Lockheed Martin CEO to Speak at Embry-Riddle Graduation

Dr. Vance D. Coffman, Lockheed Martin Corporation's Chief Executive Officer and Vice Chairman of its Board of Directors, will present the commencement address. Dr. Coffman was elected to his current position in August 1997 after serving as the corporation's president and chief operating officer and, earlier, as executive vice president and chief operating officer. Previously, he served as president and chief operating officer of Lockheed Martin's Space and Strategic Missiles Sector. Prior to the merger of Lockheed and Martin Marietta Corporations in 1995, he served as executive vice president of Lockheed Corporation. Before that, he was president of the Space Systems Division of Lockheed Missiles & Space Company and a vice president of the corporation.

Coffman joined Lockheed's Space Systems Division in 1967 as a guidance and control systems analyst. After leading the development of several major space programs and large ground data processing systems, he was appointed a vice president in 1985, division vice president and assistant general manager in 1987, and president of the Space Systems Division in 1988. While in that position, he was responsible for the Hubble Space Telescope, the MILSTAR satellite communications program, the Follow-on Early Warning System (now called Space Based Infrared System), and the corporation's work on Iridium, the worldwide mobile commercial cellular phone system.

In January 1998 Dr. Coffman was elected to the Board of Directors of Bristol-Myers Squibb Company. Coffman is a member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and is active in the American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics, in which he became a Fellow in 1996; the American Astronautical Society, in which he became a Fellow in 1991; the American Defense Preparedness Association/National Security Industrial Association; and the Security Affairs Support Association. In 1989, he received Iowa State University's Professional Progress in Engineering Award.

Born in Kinross, Iowa, Dr. Coffman holds a bachelor of science degree in aerospace engineering from Iowa State University and master's and doctoral degrees in aeronautics and astronautics from Stanford University. During the graduation ceremony Cap Parlier, COO of Embry-Riddle's Prescott campus, will award Coffman an honorary doctorate in aerospace engineering.

The world's largest university specializing in aviation and aerospace, Embry-Riddle has campuses in Daytona Beach, Fla., and Prescott, Ariz., and more than 100 education centers in the US and Europe. Its curriculum covers the operation, engineering, research, manufacturing, management, and marketing of modern aircraft and the systems that support them.