recently worked for Braniger Corporation in Savannah, Ga. Among others, he is survived by grandson T.J. Ackerman, CE 09.

David William Arnold, Cls 51, of Gwynedd, Penn., on Oct. 6. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps during the Korean War and later worked as a sales manager for Weyerhauser and Time-Life Corp., and most recently as director of new business development for Acculogix, Inc.

Milford Harvey Bennett, IM 54, of Tucker, Ga., on Sept. 22. He played football for the Yellow Jackets. Later, he served in the U.S. Army as a first lieutenant, then worked for a number of banks and served as president of the Peachtree Atlanta Kiwanis Club.

Julian Whitfield “Whit” Benson Jr., EE 54, MS EE 60, of Marietta, Ga., on Oct. 8. Prior to his studies at Tech, he worked as a geologist on an oil rig in Louisiana. Later, he served four years in the U.S. Navy and was honorably discharged as a lieutenant. He joined the staff of Lockheed-Georgia in 1957 as an engineer, programming computer simulations of real-time flight conditions for the C-5 Galaxy, the C-130 Hercules and the F-22 Raptor. He was a member of the Georgia Appalachian Trail Club for more than three quarters of the club’s history and held nearly every office on its board of directors. He is survived by, among others, his daughter Alyssa Daya, Phys 98.

Paul M. Blair Jr., Phys 59, of Earlysville, Va., on Sept. 23. He served in the U.S. Navy and later spent his career as an engineer.

George Daniel Boggs, EE 53, of Jacksonville, Fla., on Oct. 3. He served in the U.S. Navy in World War II and the Korean War. He worked for 36 years at Southern Bell, Bell Labs and AT&T. After retiring, he volunteered for 11 years at St. Luke’s Hospital in Jacksonville.

Richard William Brokenshire, IM 57, of Asheville, N.C., on Sept. 24. He served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War and retired from the Department of Defense after a 28-year-career.

Donald Arthur Campbell, ChE 51, of Houston, on Oct. 2. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps and had a long career with Exxon.

Jack Edmond Cavender Sr., Arch 57, of Atlanta, on Sept. 29. He practiced architecture in the Atlanta and East Point areas for more than 50 years, designing buildings around the Southeast. He designed the Southwest Christian Church in East Point, where he was a member for 40 years. He was also the primary consulting architect for Chick-Fil-A mall locations and worked on
numerous projects for Gulf Oil Corporation. He was an emeritus member of the American Institute of Architects. He is survived by, among others, his son David Cavender, Arch 77, M Arch 80.

John Richard Doll, EE 51, of Los Angeles, on Sept. 23. He served in the U.S. Army during World War II, then worked in the aerospace industry in California for 35 years.

Everett “Fritz” H. Ehrhart, MS EE 51, of Lawrenceville, Ga., on Oct. 8. He served in the U.S. Navy during World War II and worked for 30 years at BellSouth. Survivors include his grandsons Mark Ehrhart, Psy 96, and Zachary Hayes, an assistant registrar in Tech’s Office of the Registrar.

Malcolm T. Gilliland, EE 53, of Marietta, Ga., on Sept. 27. He founded Malcolm T. Gilliland, Inc., in 1960. Based in Peachtree City, Ga., the
company manufactures welding equipment and robotics, and he held more than 40 patents over his career. He is survived by, among others, daughter Kristi Matheny, IM 80, and son Ken Gilliland, EE 89.

Herschel Willcox Godbee, ChE 52, PhD ChE 63, of Cuyahoga, Ohio, on Oct. 28. He worked at X-10/ORNL from 1958 to 1994. Among others, he is survived by his son Dan Godbee, ME 76, MS ME 87, MS IE 89.

J. Lee Harrell, EE 50, of Rome, Ga., on Sept. 19.

James E. Harwood III, IE 58, of Memphis, on Nov. 16. Over his 55-year career, he served as vice president of Conwood Corporation; president of Dr. Scholl and DAP, Inc., both divisions of Schering-Plough; and president of Sterling Equities, Inc. He also served as a board member of Regions Bank, Morgan Keegan, Union Planters Bank, Leader Federal S&L and SCB Computer Technology Corporation, and on the boards of the Church Health Center, Mid-South Coliseum, Christian Brothers University, Board of Visitors of the University of Memphis and the Chickasaw Council of Boy Scouts of America.

Clealand M. Joye Jr., CE 59, of Atlanta, on Oct. 6. He attended the U.S. Naval Academy and served a commission at the Naval Flight School in Pensacola, Fla. He had a long career as a project engineer in Atlanta, spanning more than 50 years and ending in retirement from C.P. Richards Company in Lithonia. Survivors include his brother Benjamin Cuttino, CE 67.

Judd Eugene Kahn, ME 59, of Woodstock, Ga., on Oct. 7. He served in the U.S. Army as a military policeman in Japan during the Korean War. He worked for 36 years at the Oak Ridge National Laboratories, designing
nuclear reactor core cooling systems and working on nuclear particle cleanup.

Leo Louis Lehner, EE 52, of Glendale, Ariz., on Oct. 17. He served in the U.S. Army. Most of his professional career was spent at Motorola, where he worked as an electrical engineer.

Thomas Loucas, Cls 55, of Stamford, Ct., on Oct. 19. He served in the U.S Navy as a lieutenant flight navigator for reconnaissance missions aboard the carriers Saratoga and Randolph. He worked for General Electric and in 1970 founded Digital Associates Corporation, a distributor of high-speed line printers. He later served as vice president of Miltop Corporation and helmed business development of DEER-OFF, Inc., a deer-repellant product company founded by his wife, Athena. Together, they sold the company to Woodstream Corporation in 2002. He was active with SCORE of Ft. Lauderdale and was known for his committment to helping young entrepreneurs.

William Burson McGuire, IM 53, of Sandy Springs, Ga., on Nov. 6. At Tech, he was a member of Phi Delta Theta. He served two years in the U.S. Army as a first lieutenant and had a 35-year career with Westinghouse Electric Corporation.

Charles William Moore, CerE 50, of Saint Paul, Minn., on Oct. 12. He served as an infantry officer in the South Pacific and as an Air Force pilot over Burma during World War II, then in the Armed Forces
reserves for 24 years, retiring with an honorable discharge. He worked for the 3M Company for 30 years as a plant manager and engineer manager.

Jacob Daniel “Dan” Nash, EE 54, of Tallahassee, Fla., on Nov. 3. After his graduation from Tech, he began a career with Schlumberger Oil Well Services that lasted until his retirement in 1987. From 1987 to 1996, he served as manager of the radioactive material programs for the Florida
Department of Health.

Lewis Steven Nathanson, IM 56, of Mt. Pleasant, S.C., on Nov. 4. He was a lifelong member of Kappa Sigma and served in the U.S. Navy. He worked with his father at Carolina Door and was president and owner of Overhead Door Company of the Piedmont, Inc., for almost 30 years, during which time he earned a number of awards. Later, he worked at Overhead Door Company of Charleston and the Grand Strand and American Eagle Insurance Company for more than a decade.

Robert Elsmere Odell Jr., IE 51, of Columbia, S.C., on Oct. 12. He served in the U.S. Army in World War II, earning the Purple Heart, Bronze Star and Combat Infantryman Badge. He had a long career in the Pentagon with the Army Ordinance, the Product
Improvement Office, Air Defense Weapons Systems and the Army Materiel Development and Readiness Command.

Carl “Smiley” Paul, MS IM 53, of Atlanta, on Nov. 12. He served in the U.S. Navy in the Mediterranean and Pacific theatres of World War II. Later, he was the commander of the Navy Reserve unit at Tech and retired with the rank of captain. He worked for the City of Atlanta for 36 years and became the deputy director of the Personnel Department.

Calvin “Cal” Lee Pratt Jr., AE 55, of Arlington, Texas, on Nov. 2. He was employed by Chance Vought/LTV for 23 years. Along with his wife, Liz, he owned and operated Comet Cleaners in Duncanville, Texas, and Cedar Tree Gallery in Arlington.

Charles “Pete” Renner III, IM 53, of Atlanta, on May 26.

William “Bill” Fitzgerald Robertson, IM 51, of Algonquin, Ill., on Nov. 10. He worked at the Savannah Ice Delivery/Georgia Ice Company, then held
management positions with a number of national cold storage firms. He also served on the board of directors of several regional and national associations.

Nelson “Ben” Severinghaus Jr., Cls 50, of Davidson, Tenn., on Oct. 13. He served in the U.S. military as a special weapons officer. His career began at the Tennessee Copper Company, where he worked as a mining engineer. He rose in the ranks at Georgia Marble Company to become president in 1974. In 1977 he became president of Franklin Industrial Minerals in Nashville, Tenn. He was the recipient of a number of professional awards, memberships and publications, and he held three patents involving mineral processing. He is survived by, among others, his brother Joel Thompson, IM 53, MS IM 59.

Parke Skelton, EE 55, of Colorado Springs, Colo., on Oct. 31. He served in New Guinea with the U.S. Army during World War II. Later he worked as an aerospace electronics engineer at Rockwell International, where he was part of the team responsible for the Apollo moon landing.

Benjamin Sanford Ulmer, Text 53, of Savannah, Ga. He served in the U.S. Army as a first lieutenant in Korea. He worked with the Celanese Corporation of America and then as executive director of the Savannah Port Authority. He was then called to the priesthood, serving as an assisting priest at Saint Michael & All Angels Episcopal Church in Savannah. He also served as administrator of the Episcopal
Diocese of Georgia.

Fritz N. Watson, Cls 51, of Anderson, S.C., on Sept. 18. He served as staff sergeant in the finance corps as part of the occupation forces in Germany during World War II. He worked at the Oak Ridge National Laboratories in Tennessee and with the U.S. Department of Energy, and founded Aquarius Enterprises, a swimming pool company.

1960s

Carr Bolton “Bo” Abernethy, Arch 63, of Willis, Va., on Oct. 16. He enjoyed a career as an architect and was especially celebrated in his hometown of Johnson City, Tenn., where he designed numerous buildings, including many on the East Tennessee State University campus. He later founded Archeonics-Research and Development, where he developed a modular building system. He also led popular classes and workshops on spirituality and forgiveness and founded Light of Freedom, Inc., a nonprofit community based upon the principals of experiencing inner peace.

Terrance Edwards Anderson, IE 65, of King, Wa., on Nov. 13, 2008.

Abron “Abe” Brinson, IM 60, of Columbus, Ga., on Sept. 23. He played defensive end and tight end for the Yellow Jackets, playing in both the Sugar Bowl and the Orange Bowl. At Tech, he was a member of ANAK and ODK, and served as president of Phi Delta Theta, president of his senior class and president of the student body. He served in the U.S. Army during World War II and the Korean War. In 1950, he began work at Daniel Lumber and Construction Company, and retired recently as chairman of the board, having served as president and general manager of the company from 1970 to 1996.

Oscar V. Bryan, IE 68, of Marietta, Ga., on July 20. He was a member of Chi Psi fraternity while at Tech. He served for 26 years in the Air Force as an engineer, then worked as a consultant for Davis Consulting Group.

Thomas E. Costello, IE 65, of Charlotte, N.C., on Sept. 24. He worked for 30 years in data processing, systems engineering, development, marketing and sales at IBM, and earned a top-10 national salesperson designation several times. After retirement, he founded several companies for business solutions software, education, training and web design.

Jerald L. Deriso, IE 69, of Marietta, Ga., on April 20. His work as an engineering consultant took him to all 50 states and a number of other countries. In 2008 he wrote a book, Save Me a Place in Heaven, about his family and growing up in the South.

John David Freeman, IM 61, of Dunwoody, Ga., on Sept. 21. He served in the U.S. Navy aboard the submarine USS Greenfish. He worked for 18 years in sales at International Paper Co., then worked for SP Newsprint until his retirement.

Patrick P. Garvin, ChE 61, of Bowie, Md., on Oct. 11. He served as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He worked at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for 35 years and was awarded the Department of Commerce Bronze Medal in 1978.

Daniel A. Graham Jr., IM 66, of Atlanta, on Sept. 23. He graduated from Tech at the top of his class, then served as a Green Beret in Vietnam during 1967 and 1968, receiving a Bronze Star. He later co-founded LaVista Associates, Inc., a commercial real estate business, and in 1993 co-founded Graham Commercial Realty, Inc., with his wife, Lila.

William “Bill” Duvall Haynie Jr., Phys 61, of Tallahassee, Fla., on Nov. 16. He worked as an aerospace engineer in the government products division of Pratt and Whitney Aircraft from 1960 until his retirement in 1991.

Henry Carleton Lang Jr., ME 69, of Chester, Va., on Nov. 1. He began his engineering career at Westinghouse, then worked at Allied Chemical Company. He retired in 2009 as the company’s maintenance manager. He served as financial secretary of Chester Presbyterian Church.

Jon Thomas Moore, EE 65, of Fall Branch, Tenn., on Oct. 17. He worked for 29 years as a research fellow at Eastman Chemical Company before retiring.

Clarence Porter Neese, IM 60, of Clarksville, Va., on Nov. 3. He served in the U.S. Navy during the Korean War. He was a school administrator for Sheet Metal Workers Local Union 100 for more than 50 years before his retirement.

Mallie Lewis Price Jr., CerE 62, of Brunswick, Ga., on Oct. 22. While at Tech, he was a member of Kappa
Sigma and played baseball, lettering in 1960 and 1961. He worked most
recently as chief financial officer of Sea Palms Golf and Tennis Resort.

Allan O. Wesley Jr., Text 62, of Atlanta, on Oct. 7. At Tech, he was a member of Kappa Alpha. He worked in commercial real estate.

1970s

Paul James “Jim” Abernathy, BM 73, of Roswell, Ga., on Oct. 23. His career as an investment banker for Ernst & Young and Investcorp took him to Saudi Arabia, England and Egypt, and he lived for 13 years in Manama, Bahrain. He is survived by, among others, son Phillip Jason Abernathy, Mgt 00.

Henry McCanless, Phys 72, of Laguna Hills, Calif., on Oct. 7. Survivors include his brother Ed McCanless, IE 78.

Gregory Stewart Miller, CE 77, of
Portland, Ore., on Oct. 19. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and was awarded the Ranger and Airborne patches. His first tour of duty was in Berlin shortly after the Berlin Wall was constructed, and he then volunteered for a tour of service in Vietnam, followed by another tour of Europe. He achieved the rank of lieutenant colonel and was awarded the Legion of Merit, Bronze Star, Meritorious Service Medal and a number of commendation medals. Among numerous professional appointments, he worked on the second powerhouse at Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River, taught military science at Tennessee Technological University and was employed by Washington County, Ore., in the Land Use and TransportatiDepartment.

Edward Arlo Sheldahl, CE 76, of Alexandria, Va., on Oct. 24. His career as a civil highway engineer was spent with the Federal Highway Administration until his retirement in 2010.

Michael Edward Smith, MgtSci 74, of Eudora, Kans., on Oct. 8. He served in the U.S. Air Force during the Vietnam War. He worked in marketing at IBM for more than 20 years.

1980s

Russell William Crosby Jr., ME 82, of Gordon, Ga., on Oct. 20. He was an engineer with Technicon.

Matthew Moynihan, IM 82, of Atlanta, on Nov. 16. He was a member of Kappa Alpha.

1990s

John Mather Siegel Jr., ME 90, MS ME 92, PhD ME 94, of Huntsville, Ala., on Oct. 22. He was the creator and CEO of Stockworm, Inc., and was a biomedical researcher at SAIC.

2010s

Alexander L. Schmitt, MS ME 11, of San Antonio, Texas, on Nov. 13, from injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident.

Students

In early November, the Tech community was deeply saddened to learn that two students had been killed in an automobile accident in Pickens County, Ga., north of Atlanta: Naren Raghuraman, a 21-year-old international affairs major from Princeton, N.J., and Daniel Bernard Hickman, a 21-year-old aerospace engineering major from Atlanta.

A third Tech student, 20-year-old aerospace engineering major Ratheesvar Mohan, was injured in the crash.

In addition to funeral services held by the students’ families, at the request of undergraduate and graduate leadership, Tech honored the young men with a moment of silence taken before the playing of the National Anthem at the Nov. 10 home football game against Virginia Tech.

Friends

Paul Joseph Marseglia, of Stone Mountain, Ga., on Oct. 12. He was employed as a senior network support engineer at the Georgia Tech Research Institute and previously worked for the Office of Information Technology.

James Weldon McCarty, of Charlotte, N.C., on Nov. 3. He was a professor of textile engineering at Tech for more than 25 years.

These changes are the culmination of months of work by Editor Van Jensen, Vice President of Marketing and Communications Renee Queen and a great team of designers at Metaleap Creative, an award-winning Atlanta-based design firm. The principals of Metaleap are alumna Nikolle Reyes, MS Bio 99, and her husband, José Reyes. For a behind-the-scenes tour of the redesign, click here.

The foundation of this design is built on our understanding of you, our readers. It also comes from understanding the Institute. We’re blessed with a wealth of content in the amazing work done at Tech to educate the future leaders of this technological world.

I think Van summarized things well during our meetings about the redesign, when he laid out the nine goals of the magazine:

1. Showcase the news and accomplishments of Georgia Tech’s faculty, researchers, students and staff.
2. Focus on technological content to show how the Institute is becoming the technological leader of the 21st century.
3. Cover the professional and personal accomplishments of alumni.
4. Highlight business and career advice from alumni and Institute leaders.
5. Cover a full range of Yellow Jackets sports.
6. Inform readers about services and events offered by the Alumni Association.
7. Tackle topical issues with technical, financial, political and scientific insights from faculty and alumni.
8. Employ a writing voice that reflects the personality of Georgia Tech graduates—intelligent, technically minded, engaged in the issues of the world and with a wry sense of humor.
9. Celebrate the Institute’s rich history.

The Alumni Magazine seeks to build pride for Georgia Tech among alumni and to strengthen the connection between them and the Institute. We hope you enjoy reading it as much as we have enjoyed creating it.

Joseph P. Irwin, IM 80

President & CEO

Georgia Tech Alumni Association