| A Farewell to Our Graduating Students |
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Congratulations on your upcoming graduation from the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechancis at The University of Texas at Austin! You have worked hard to earn your degree and should be proud of your accomplishment. Although you will soon be leaving the halls of WRW and the UT campus, you will remain a Longhorn for life. As a degree holder from this department, you have a wide variety of opportunities to choose from. This will shape your career – whether it is in aerospace engineering or another field. I would like to take a moment to share with you some outstanding examples of our former students’ accomplishments throughout the years. I hope their stories will inspire you to dream big.
Graduating seniors celebrated with Prof. Philip Varghese and their advisors, Sarah Kitten and Jessica Kramm, with a Double Dave's Pizza Party. View the slideshow in our Flickr library. K.C. Williams, BS ’72, retired as Vice President of Engineering at ExxonMobil. Dr. Norman Abramson, PhD ’56, retired as Executive Vice President from Southwest Research Institute. Dr. William Powers, MS ’66 and PhD ’68, retired as Vice President of Ford Motor Company. Dr. Richard Smalling, BS ’70, went on to receive his MD and is board certified in internal medicine, cardiovascular medicine and interventional cardiology. He was President of the American Heart Association and holds several patents. Dr. Felix Fenter, BS ’53, MS ’54, PhD ’60, was the architect of the first hit-to-kill intercept of a tactical ballistic missile. Today, the Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC-3) missile developed by Lockheed Martin is one of the largest missile programs in the United States Defense Department. Six of our alumni are astronauts – Captain Alan Bean, BS ’55 (the fourth man to set foot on the moon), Captain Robert Crippen, BS ’60 (the first Shuttle pilot who was also recently elected to the National Academy of Engineering), Captain Michael Baker, BS ’75, Colonel Paul Lockhart, MS ’81 and Stephanie Wilson, MS ’92. Recently, Dr. Mason Peck BS ’94 was named Chief Technologist for NASA while Judd Frieling, BS ’96, and Greg Whitney, BS ’02 were both selected as flight directors for NASA’s Mission Control. The Cockrell School of Engineering has named some of our more recent former students Outstanding Young Engineering Graduates (OYEG). Ms. Laura O’Donnell, BS ’90, has used her business and technology strategy skills to become a top executive (Vice President of Consumer Products) for Contour Inc., the fastest growing personal HD camera company in the world. Michael Webber, BS’95 is now an Assistant Professor in Mechanical Engineering at UT, and Associate Director of the Center for International Energy and Environmental Policy in the Jackson School of Geosciences. He will be promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in Fall 2012. Valori Leinmiller, BS ’04 works at NASA-JSC in the Mission Operations Directorate on the Environmental Control and Life Support System of the International Space Station.
Outgoing graduate students attended a luncheon with Professor Philip Varghese in honor of their upcoming graduation.View more photos in our Flickr library. These are just a few examples of the accomplishments of former students. There are many other career tracks open in engineering, business, medicine or law. You will be carving your own path and defining your own future using the skills and applying the fundamentals you have learned here. Whatever career path you choose, I wish you the very best and urge you to keep in touch over the years. You and others in your graduating class will inspire new aerospace students, and we need your stories to spur them on. Please send us your news and updates by completing our online Alumni Update Form. Finally, a brief word about giving back to the Department. Money will probably be tight when you embark on your career, and you might feel bombarded with requests from many worthy causes. However, if every one of our alums gave just $100 per year to the Department, together you would provide essential funds for innovative student projects, as well as several scholarships and fellowships. All this for less than 30 cents a day – less than the tip you might leave at your favorite coffee shop! Giving back is one area where Texas A&M beats UT – their alums contribute at about twice the rate of our alums. Won’t you accept my challenge and make a gift that is generous for you? It will have a bigger impact than you can possibly imagine. With warm wishes,
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